The tide is turning for location-enabled advertising. Talked of for years, many have acknowledged its promise. But only now, with widespread smartphone uptake and latest developments in location-enabled advertising technology, can brand owners take full advantage of this and realise location’s potential. ExchangeWire speak with Steve Wing, VP, mobile and marketplace - international, Rubicon Project and Imran Khan, head of programmatic and partnerships, xAd (both pictured) about the importance of location data for marketers.

For proof that the industry has finally reached a turning point, one only has to consider the following statistics. First, 70% of UK adults now use a smartphone, with one-in-six now relying solely on smartphones and tablets for online access – up from just 6% in 2014, according to recent figures from Ofcom.

Steve Wing, Rubicon Project

This is significant because by being connected, mobile, and the one device we take everywhere, the smartphone is not only the most versatile of communications channels, it provides the greatest opportunity for a brand-owner to gather and act on insights based on a consumer’s location in real time.

Furthermore, smartphone users’ growing dependence on their devices while out and about has led to increased acceptance of being targeted in this way.

With many now comfortable with using their smartphones to check into a restaurant on Facebook, tag on Instagram the bar they’ve just left, look for a nearby match on Tinder or ordering an Uber, relevance is prized. The upshot is not just more location data but location data increasing in value as a currency for consumers and brands, alike.

Here’s another stat: 66% of marketers said location-based advertising is the ‘most exciting’ mobile opportunity for 2016, according to an IAB UK study published earlier this year, with 52% agreeing that wearable technology is an ‘excellent’ opportunity for the industry.

The rate at which technological advances have caught up with expectation, meanwhile, is demonstrated by the 75% of brand buyers and over a quarter – 27% – of agencies now predicting that between 81% and 100% of their mobile purchases will be location-enabled in 2016, according to the 2016 Global Mobile Survey recently published by ExchangeWire Research and Rubicon Project.

Imran Khan, xAd

The marketing potential of location-enabled advertising has long been acknowledged by brand owners eager to tap into the moments during the consumer journey when they are most open to considering and making a purchase. If search is the greatest measurement of consumer intent online, then location has to be the ultimate measure of real world intent.

However, only recently have advances in geo-targeting and geo-fencing enabled brand owners to track a consumer right down to the building he or she is in and serve the most relevant ads when it’s most relevant to that consumer’s journey.

xAd’s Blueprints, for example, draws borders around specific buildings, then matches that back to signals from mobile devices, in real-time. This technology is being used to build a real-world database of 100m+ locations, each tagged with keywords such as ‘fast food lovers’ or ‘car showrooms’. Marketers can then buy these to target specific groups of consumers with mobile ads.

Today, buying location-based mobile ads is as easy as purchasing a search campaign – and more effective at identifying the all-crucial moment of purchase.

And closer collaboration between different specialists is making the location proposition even more powerful.

A recent partnership between xAd and Rubicon Project, for example, brings greater location scale and precision to programmatic advertising in mobile. Advertisers can now target high-intent consumers based on real-time location and offline behavioural data and can receive data on business locations at or near their bid requests.

Further new opportunities are arising from the opportunity to marry advertising with hyper targeting across multiple media types.

Rubicon Project’s Out Of Home partnerships with Bitposter in the UK, Captivate, and AdSpace Network in the US, and others, unite technology, data, and location with outdoor to extend OOH campaigns as more billboards become digitised. Automating the OOH market brings with it improved accuracy of targeting and reducing tenancy times boosting reach amongst hard-to-reach consumers.

True, location-enabled advertising is an emerging field with some issues that still need tackling.

The silos in which data from mobile, location, and OOH currently sit remains a challenge, for example. But progress is being made towards uniting all to speak the same language. And, while location-targeting inaccuracy remains another on-going issue, improvements are underway.

Some technology providers’ reliance on cellular towers that are only accurate to within a mile is problematic – insufficient accuracy puts campaigns at risk of ‘targeting’ inaccurate audiences. But brand owners can overcome this, too, by working with an ad partner with the capability to target consumers within locations and at scale.

According to the recent Global Location-based Search and Advertising Market report, published by Reach and Markets, location-enabled advertising will increase by 45.95% between 2016 and 2020. With marketing moments the new battleground for brand owners, location data is fast becoming one of the most important weapons in the marketer’s arsenal.