Who accesses a map on mobile and who is still stuck to the desktop?
“Mobile app users skew a little bit younger, below the 35-year-old threshold, but our desktop audience is still holding strong between a 34-to-55-year-old audience,” says Brad Maglinger, CMO of Mapquest, in a recent eMarketer interview.
When eMarketer asked if map numbers would continue to grow along with the upsurge in mobile, he was unequivocal.
“Absolutely. The mapping function within mobile is a core piece of all applications, ranging from Yelp to MapQuest,” said Maglinger. “Maps are an underlying feature to every single app that’s deployed on the mobile device today. Obviously there will be a ceiling to that growth, but, yes, it will continue to grow.”
In addition to privacy and other issues, the interview broached the opportunities for marketing via maps. Are they effective?
“They are,” argues Maglinger. “We just signed a great partnership with Major League Baseball that expands game-day experiences with original contest content. There are map integrations within their At the Ballpark app and website, as well as 30 team websites.”
As for maps being a cornerstone of local digital marketing, Maglinger was upbeat.
“If you look at our mobile app, we have this concept of layers, where you can bring your favorite brands right into the experience and right into your route,” he explains. “That is the cornerstone that we’ve been talking about so frequently.”
