74% of marketers have run or plan to run location campaigns in the next 12 months, with only 3% explicitly stating ‘they have no plans to do so’

LONDON: 19 JULY, 2018 Location-based advertising is flourishing in the UK, with 58% of digital marketers having run location campaigns, and a further 16% planning to do so in the coming 12 months, according to research released today by GroundTruth, the leading global location technology platform.

The popularity of location-based advertising is being driven by its ability to deliver unique insights into consumer behaviour, with 71% of respondents believing location data has the ability to provide customer insights that no other channel can.

As part of the research a number of industry leaders were also interviewed about the findings.

Sohail Khan, Digital Performance Executive at Virgin Holidays said: “Location gives us hard data to help ensure our thinking and ideas are right. It’s so great when we have the data to support our original ideas.”

Richard Shotton, Head of Innovation at MGOMD and author of ‘The Choice Factory’ agreed:

“The strength of location data is that it’s based on real behaviour rather than claimed behaviour”.

87% of the marketers surveyed also agreed that ‘location is the lynchpin between online and offline behaviour’.

Matt Jerwood, Head of Engagement at Oxfam, said: “Consumers today live in a digital world but the best experiences and manifestations of the digital world still often occur in the physical world and location can play a hugely effective role in bridging the two.”

Theo Theodorou, GM EMEA, GroundTruth, said: “By influencing real-world behaviour, location-based marketing can play a hugely important role in helping high street stores attract and retain customers and drive bottom-line revenues.”

The survey found that location was cited as the top marketing trend ‘that delivers value’, with 64% of respondents stating they believed this, followed by marketing automation (32%) and machine learning (28%).

Marketers also believed that location is useful at different stages of the purchase funnel, with 43% stating ‘consideration’, 51% at ‘purchase’ and 60% at ‘loyalty’.

Jide Sobo, Associate Digital Director at Ebiquity, said: “Location should be effective throughout the customer journey. It’s another powerful audience identifier on top of its use in proximity targeting. It shows real-world intent”.

83% of marketers were found to believe data collected from location can be used to plan other channels.

Sobo said: “Location data should be used to plan all media, especially offline media. For instance, it can make outdoor advertising much more impactful and effective. It can also add granularity to online advertising and location should be used to supercharge all your online advertising.”

Jon Mew, CEO of IAB UK agreed: “Its use in outdoor advertising is the most natural, most effective fit. Location is incredibly powerful at increasing the targeting of outdoor and measuring its effectiveness.”

Unsurprisingly, privacy regulation was determined the biggest challenge to location marketing, highlighting the importance of obtaining consent in a GDPR-compliant manner. However, skills in integrating new tech were also cited as a challenge. “If you don’t understand it [location] properly, you don’t know the right questions to ask,” said Sobo.

The findings come from a survey run by GroundTruth in April 2018 of 120 UK digital marketers. Full interviews, conducted over June and July 2018, from the industry leaders in this article, will be published on GroundTruth.com over the next few weeks.

About GroundTruth
GroundTruth is the leading location platform that leverages data and insights to drive business performance. Using its proprietary Blueprints technology, GroundTruth is able to learn about mobile users and reach them at the right place and right time, ultimately helping companies inform their marketing decisions, increase sales, and grow their businesses. Through its data foundation, GroundTruth sees 2 out of 3 smartphone users in the U.S. and more than 30 billion physical visits annually across 21 countries globally.
www.groundtruth.com


Media contact
Lydia Oakes, Bluestripe Media
E: lydia@bluestripemedia.co.uk
T: 07710 244573