It’s been a big week for location data-related deals. PlaceIQ acquired location data and measurement company Freckle IoT on Tuesday. And a day before, Foursquare said it would merge with Factual. Together, Foursquare and Factual have more than $150 million in combined revenue, data derived from over 500 million devices worldwide and 400+ employees. The […]
On Tuesday, PlaceIQ announced its acquisition of Toronto-based location data and measurement company Freckle IoT. Terms were not disclosed. Foot traffic may be way down during the pandemic, but consolidation in the location data space is heating up. The day before, Foursquare revealed merger plans with location data provider Factual less than a year after […]
Data protection in the time of the coronavirus is a tricky proposition. Although health data is considered extremely sensitive under the General Data Protection Regulation and usually requires explicit consent, a subsection of the law includes a clause within Article 9 that allows for the processing of personal information without consent if it’s necessary to protect “against […]
Mike Brooks, WeatherBug’s SVP of revenue, is a mobile programmatic evangelist. “We’ve seen a huge positive impact from adopting a unified auction, and we like to be vocal about it,” Brooks said. “We talk about programmatic to anybody who will listen, because this is the way of the future.” In early 2018, the weather app, […]
Location data is a privacy landmine. But there are still buyers out there for providers, including Media And Games Invest (MGI), the public German conglomerate that acquired mobile location company Verve earlier this week. The last few years haven’t been kind to Verve. The company experienced multiple rounds of layoffs last year and closed its […]
Grindr and a handful of other dating apps are getting publicly pummeled for sharing personal user data, including location data and sexual preferences, with third-party companies. But Grindr, OKCupid, Tinder and others are not alone. The practice is pervasive among every type of app. A report released Tuesday by the Norwegian Consumer Council, an Oslo-based […]
While certain companies, like LiveRamp, run away from location data – others are running to embrace it. On Wednesday, location data company X-Mode acquired the publisher book of business and raw location data assets of Location Sciences, a UK-based third-party location data verification company that helps marketers detect location-related data quality issues in their campaigns. […]
Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Brand Safe Or Bust TikTok may offer a curated feed of content that will appease advertisers as brand safety becomes a bigger concern on the platform. The feed of vetted TikTok creators will enable the app to charge advertisers higher rates for guaranteed brand […]
LiveRamp is distancing itself from location data. AdExchanger has learned that in Q4 2019, the onboarder offloaded the location data-related portion of the business it got along with its 2016 acquisition of Arbor. Cuebiq, a location-intelligence company, bought the assets. LiveRamp is keeping the rest of the Arbor business, which includes technology to connect first-party […]
For Placed, life at Foursquare is a lot different than life was at Snap. Case in point: Foursquare and Placed completed the integration of their first-party audience data sets into a single attribution product within 90 days of the acquisition, which closed this summer. Snap sold Placed to Foursquare in May after acquiring the company […]
Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. CMO A Go-Go Dunkin’ CMO Tony Weisman will step down in December after a busy two years at the company. Weisman oversaw a major rebrand (from “Dunkin’ Donuts” to its more general coffee and food focus today), as well as the first overhaul of […]
It’s a cliche to say that data is fuel but, in GasBuddy’s case, that’s literally true. The GasBuddy app, which helps drivers crowdsource information about cheap fuel prices, has access to opted-in location data from more than 15 million monthly active users. Users are more than willing to share their data, because they’re receiving a utility […]
Placed has found a new home. Foursquare is buying the location-based measurement company from Snap. Separately, it raised $150 million in fresh funding courtesy of The Raine Group, some of which is going to fund the acquisition. The rest is earmarked for R&D. The deal, announced early Friday morning, comes less than two years after […]
Stop me if you’ve heard this one: A man walks into a bar after seeing a TV ad … but there’s no way for the advertiser to prove it ever happened. On Tuesday, TV data company Alphonso inked a partnership with PlaceIQ to use the latter’s location data as a bridge between sitting on the […]
MillerCoors doesn’t have the opportunity to collect much first-party data: Most of its sales come through independently-owned convenience and liquor stores or bars and restaurants. “It’s very difficult to identify or measure audiences because of the nature of how these businesses are run,” said Brad Feinberg, VP of media and consumer engagement at MillerCoors. “They’re […]
