Does my mobile location say that I’m in a Target store? Or am I in the parking lot? Or in the Starbucks within the Target? Or am I driving by at 60 mph? These details matter for contextual relevance in ad targeting. But most mobile ad placements fail to differentiate.

xAd is looking to change that with its newest tool, Blueprints. It announced the product late last week, but we had previously gotten a sneak peek during an ad targeting session at BIA/Kelsey NATIONAL. I’ve embedded the highlight reel from that session below.

Blueprints builds from xAd’s “footprints” product, which has been gathering data in the marketplace for months (see our launch coverage). By tracking user spatial behavior, it’s been able to build a robust data set of user location and movement patterns.

Blueprints takes that a step further by overlaying the physical orientation of different businesses, using satellite imagery. For example, many stores (think strip malls) are set back hundreds of yards from the street, where place data usually centers.

This is the kind of thing that makes a lot of sense at, say, a car dealership. Pinpointing someone on a dealer lot has considerably different ad messaging implications than someone driving by, or waiting in the maintenance/service area of the dealership.

“How do I know someone is on a parking lot? How do I fence that?” said xAd platform head Dan Hight. “We created a way of making polygons on the fly, and we’ve hired blueprint editors as we’re calling them, to do this for the top 350 brands and the larger scale of the retail block.”

We previewed this latest announcement (including a visual demo) in an on-stage interview with Hight, along with some of the broader tactical matters of location targeting. The video is below, and stay tuned for lots more conference footage.

The post Mapping Physical Spaces for Ad Targeting: A Conversation with xAd appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

Now we are wrapping up our Second Edition. Our seven independent judges have just completed their work, and the finalists in three key areas — Innovation, Sales/Revenue and Strategic Use of Digital Marketing — will be highlighted at the start of Day 3 of our Dallas NATIONAL show next week. The finalists include:

Innovation

• “Sears’ Online Social Review Innovation” — Yext
• “Local Video Ad Campaigns Deliver Results for Wendy’s” — Sightly

Sales/Revenue

• “Bill Luke Dealership Increases RAM Truck Sales” — Haystak Digital Marketing

Strategic Use of Digital Marketing

• “Lead Generation & Social Audience Engagement” — G/O Digital
• “PowerChord STIHL Southeast First Watch YouTube” — PowerChord on behalf of STIHL
• “ShopRite Store Opening Promotion via Bucks Happening” — Happenings Media
• “UMB Bank” — Placeable
• “Just Said Yes Campaign” — WeddingWire
• “Inspiring a Mobile Audience to Take Action” — xAd + Goodwill Industries & Ad Council
• “Nationwide Just Say YES — Digital Marketing for Maytag” — Nationwide Marketing Group, Netsertive and Maytag by Whirlpool

Sponsoring the Awards is Where2GetIt, which is one of our leading sources and advisors in NATIONAL, working with over 500 brands. CEO Manish Patel tells us that “The finalists represent the tremendous talent and diversity we are seeing every day in our work with national brands in this incredibly fast-growing space.” Come to the NATIONAL event in Dallas, and cheer ’em on! The top three winners will be announced at the end of the session.

The post GOLOCAL Award Finalists Set for BIA/Kelsey NATIONAL Next Week appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

The rhetoric in local media has changed dramatically in the past five years, particularly as mobile and big data collide. Part of that is to take the analytics we’ve grown to love on the desktop and bring them to the offline world (where most commerce happens).

Many of the local data and mobile ad attribution players we’ve been covering are leading this charge. It’s all about tracking offline behavior through myriad mobile device signals in order to determine ad attribution, or build predictive models for future behavior.

xAd is one of those players; in the recent launch of its “footprints” analytics products, it likened location data as “a new kind of digital cookie”. This clever way of characterizing location is catching on; it was also stated at our May Atlanta conference.

In my interview with the Location Based Marketing Association president Asif Kahn, we unpack this term he previously coined. That and other key topics in local (fate of Foursquare/Swarm) are included in the full video below.

Navigate the 15 minute interview through the chapter links above the video, and stay tuned for more conference video on a weekly basis. We’l continue to post as we gear up for our next show: SMB Digital Marketing in New Orleans in September.

Video Chapter Links

Is location the new cookie?
Is “indoors” where the future of location based marketing resides?
Is Facebook a sleeping giant in location based marketing?

The post Conference Video: Location is the “New Cookie” appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

The rhetoric in local media has changed dramatically in the past five years, particularly as mobile and big data collide. Part of that is to take the analytics we’ve grown to love on the desktop and bring them to the offline world (where most commerce happens).

Many of the local data and mobile ad attribution players we’ve been covering are leading this charge. It’s all about tracking offline behavior through myriad mobile device signals in order to determine ad attribution, or build predictive models for future behavior.

xAd is one of those players; in the recent launch of its “footprints” analytics products, it likened location data as “a new kind of digital cookie”. This clever way of characterizing location is catching on; it was also stated at our May Atlanta conference.

In my interview with the Location Based Marketing Association president Asif Kahn, we unpack this term he previously coined. That and other key topics in local (fate of Foursquare/Swarm) are included in the full video below.

Navigate the 15 minute interview through the chapter links above the video, and stay tuned for more conference video on a weekly basis. We’l continue to post as we gear up for our next show: SMB Digital Marketing in New Orleans in September.

Video Chapter Links

Is location the new cookie?
Is “indoors” where the future of location based marketing resides?
Is Facebook a sleeping giant in location based marketing?

The post Conference Video: Location is the "New Cookie" 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.

xAd today launched a new product called Footprints to better measure and visualize traffic (of the analog variety). This will be a tool for marketers to better research foot traffic patterns and make informed decisions about localized ad targeting strategies.

