New post on mobile in preparation for our presentation at Market Mix in March. Read on my brothers and sisters…
On the bus this morning, I sat in the back and looked at the people sitting around me. Of the 17 riders near me, 13 were using some connected device: tablet, smartphone or e-reader. I’m continually amazed at how much our mobile devices have become integrated in our daily lives and how they have become an extension of ourselves.
Observe for a moment just how ingrained technology is in our daily lives:
• We wake up to alarms on our cell phones and check email
• The smart house knows when we come and go to set alarms, change heating and lock doors
• Connected refrigerators know when we’re out of milk
• Connected cars know where we’re driving and when
• Music and audiobook apps know when we’re listening and what we’re listening to
• FitBit and health apps know how hard we are exercising (or not)
• Google Glass knows what and who we’re looking at
• Location awareness on smart phones know which stores we’re in and when
Spooky, really.
As a digital marketer responsible for creating and optimizing campaigns, the most useful bit of data from this treasure trove is the location of the person/device. After all, they’re mobile devices — so one of the most relevant and actionable pieces of data about your target audience is where they are.
Location awareness goes beyond targeting, however, as we see four major location-enabled strategies impacting our mobile campaigns here and now:
1) Targeting. Geo-targeting at a granular level is the status quo, but how we apply the location and time of message is an area of creativity. Location-level detail allows ad networks to build out profiles and personas to predict behaviors and activities. It tells marketers where our target is — and because the data is time stamped, when the target will be where they’re going next. Within a matter of milliseconds, a retailer can deliver a message to the target — based on her profile — just as she’s planning to walk into a competitor’s nearby store. That’s relevant.
2) Measurement. Using location data, we are now able to understand how mobile ads impact retail store visits on a control and test methodology and calculate visit lift. This means we can more easily attribute sales to campaigns and determine a more true ROI.
3) Device Identification and Mapping. Device graphs associate all of the connected devices within a household (mobile phones, tablets, laptops, connected TVs, etc.) to better understand the digital buying path of a customer and the impact of ad impressions across multiple devices on conversion.
4) Customer Insights. Location data allows us to understand where people are going before and after visiting a retail location. Is this person a luxury shopper? Do they include your store as part of a normal shopping excursion? Are there ancillary stores we should be partnering with? Opportunities abound to understand shopping behavior patterns.
All of these factors contribute to understanding the true impact of connected device marketing. Come to Hacker Group’s MarketMix session, “How to Hit a Moving Target,” and we’ll discuss tactical executions, real-life applications, new technologies for data tracking, pitfalls to avoid, and war stories from the trenches of today’s mobile marketer.
We look forward to seeing you there — and we’ll know where you are if you don’t show up.
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