New MMA White Paper Reveals How Top Brands in Retail, Restaurants and Non-Profits Are Using Location Data for More Effective Audience Targeting

New York – February 26, 2015 – Major brands are now using location data for purposes beyond targeting consumers at a particular moment in time. Marketers are leveraging location data to build much more comprehensive audience segments, which can be used to target consumers in a wide array of mobile campaign scenarios. This according to a new white paper produced by the Mobile Marketing Association (link is external) (MMA) on behalf of the MMA NA Location Committee Audience Working Group.

Titled, “Using Location for Audience Targeting”, the paper reveals how user location and place data is evolving from a tool used primarily for “in the moment” targeting, to an essential component in the creation of accurate audience segments. While location data has already proven to be an invaluable resource in reaching customers at a particular place and time, marketers are quickly realizing its value in creating comprehensive audience segments for other mobile targeting purposes, particularly when paired with app, household, purchase and publisher data.

“Given its unparalleled ability to tell marketers where consumers have been, where they are, and where they’re likely to return, location data has become an essential mobile marketing tool,” said Sheryl Daija, Chief Strategy Officer at the MMA. “Incorporating location data into the development of audience segments enables marketers to build a much more accurate and timely picture of the consumers they’re targeting, ultimately resulting in significantly better campaign ROI.”

Traditionally, audiences have been derived from observed mobile usage, search and browsing history, or household data. While this static data can be helpful for reaching consumers at home, location-based data enables brands to reach potential customers at any time, as they move from place to place. Location data is also helpful in building more dynamic audiences because it takes into account the powerful context of where a user has been, something online and household data lacks.

The paper explores how brands like Goodwill®, Pinkberry and Quiznos have successfully used location data to enhance audience segments and achieve impressive results using various campaign tactics.

•Goodwill: Achieved a 43 percent increase in store visitation using audience targeting based on a combination of demographics and past visitation behaviors.

•Pinkberry: Achieved a 100 percent lift in location-audience targeting tactics using audience targeting based on past visitation to health food stores, gyms and targeted fast food chains.

•Quiznos: Achieved a 6 percent lift in sales using a custom campaign audience comprised of mobile users who frequented Quiznos and key competitors.

“Location has evolved from a tool to target people where they are, to a platform of real-time insights about peoples’ true intent and actions. The power of location for targeting in the moment has been proven. Now, we can show how location has evolved beyond ‘marketing in the moment’, to enable marketers to create specific audience segments based on actual behaviors,” explained Monica Ho, SVP of Marketing at xAd Inc., MMA NA Board Member and Location Committee co-chair.

To download the full white paper, “Using Location for Audience Targeting”, please click here (link is external).