Location Based Advertising: Is this the Future of Mobile Marketing?
Location Based Advertising- Is this the Future of Mobile Marketing?
With over 700 million GPS enabled smartphones in the hands and pockets of global users, location based mobile advertising has emerged as the hottest trend in the marketing world. Further, convergence of mobile technology has enabled businesses to capture and access key consumer demographic data and analytics, facilitating developing of more personalized and localized user experience. Location based advertising capitalizes on information about user location and third party data- like demographics or transactional data – to deliver an effective and personalized marketing platform.
All the buzz and excitement of this marketing trend can be attributed to the following key benefits
· Providing personalized user experience based on location and third party data,
· Increasing the value and effectiveness of ads,
· Improving business-to-community engagement,
· Offers an opportunity for marketers to leverage local data to create a mobile economy consisting of hundreds to thousands of geo-referenced small and medium enterprises.
Location Based Ads in Practice
The common forms of location based ads include geo-fencing and geo-aware. Geo-aware ads leverage on real-time location data to deliver customized messages based on consumer’s proximity to site or store. Whereas, geo fencing involves leveraging on location information with third party data to create audience clusters based on geography. According to a recent survey conducted by Verve, in 2012 retailers and restaurants led the pack in adopting these strategies with the intent of driving users to target locations. On the upside, both forms of mobile marketing deliver twice the engagement attainable of other types of mobile ads.
To understand the trend and appreciate its potential, it’s important to look at some of the happenings on in the mobile industry. Take for instance; Google recently launched Google Now that alerts Android users of nearby events, attractions, and photo opportunities. Also, JiWire, a mobile marketing firm, is making headways by offering targeted advertising to airports hubs in US, using WiFi hotspot locations. According to Scott Phillips, CEO of AWG, “JiWire has proven their ability to engage high-end corporate sponsors and advertisers who desire a direct audience with our valuable audience of consumers in airports.”1
Leading the Pack
In order to stay ahead of the mobile marketing race, it’s prudent to adopt a location based ad strategy. The key is to create mobile campaign ads that are relevant to the audience, and feature strong offers (or call to action) that trigger the user to act immediately. In addition, incorporating consumer behavioral data to geo-location data increases the effectiveness of the campaign.
Summing up, as audiences become more open to receiving mobile ads, the potential of location based ads is bound to grow exponentially in the near future. Hence it’s rather obvious that the future of mobile marketing is geared towards location based advertising, however, the question is how are you planning about it?
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