The company positions Footprints as a tool for marketers to view real time mobile visits at more than 14 million U.S. businesses. This will happen to the tune of 30 million local business visits per day, which will fuel 1.5 billion daily location-aware ad requests.

The time for this is right. In fact, this was a big theme at our recent Leading in Local conference in Atlanta. Given that 94 percent of U.S. retail spending still happens offline, how can we utilize mobile devices and embedded sensors to bring online-style analytics (i.e. traffic) to the real world?

In that sense, xAd’s Footprints is reminiscent of my interview on day 3 of the conference with LBMA President Asif Kahn. He characterized the developing art of location tracking as the new “cookie” for the real world. xAd in fact uses similar phrasing in today’s launch of Footprints:

As consumers go about their day traveling from one place to another, they engage with their phones regularly. Through this engagement, they often share their device location information with their favorite sites and applications. This data exchange normally occurs in an effort to make their mobile experiences more efficient or relevant to what they may be doing at any given time or place. It is through this anonymized location data that a product like Footprints™ is possible, essentially turning a device’s location data into a new kind of digital cookie.

The ways this is used by marketers will evolve. For now it appears to be a powerful tool, similar in some ways to the offline tracking tools we covered in our Attribution white paper. Those include PlaceIQ’s Place Visit Rate, Placed’s Panel approach and Verve’s Foot Traffic Index.

Footprints of course has many unique attributes to differentiate it from those offerings, but its generally speaking a continuation of the utilization of location data to devise more informed location based ad campaigns. This is the “big data meets local” trend we continue to track.

Speaking of which, we’ll soon have the chance to do a deeper dive with our friends at xAd and report back about Footprint’s product-level attributes. Meanwhile, check out the product page here and video below.

The post xAd Launches New Visualization Tool for Real World Foot Traffic appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

Every day Manhattan’s roughly 1.6 million population expands by another 4 million, as workers and tourists flood onto the island to trade bonds, shop or take in a show.

Golocal Awards finalist xAd helped the Broadway musical Mamma Mia attack the huge opportunity these day trippers represent by developing a place-based targeting campaign aimed at reaching visitors based on their location and intent to drive them to spend an evening dancing away to an ABBA-themed Broadway hit. The Golocal Awards are designed to showcase innovation in local marketing strategies for national brands.

We spoke earlier today with Therran Oliphant, xAd’s director of platform marketing. He walked us through what the program was trying to achieve and how xAd brought some of its unique assets to bear to make it happen.

Check out this video to hear Oliphant talk about xAd’s “Mobile Shines Bright on Broadway” program, a finalist in the “Strategic Use of Digital Marketing” category. The Golocal finalists will be showcased at the end of Day 2 at BIA/Kelsey’s “Leading in Local: The National Impact” conference, May 7-9 in Atlanta.

The post Looking Ahead to Atlanta: xAd Brings Mobile Ad Tech to Broadway appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

xAd is on a roll. The company just announced a channel sales deal with Cox Digital Solutions. This essentially puts xAd’s location based mobile ads into the bundle that Cox sells to local advertisers. It now becomes the exclusive reseller of xAd in the areas it operates.

The broad strokes are that Cox arms its local sales reps with a more appealing local ad tool. xAd gets a sales channel to distribute it’s ad product deeper in among local advertisers. For the latter, there’s also something to be said for Cox’s advertiser base that is incremental reach for xAd.

It’s also a nice fit from a product perspective. Location based mobile ads compliment Cox’s strengths in TV online display, rich media, and digital video. Broadening the cross-platform bundle for advertisers aligns with “path to purchase” usage trends that weave between different screens.

And speaking of areas where Cox operates, we’ll be holding a big conference in a little over a month in its home city of Atlanta. The topic will be national advertisers that are developing different flavors of location targeted ad strategies. This of course is germane to xAd who will be a key speaker.

We’ll unpack this further at the conference and more terms of the xAd/Cox partnership can be seen in the press release. There are lots of other interesting ways the two companies will be working together. Lastly, here is a video we filmed after xAd’s recent data release.

The post xAd Goes Deeper into Local With Cox appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

Location based mobile ad company xAd this week continued its tradition of releasing data on the activity it sees on its network. This is well received in a still nascent mobile ad marketplace that’s hungry for data and proof points of what’s working.

Its new (free) report takes a retrospective look at the biggest trends we’ve seen in 2013, and particularly in the retail vertical. Indeed, mobile has collided with shopping if our writings on this blog and white papers are any indication.

Some of xAd’s highlights also include a few things we covered in our recent atttribution report, regarding location based ad targeting. This includes not only growth in the adoption of location targeting but increasingly advanced forms of it.

The combination of location and audience attributes is a key point as it adds dimensions of relevance that are exponentially more valuable than location alone. This shines through in xAd’s new tagline: “The intersection of Places + People.”

As we’ve argued many times, combining location with audience targeting also makes the former more salient to brand advertisers because it speaks their language: they’ve been segmenting audience for years. This is just a more precise version of it…

Overall, the share of xAd’s advertisers that are adopting location targeting does indeed continue to ratchet up. These shares aren’t necessarily representative of the broader market (given other networks with less location focus) but directionally notable.

xAd’s influential research in the area of “Path to Purchase” is also invoked in the report. In concert with our friends at Telmetrics and Nielsen, the P2P series series tracks the evolution of consumer behavior to search and transact locally.

In the interest of time, I’ll refer you to the full report for the rest. There’s lots of good data on category segmentation other telling data.  We’ll keep a close eye on these quickly moving trends, especially as they align with our own data.

The post xAd Unpacks the Year of Retail appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.