Location is Next “Golden Nugget” for Carriers Google, Apple and Nokia have each done their best recently to advance the shift towards an ad-funded business model for mobile devices. But despite their considerable influence plenty still remains to be done before advertisers can fully take advantage of one of mobile’s key features – location. What’s stopping this happening? According to Lisa Peterson, a wireless industry consultant and founder of Peterson Mobility Solutions, it’s a combination of factors. Among them are fragmentation and lack of scale in the location ecosystem, a dearth of metrics to evaluate the value of location-based advertising (LBA) and concerns over privacy and advertising “clutter”. “Location is still fragmented, even here in the US, where there is a high penetration of GPS phones,” she said. “But not everyone carries a GPS phone and there are different methods for how that GPS is pulled out of the device. “There are different network architectures that the carriers have where there are capabilities of accessing the network to obtain the location of the device.” Peterson and co-author Rob Groot have just published a white paper on LBA in the US entitled “The Key to Unlocking the Most Value in the Mobile Advertising and Location-Based Services Markets”. Adverts without Clutter She said the report’s message is that location is needed if customers are to accept advertising on their mobiles. “If it’s not relevant to them they are going to see it as advertising clutter,” she said. “The screen size – the real estate – is much less on mobile than it is when you are looking at the internet and it will just become an annoyance factor.” In her report Peterson highlights the experience of NAVTEQ, which has found that click-through rates on ads is higher when location is used to add relevancy to them. She said the digital map company’s LocationPoint Advertising (LPA) service is a good example of the type of location-based marketing and advertising tactic that brands, advertisers, and agencies can leverage to reach their target audience at the appropriate time and place. “The message here is that traditional advertising agencies might just be getting used to mobile, but to have the greatest benefit in your ROI you should also leverage location,” she said. “It goes back to the concern that if you are sending out generic advertisements to mobile devices, are they going to get that much attention?” Better Profiling Essential However using location alone for mobile advertising and marketing is not enough, according to Peterson. “If I just use location, then I would maybe be delivering someone a coupon to a nearby bar and they might be on the wagon,” she said. So location has to be combined with more profile data on the consumer – details that are not necessarily available yet. Peterson said this makes putting out a mobile advertisement both confusing and complicated: “If I go to ad network providers and describe the target market I want to reach, do they even have enough data on that target market? “There is a lack of data in terms of how I reach a specific audience, which is why a lot of the ads we have seen are just about branding. There is not as much targeting going on.” Despite this uncertainty over consumer profile data, Peterson said location is starting to drive mobile advertisements in the US. She said companies like Loopt and uLocate understand their users. This enables them to go to advertisers and tell them, for instance, that the majority of their users are between 18 and 35. “So here’s an ideal target market. They know what they are searching on, what percentage of users are searching for coffee – so probably like coffee. Versus how many are going to movies,” she said. “So that data is being collected, but it’s out there in all these islands. It’s very good data to have but it has less value if it’s sitting in all these different islands.” Continued… (via Location is Next “Golden Nugget” for Carriers
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Placecast Debuts Location-Based Mobile Marketing Technology ShopAlerts 34 Comments Share 19 Buzz it by Leena Rao on Feb 25, 2010 For brick and mortar retail shops, the biggest challenge right now is actually getting foot traffic in their stores. Earlier this week, The New York Times reported that retailer North Face is attempting to bring people into their stores by sending them text messages when they get near their retail outlets. That technology, called ShopAlerts, is powered by location-based advertising startup Placecast and is launching today as a full-fledged marketing service for retailers. Here’s how ShopAlerts works. Consumers can opt-in to receiving text messages in a variety of ways—at the store, online, via text-message, mobile websites or on Facebook. Once the technology has been activated, consumers will be alerted when they are near a location that they are interested in or when the brand is offering sales and specials. ShopAlerts’ technology uses “geo-fences,” which are virtual boundaries that can be targeted via location-based marketing. Retailers can customize alerts to fit their brand and strategy. On the consumer side, ShopAlerts will only send maximum number of 3 messages within a given week from a retailer. And users can opt out of the program by texting “stop” back to a text message. One of the benefits of ShopAlerts is that it works on both smartphones and non-smartphones, making it a compelling source of marketing and advertising for the 196 million Americans who do not own smartphones but may be interested in shopping alerts. Since September 2009, the ShopAlerts service has run pilot programs across the U.S. with several major retailers including North Face, American Eagle Outfitters, and REI. Based on a survey of consumer participants in the program, 60% of participants found the location-triggered messages to be innovative, 79% said it increased their likelihood to visit a store, 65% made a purchase as a result of a ShopAlerts message and 73% of participants would definitely or probably use the service in the future. Of course the biggest barrier to ShopAlerts gaining serious traction is if consumers choose not to opt-in to receive alerts via SMS. Launched in 2005, Placecast has raised $5 million in funding. The startup also offers a location-based advertising platform that weaves together location information and other data from audiences across the web, mobile, and email. Placecast will analyze inventory, segments audiences and targets ads for maximum relevance for advertisers and publishers. (via Placecast Debuts Location-Based Mobile Marketing Technology ShopAlerts)
my comments: is this not just another SPAM marketing tool?
Mobile Users Want Personalized Services MARCH 4, 2010 Two-thirds of users interested in smart content It’s no secret that mobile phone users have graduated from simple voice and text usage of their devices. eMarketer estimates more than 650 million people worldwide, or 13.4% of mobile subscribers, use the Web via a mobile device at least monthly in 2010. According to a Tellabs survey conducted by The Nielsen Company, two-thirds of mobile users around the globe are interested in “smart” services that would feed them information based on personal preferences, location, time of day and social setting. Mobile users expect these services from a variety of providers, including mobile operators, other Internet application providers, and a combination of many sources. Consumers placed significant trust in their mobile carriers in terms of protecting the information needed to provide smart services, and overall selected carriers more often than any other group as the “most appropriate” provider of services. Consumers’ expectations regarding smart location-based services closely mirrored their desires in other areas, such as news, media and entertainment content, where less than one-half named mobile carriers as the best source of information, followed by other Web providers and a combination. When it came to shopping services, however, there was a notable difference: Mobile carriers dropped somewhat in importance, and advertisers became a much more prominent source of information. US marketers have already begun experimenting with exactly this type of smart shopping service. “Geo-fencing” provides personalized marketing messages to shoppers based on their location or proximity to a marketer’s store. 1020 Placecast, for example, piloted a ShopAlerts program that was embraced by mobile users: 60% said the location-triggered messages were “cool” and “innovative.” 79% claimed to be more likely to visit a store. 65% made a purchase. 73% were likely to use the service again. Keep up on the latest digital trends. Learn more about an eMarketer Total Access subscription today. Check out today’s other article, “B2B Online Marketers Focus on Lead Gen.” (via Mobile Users Want Personalized Services - eMarketer
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