Some ad tech companies are getting out of the managed media business – and others are jumping in with both feet. On Monday, mobile analytics company UberMedia sold its managed media business to location data platform Gimbal, marking the latter’s second acquisition of a media services unit in less than a year. Gimbal acquired Drawbridge’s managed […]
Advertisers know linear TV spots drive store visits. Proving it is another story. On Tuesday, Snap-owned location company Placed released a tool that attempts to tie the two together. To power its offering, Placed is licensing viewership data from Inscape, the data division within smart-TV manufacturer Vizio, which has access to around 8 million opted-in […]
Emodo, Ericsson’s mobile ad platform for telcos, is aiming to boost the quality of location data in the ad ecosystem with a tool launched Thursday that uses carrier data to verify mobile audiences on a pre-bid basis. Marketers are shelling out for bad targeting and it’s akin to flushing their budgets down the toilet, said […]
This is the second in a series of deep dives from AdExchanger on mobile fraud and mobile data quality, including guides to fraud tactics and threat vectors and practical solutions from advertisers in the growth and user acquisition trenches. Read the first story (“2018 Will Be A Year Of Reckoning For Mobile App-Install Fraud”) and […]
Placed, the Snap-owned location data company, is giving away its analytics tool for free. Starting Thursday, brands and media planners can use a public version of its insights service to view foot traffic trends for around 2,000 businesses in the US. Placed pulls the aggregated data from its audience of around 300 million monthly active […]
Unlikely insights into consumer behavior can help move the needle, and location data is a rich source of unlikely insights. On Tuesday, UK-based location data company Blis released an analytics tool in beta called Smart Trends that blends point-of-interest (POI) data and offline movement data to draw conclusions about how people interact with physical locations […]
When Snap acquired location-based data company Placed over the summer, agencies got excited about the prospect of intermingling the data sets – but that won’t be happening anytime soon. Placed will not share any advertiser or partner data with Snap, Placed CEO and founder David Shim told AdExchanger. “Keeping the data set separate is important if […]
Although the industry is settling on a few practical uses for beacons, primarily as a helpmate for attribution, they’re just one marketing data point among many – a tactic. “Beacons are only one piece of the equation, a component of a larger effort,” said Chris Cunningham, CRO of proximity and location data aggregator Unacast. “There are […]
Marketers are open to spending on location data, but they lack the proof to show that their efforts are working. “It’s a dilemma,” said Kevin McGinnis, CEO of Pinsight Media, a Sprint-owned mobile analytics company with access to anonymized first-party mobile carrier data from Sprint subscribers. That’s why Pinsight, which helps its advertiser clients gather […]
Where a person goes can be used as a solid signal of intent, but that signal gets stronger and more predictive when location is combined with shopper marketing data. Although the insights aren’t always intuitive, they’re always useful, said Kim Riedell, a Digilant vet and SVP of Advantage Media, the media-buying arm of Advantage Solutions, […]
Location policy changes for Apple’s iOS 11 update coming in September and Android O, which is still in developer preview, will alter the way consumers dole out location data and have ripple effects for mobile marketing. The most consequential new policy will be on iPhones and iPads, where a blue bar at the top of […]
Agencies want to take advantage of location data, but roadblocks still stand in the way. For Mobext, the mobile arm of Havas Media Group, fragmentation and quality-control issues top the list. “A lot of companies have hopped on the bandwagon in the location space, and that’s created a lot of clutter in the offerings available […]
When it comes to location-based based data, targeting is the low-hanging fruit. The ripe opportunities center on using location to enhance behavioral profiles and connect online ad exposure with real-world activities. Easier said than done, however. Advertisers and agencies are interested, but the technology is still developing and there’s a fair amount of BS flying […]
Foursquare debuted a foot-traffic measurement tool called Foursquare Analytics on Monday. Foursquare Analytics, which uses opted-in users to measure in-store traffic, began in private beta last year with brands like TGI Fridays, Equinox and Taco Bell. Brands that pay a monthly subscription fee to use the SaaS product. TGI Fridays matches customers from its CRM […]
XAd only wants advertisers to get paid if someone actually walks in the door. On Thursday, the location-based mobile ad network said it would allow brands to transact on a cost-per-visit (CPV) basis. Advertisers will be able to make media buys based on foot traffic-related KPIs and only pay for performance. It’s an appealing proposition […]
