LIL 2013: Instant Briefing – The IAB’s Local Committee
Sabrina Alimi, IAB’s senior manager of Industry Initiatives spoke today at BIA/Kelsey’s Leading in Local Conference. Alimi reported that, “IAB’s Local Committee has been looking at three areas – local search; mobile location; and data transparency.”
For local search, the committee is concerned with business listings and discoverability. IAB’s goal is to have more businesses show up and for the data describing these businesses to be accurate. Alimi said that IAB will be releasing a white paper on this topic within the next several weeks. The Local Committee also will be examining mobile location and how this term is defined and used in the industry. “Location” to some means latitude/longitude data, but really it is more expansive than this.
“For example, in a Radio Shack campaign consumers were presented a map but that map was not useful to those within 5 miles but was useful to those up to 10 miles out. So location data overlayed with consumer behavior can be more effective,” Alimi concluded.
With data transparency, Alimi indicated that it is really a matter of potential misreporting and education. IAB’s solution will be to educate the industry around data. IAB has drafted some guidelines which currently are out for industry review, Alimi said. This incorporates government as well as industry viewpoints.
