Location based mobile advertising accounts for about one third of overall U.S. mobile ad revenues, and quickly growing. In addition to the topic emerging in nearly every session at last week’s BIA/Kelsey NATIONAL, we held two dedicated sessions to drill down on its particulars.

One of those sessions was my portion of our opening analyst presentations to spotlight the top areas we’re currently examining. Though the conference video will be available soon, I’ve filmed a screen recording (slides and audio voiceover) of the presentation.

See the 10 minute video embedded below. This will be an important jumping off point for the continued discussion around location based mobile marketing — especially for national brands localizing campaigns with various flavors of mobile ad targeting.

The post Video: 10 Minutes on Location Based Mobile Marketing appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

We continue to gear up for our National Conference, taking place next month in Dallas. It will be here before we know it. As we put together the program, many themes are emerging.

One theme is the importance of national brand advertisers in the local media picture. The connotation with “local” is always SMB; but national advertisers are driving lots of the ad spending. In fact, national companies make up 36 percent of the $140 billion spent on location targeted advertising in the U.S.

And thought they’re national in scope, many large brands — especially multi-location and franchised businesses — compete for consumers and mindshare at the local level, where conversions actually happen.  This has driven their early adoption of emerging areas like location based mobile advertising.

We discuss a few of these themes in the video below, and preview the location based mobile ad session. We hope this piques your interest and we’ll have more previews to come. Email me for a discount code if that helps your ability to join us in Dallas (mbolandATbiakelsey.com). Hope to see you there.

The post Video Preview: BIA/Kelsey’s National Conference, the Mobile Angle appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

We continue to gear up for our National Conference, taking place next month in Dallas. It will be here before we know it. As we put together the program, many themes are emerging.

One theme is the importance of national brand advertisers in the local media picture. The connotation with “local” is always SMB; but national advertisers are driving lots of the ad spending. In fact, national companies make up 36 percent of the $140 billion spent on location targeted advertising in the U.S.

And thought they’re national in scope, many large brands — especially multi-location and franchised businesses — compete for consumers and mindshare at the local level, where conversions actually happen.  This has driven their early adoption of emerging areas like location based mobile advertising.

We discuss a few of these themes in the video below, and preview the location based mobile ad session. We hope this piques your interest and we’ll have more previews to come. Email me for a discount code if that helps your ability to join us in Dallas (mbolandATbiakelsey.com). Hope to see you there.

The post Video Preview: BIA/Kelsey's National Conference, the Mobile Angle appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

In local media and advertising, “National” is increasingly where it’s at. Though paradoxical in a semantic sense, it stands to reason if you consider the deeper pockets and more technologically adaptive nature of national brands, compared to SMBs.

This is especially true for multi-location businesses such as chain restaurants or retail. Though they’re national in scale, they compete at the local level where conversions happen. We’ve reported that national brand spending will represent 43 percent of location based advertising by 2018.

This involves an evolving set of campaign components including mobile, social, search, listings management, etc.. These strategies are are endemic to local marketing but take unique forms for the nuances of multi-location businesses and how they’re oriented.

We’ve covered this “National” area of local marketing for years but began to formalize that coverage last year. Now we’re blitzing the topic even more, with the upcoming National conference in March in Dallas. And today’s white paper is the latest.

The report’s executive summary is below and BIA/Kelsey clients can read the entire thing by logging into the client portal. Anyone else interested in the full report, please email me (mbolandATbiakelsey.com).

Executive Summary

Smart phones now account for 75 percent of mobile subscriptions according to BIA/Kelsey. Stemming from their evolving capabilities (i.e. location awareness, connectivity, optics), location targeted mobile advertising continues its rapid ascent. BIA/Kelsey projects it to reach $19 billion in the U.S. this year.

Google supports these findings, reporting that 80 percent of smartphone owners search for local information, and 80 percent of those users want ads customized to their locale. Moreover, 73 percent of mobile searches result in conversions (such as calling a business). Half of those happen within one hour.

BIA/Kelsey forecast data and insights likewise indicate that mobile users are “high intent” customers who often have a sense of immediacy (read: ready to buy). Correspondingly, mobile ad networks confirm performance deltas — such as higher click through rates and phone calls — for location targeted ads.

