Brief:
- Market researcher Claritas acquired Barometric, a media tracking and measurement company, according to an announcement shared with Mobile Marketer. Claritas and Barometric have worked with AT&T, Home Depot, Kroger, Peloton, McDonald’s, Samsung and more, according to the announcement.
- Barometric gathers mobile IDs across digital environments to improve marketing efficiency and campaign measurement. Its technology was originally developed as an internal tool for AdTheorent's data-driven digital ad network. The company currently processes 3 billion to 4 billion ad calls a day, the announcement said.
- By merging Claritas' segmentation and Barometric's cross-platform measurement and verification, "businesses can better understand their leads' behavior from mobile app to desktop to in-store, or even intra-household purchasing paths across a family's separate devices," Claritas' CEO Mike Nazzaro said in the statement.
Insight:
Claritas' purchase of Barometric is the latest acquisition for a company that was spun out of Nielsen in January 2017. Barometric adds to Claritas' portfolio of media tracking for the growing mobile ad market. Spending on mobile advertising is set to make up 43% of the total U.S. ad market by 2020, exceeding total spending on all traditional media, researcher eMarketer forecast in October. This year, mobile will account for $76.17 billion of ad spending, rising above TV's $69.87 billion, print's $18.74 billion, radio's $14.41 billion and out-of-home' $8.08 billion, the researcher said.
Barometric's ability to track mobile IDs across digital environments will allow Claritas' clients to better target consumers with the right message at the right time. However, this type of ad tracking is not without its own concerns and controversies. Verizon last month removed the Block Ad Tracker feature from its Safe Wi-Fi service after pressure from Apple and Google.
Claritas this year has expanded its capabilities with acquisitions and partnerships. The company in April partnered with Limbik, a data platform for short-form video, to offer marketers and advertisers a service to video content will be successful for specific consumer segments, according to a statement. The company also completed the acquisition of Geoscape International, which specializes in marketing to multicultural consumer groups. Geoscape this week expanded its relationship with IRI, a data analytics company, to help marketers target U.S. Hispanic and Asian households based on their level of acculturation and purchase behavior, per an announcement.
