Brief:

• Location-based data gives a strong boost to campaign effectiveness, per a study by data firm Factual shared with Mobile Marketer. Marketers surveyed said location data produced growth in their customer base (85%), higher response rates (83%), and higher customer engagement (83%). It also gave marketers deeper knowledge of their customers’ needs and interests (77%), improved ROI for their marketing and ad campaigns (74%) and increased lift (70%).
• Marketers using location-based data for personalization saw a wide range of benefits, including increased understanding of audiences (91%), positive customer experience (87%), more effective campaigns (84%) and more accurate targeting (62%).  Using location data to personalize the customer experience is already widely adopted, with 82% of companies surveys doing so and 85% planning to do so in the next 12 months. 
• Factual commissioned Lawless Research to survey 700 location data buyers in the United States, including 534 from consumer brand companies and 166 from advertising and marketing agencies. In addition to the findings on location and personalization, almost all brands and agencies surveyed (92%) have concerns about the Facebook and Google "duopoly" in online advertising, with 71% seeking alternatives for their ad placements.

Insight:

Even as marketers have expressed concerns about the difficulty of personalizing location-based ads, the strategy can still yield results when done correctly, as the Factual study demonstrates. The data firm recommends that marketers seek out ways to tailor creative messaging to consumers’ needs and interests with location data, and to use the transparency offered by data providers as a reliable stand-in if the quality of data is hard to determine and to examine alternative sources of data that are reliable and accountable.

Consumers are increasingly demanding personalized ads, but marketers must walk a tightrope between meeting consumer demands, not being seen as "creepy" and satisfying government regulators, as is the case in the aftermath of the European Union’s new GDPR regulations coming into effect.

The dominance of Facebook and Google has worried advertisers, lawmakers and competing media companies. This year, the tech giants will capture 27.6% of all ad spending as Google's ad sales are set to grow 15% to $39.9 billion and Facebook will likely see a 17% increase to $21 billion, eMarketer forecast in April. But there also are signs that the "duopoly" is weakening. EMarketer predicted Facebook and Google's combined U.S. digital ad market share will fall for the first time this year, shrinking to 56.8% from 58.5% last year as competitors like Amazon and Snapchat show gains.