Geo-Targeted Mobile Advertising Drive Results for Local & National Businesses

The Local Search Association recently released a new media performance platform called the Metrics That Matter Database. This platform is an easy-to-use, self-service tool that provides cross-media performance data that helps users navigate the local advertising space. It offers insights and reporting at the campaign and category level for Mobile Display, Mobile Search and print Yellow Pages advertising. Later phases will feature Search, Internet Yellow Pages and other local media advertising results. Initial data released from the Metrics That Matter Database shows the true value local and national businesses are receiving from geo-targeted mobile advertising campaigns. Data from 7,500 campaigns over a six month time period, between September 2013 to February 2014, shows geo-targeted mobile advertising outperforms non-targeted mobile ad campaigns nearly 2 to 1 in terms of CTRs (Click Through Rates) (Figure 1).

This data highlights how incorporating location information in mobile advertising campaigns is a better way to capture in-market consumers and to drive foot traffic to local businesses versus traditional methods. Reviewing the results from specific verticals shows similar results. In most cases, each vertical has CTRs 2X’s those of non-targeted mobile campaigns (Figure 2).

Measuring campaign effectiveness requires multiple measures not just CTRs. Secondary actions or the user’s next action after an initial click are becoming more important measures for marketers managing mobile campaigns. The database houses over 10 different secondary action measures for mobile campaigns. Some secondary actions include, map to’s, drive to’s, save listings, send to friends, descriptions, and more information. The results of the 7,500 geo-targeted mobile ad campaigns shows these ads have 30% higher secondary action rates compared non-targeted mobile campaigns (Figure 3).

This further validates the value these campaigns bring to local and national businesses and is why these types of ads were given and “A-” by industry experts (see our previous post).

This data represents a small portion of what is available. Look to future posts where we will dig deeper and look at specific categories and other products such as mobile search.