But the emergence of mobile has also made advertising more complex as the technology and consumer behavior evolve. For example, advertisers’ affinity for proof of ROI and attribution is technically difficult when consumer decision-making happens across several devices including desktop, tablet and mobile.

This challenge is amplified for national companies that must align brand messages with local presence. Those localized entities include retail partners, franchisees, distributors, and affiliates. This makes it difficult to achieve consistent messaging and service levels across geographically disparate entities.

These challenges are highlighted by the size of the market opportunity: National brand spending will represent 43 percent of location based advertising by 2018 according to BIA/Kelsey. That’s about $68 billion — an amount that makes multi-location marketing strategies increasingly critical.

Some of the areas where these strategies will focus include social media, listings management, ratings and reviews, search engine optimization, and of course, mobile. This report examines each of these areas and their impact on multi-location advertising in the mobile age.

The post Multi-Location Advertising in the Mobile Age: A New BIA/Kelsey Insight Paper appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

The latest in our series of video presentations covers the basics of location-based mobile advertising. This takes a 40K foot view of the trends impacting this opportune area.  For example, what’s driving the $4.5 billion spent annually on location targeted mobile ads?

Other Topics Covered:

— What usage patterns are having the most impact on location based advertising?
— What do we mean exactly when we say “location based mobile advertising” (examples)?
— What campaign tactics are producing the greatest results so far?
— mCommerce vs. offline shopping (spoiler: offline is where it’s at)

Check out the presentation below — a carbon copy of one I gave last week at LeadsCon. It contains streaming video of slides and voiceover. Consider it a “conversation starter” for deeper dives, and the topics at our upcoming SMB Digital Marketing conference.

The post BIA/Kelsey Video: Location Based Mobile Marketing 101 appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

In all the excitement around mobile local advertising, most location based ad impressions are way off their intended target. This is according Thinknear, whose new Location Score Index, is the topic of our latest podcast interview with founder and GM Eli Portnoy (embedded below).

This is a message we’ve been hearing for a while (see “10% problem”), but is quantified further in Thinknear’s report through testing user-reported locations versus ad-network reported locations. The difference between the two — scaled to a sample of 53 million impressions — was revealed.

— The overall mobile industry scored 49 out of 100 total points for location accuracy

— 67 percent of industry ad requests included latitude and longitude data

— 34 percent of ad requests with location data were accurate to within 100 meters of the user’s true location

— 45 percent lift in mobile time-on-site metrics for campaigns leveraging top tier location data

— 30 percent to 51 percent lift in store visitation rates fore campaigns leveraging top tier location data

Excluding some of the leaders in location based ad targeting (see our post yesterday about xAd), these faulty location impressions are mostly coming from larger ad networks that are latching on to the excitement around location targeted ad relevance.

This is a double edged sword as we discuss in the podcast: The interest in location targeting is growing among advertisers… a good thing. But many publishers and ad networks are opportunistically filling that demand by “inferring” lat longs from less reliable means like reverse IP lookups.

This is a big deal, as it hampers the true performance of location based ad targeting. As we’ve been saying for years, genuine location targeted ad strategies can boost performance and return on ad spend. It’s also great for mobile publishers who can see higher premiums on their ad inventory.

But the disingenuous practices being uncovered by Thinknear’s study degrade the value of this ad inventory over time, and give location targeting a bad name. We covered this closely in our mobile ad attribution white paper and the conversation continues this week with Eli.

The post BIA/Kelsey Podcast: A Conversation with Thinknear appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

Last week we covered xAd’s new Footprints data visualization play. It paints a better picture (literally) of location ad targeting capabilities. This was a key topic at BIA/Kelsey’s Atlanta conference earlier this month, where xAd’s Therran Oliphant updated us on the company’s latest tools.

In a follow up discussion with xAd’s VP of Marketing Monica Ho late last week, she explained that Footprints is an educational tool for the marketplace to better understand what’s possible. It will first be available to a handful of agency partners who can best benefit from (and disseminate) its learnings.

Meanwhile, we got a sneak peek and I was able to get a copy Footprints’ demo video which is embedded below. It illustrates some of the data visualization elements, such as seeing if an (anonymized) mobile user is on a car lot, or just driving by — a key distinction for auto advertisers.

