Mobile - Katz Marketing Solutions | Radio Advertising | Media Agency

"It's not just about trying to move people from point A to point B. Local targeting has abroader appeal than that," he said. "It's about developing large audience pools that aremore qualified to be certain types of consumers."PlaceIQ tracks consumers' locations by analyzing information collected from datapartners or bought from publishers and ad networks.Whenever an in-app ad request is served through a network, the network assigns thedevice a hash ID--a string of numbers and letters designed to anonymize the phone andits user. By tracking individual hash IDs, PlaceIQ can map the various locations a mobilephone was served an ad.The targeting goes beyond simply identifying a smartphone's latitude and longitude,however. PlaceIQ's data science team has drawn maps of stores, car dealerships, parks,landmarks and other notable locations. PlaceIQ then pins hash device locations to thesemaps, which in turn can help marketers demographically profile smartphone users.REI could use PlaceIQ to recognize people who routinely visit national parks andsubsequently serve them ads about a deal on hiking boots available at a nearby store, forexample. If a smartphone user opens a weather app after arriving in Grand Central todiscover its raining outside, a Midtown retailer can serve him or her an ad for discountedumbrellas.The process involves PlaceIQ placing a 100 square meter grid on top of certaingeographic locations and targeting them within one of those squares. In some cases,PlaceIQ hand-draws a bird's eye outline of a building or landmass.PlaceIQ CEO and co-founder Duncan McCall said that PlaceIQ has drawn car lots inorder to identify if users have visited a car dealership and are thus in the market for a car.He cited this as a way PlaceIQ's location data can be used to lure potential customersaway from a competitor's location. Lexus could potentially identify a mobile phone userat an Audi dealership and serve them a mobile ad directing them to the nearest Lexus lot.The tracking is far from perfect, though. Because each mobile ad network assigns its ownhash ID to devices served through its network, effectively tracking a phone from onelocation to the next is dependent upon them accessing the same ad network. This resultsin PlaceIQ being able to effectively traffic only 15% to 25% of all the mobile ad traffic itmonitors.Place Visit Rate is much like the mobile ad tracking sector at large, then: it's a crudemeasurement, but definitely an improvement.67