This can also include affinity data for different audience profiles, an area where xAd continues to shine. With this added dimension, geo-conquesting (advertising to certain affinity groups in and around competetors’ physical locations) is boosted. Lots of these types of possibilities come to light in the video.

For the sake of context the video is shown from the hypothetical perspective of Ford as an advertiser. Brand affinity is shown by color-coded nodes on the map, while data overlays on the interface can be tabbed to show things like category-specific ad impressions (i.e. Auto) in a location-relevant context.

We expect to see a lot more of Footprints especially as xAd rolls it out to a broader audience over time. Meanwhile, see the video embedded below. Expand to full screen for a better view of the data and graphical detail.

The post xAd's Data Visualization Tool, Visualized appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

Last week we covered xAd’s new Footprints data visualization play. It paints a better picture (literally) of location ad targeting capabilities. This was a key topic at BIA/Kelsey’s Atlanta conference earlier this month, where xAd’s Therran Oliphant updated us on the company’s latest tools.

In a follow up discussion with xAd’s VP of Marketing Monica Ho late last week, she explained that Footprints is an educational tool for the marketplace to better understand what’s possible. It will first be available to a handful of agency partners who can best benefit from (and disseminate) its learnings.

Meanwhile, we got a sneak peek and I was able to get a copy Footprints’ demo video which is embedded below. It illustrates some of the data visualization elements, such as seeing if an (anonymized) mobile user is on a car lot, or just driving by — a key distinction for auto advertisers.

This can also include affinity data for different audience profiles, an area where xAd continues to shine. With this added dimension, geo-conquesting (advertising to certain affinity groups in and around competetors’ physical locations) is boosted. Lots of these types of possibilities come to light in the video.

For the sake of context the video is shown from the hypothetical perspective of Ford as an advertiser. Brand affinity is shown by color-coded nodes on the map, while data overlays on the interface can be tabbed to show things like category-specific ad impressions (i.e. Auto) in a location-relevant context.

We expect to see a lot more of Footprints especially as xAd rolls it out to a broader audience over time. Meanwhile, see the video embedded below. Expand to full screen for a better view of the data and graphical detail.

The post xAd’s Data Visualization Tool, Visualized appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

One of the themes that emerged from BIA/Kelsey’s Leading in Local conference in Atlanta earlier this month was the importance of location targeted ad strategies for national brands. That theme culminated in a mega session on Day 2 of the conference on location targeting strategies.

We set it up as a series of case studies that took the stage one by one. There was lots of diversity in the companies, campaign objectives and takeaways. This was emblematic of another key theme of the conference: there’s a great deal of variability in ad tactics from one brand to the next.

That’s always been the case in local, given the fragmentation of SMBs, all those categories and “headings”. Each has different needs. We learned in Atlanta that while it’s not as pronounced for national “multi-location” businesses, they are still quite diverse in their marketing dynamics.

We’ll be mining and posting short videos on these themes in the days and weeks to come. To kick off the series, here’s my intro to the mobile & location forum. It covers a few key trends to set the stage for the next speakers; or in this case the next videos to come.  Stay tuned for that.

The post Leading in Local Video: Mobile & Location Based Ad Targeting Trends appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

One of the themes that emerged from BIA/Kelsey’s Leading in Local conference in Atlanta earlier this month was the importance of location targeted ad strategies for national brands. That theme culminated in a mega session on Day 2 of the conference on location targeting strategies.

We set it up as a series of case studies that took the stage one by one. There was lots of diversity in the companies, campaign objectives and takeaways. This was emblematic of another key theme of the conference: there’s a great deal of variability in ad tactics from one brand to the next.

That’s always been the case in local, given the fragmentation of SMBs, all those categories and “headings”. Each has different needs. We learned in Atlanta that while it’s not as pronounced for national “multi-location” businesses, they are still quite diverse in their marketing dynamics.

We’ll be mining and posting short videos on these themes in the days and weeks to come. To kick off the series, here’s my intro to the mobile & location forum. It covers a few key trends to set the stage for the next speakers; or in this case the next videos to come.  Stay tuned for that.

The post Leading in Local Video: Mobile & Location Based Ad Targeting Trends appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.