The following is guest contributed post by Deidre Bakker-Riches, owner of a boutique marketing firm and consultancy, Twlv31 Marketing, and the Head of Communications for Las Vegas advertising agency, Up All Day Creative Solutions (originally published by Mobile Leaders Alliance).

The ability to measure marketing campaigns is a vital tool for any brand or company. And until now, marketers have only been able to gauge the success of a campaign after the fact, through evaluations like ad impressions, click-through rates, and web visitors. Now, UberMedia is launching a brand new, game-changing technology that will allow advertisers to optimize campaigns and adjust to real-world consumer location visits.

UberMedia, founded by Bill Gross (who also invented paid-search), is a leading independent mobile advertising platform that uses real-time optimization to improve performance. The company has more than a trillion data points on more than 400 million global mobile consumers, and combines these social signals and location to gain consumer intent. UberMedia has taken this technology one step further with the announcement of Location Visit Optimization (LVO).

LVO is a cutting-edge technology that is expected to more than triple ad performances, allowing marketers to optimize real-world customer traffic and events. The system boosts relevance and performance of mobile ad campaigns based on real-time location visits, such as customer outings at retail stores, quick service restaurants, auto dealers, shopping malls, and movie theaters. The LVO platform works by integrating with UberMedia’s proprietary “Place Context Learning System” that translates device latitude/longitude data into real locations. UberMedia does this with more than 500,000 polygon tools that use satellite imagery to precisely identify businesses around the world, which are pinpointed to within three feet of the actual locations. Collectively, when you combine LVO with the “Place Context Learning System,” the platforms can make a split-second decision in order to deploy the right ads to the right people and reallocate media spends to maximize foot traffic.

“Although mobile advertising has come a long way, marketers still struggle to link their sales data to their campaign in real-time,” said Bill Gross, founder and CEO of UberMedia. “LVO changes all that by allowing marketers to optimize on what matters most – real-time, real-world location visits. This method represents the next phase of mobile advertising, and has already proven to dramatically increase marketing results for automotive, fast food and hospitality brands.”

LVO is different from standard optimization, because historically, campaigns have been measured and optimized on media outcomes, such as click-through rates, web visitors, leads or conversions. Instead, LVO now allows marketers to optimize on the spot, in real-time.

UberMedia says that many business categories can benefit from its real-world location visit optimization, such as big box retailers, retail chains, auto manufactures/dealerships, restaurants, movie studios, hotels, and more. The company tested LVO on several categories of advertisers, comprising of automotive, retail, quick service restaurants, and travel businesses, all of which outperformed optimizing on click-through rates by a factor of two to five times.

Some of the current companies utilizing LVO include national fast-food chains, automotive advertisers and hotel chains, which all have seen location visits more than double. In addition, UberMedia noted that its automotive advertisers have been using LVO to help build incremental foot traffic and gain market share, while quick service restaurants are looking to boost visits during the key meal times.

Having the power to optimize ads in real-time at a specific location could truly be a game-changer for marketers — and if they see similar results as the fast-food chains and auto retailers, LVO will swiftly become a staple in every marketers tool kit.

The post UberMedia Announces Location Visit Optimization — Real-Time, Location-Based Technology for Advertisers appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

When considering what the future of mobile may bring, the likelihood of your mobile device becoming your personal shopper and directing you to products, brands, and services that you want and need, is becoming more of a reality.

Marketers will be able to guide shoppers toward new products and services in response to their ability to track previous shopping history and patterns. From there, recommending products and services from the retailers and businesses frequented becomes a relative breeze.

“Companies like PayPal and shopkick use Bluetooth-enabled beacons to tie a user’s in-store location data to mobile marketing,” PaymentsSource reports. “Beacon hardware manufacturer Roximity is developing marketing technology that leverages beacons. A grocery store using Roximity’s technology could allow a third-party manufacturer, such as Hershey, to utilize its beacon network for a holiday promotion.”

In an effort to fine-tune and cultivate location-based technologies, a multitude of startups have opened their doors, each of which is taking a unique approach to how mobile can be utilized to find customers for your business, as opposed to helping customers find your business.

The post Is Your Mobile Device Poised to Become Your Personal Shopper? appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

As a result — of course — competition is heating up.  Major players in the U.S. market currently include Google, Point Inside, Micello, FastMall, and HERE, who together currently cover more than 25,000 venues in the US.

As the demand for indoor LBS is increasing, and more business organizations are adopting indoor LBS, the number of venues in the US is expected to increase to almost 200,000 by 2016. Thus, the increasing availability of indoor venue maps is an emerging trend that could fuel the growth of the market during the forecast period.

“According to the report, one of the main drivers in this market is the increased use of indoor LBS by consumers,” according to a report summary shared with MMW. “Most people in the U.S. spend more than 80 percent of their daily time indoors. In addition, more than 85 percent of mobile data in the US is generated from indoor locations. Advancements in positioning technology and survey methodology have made it easy to determine the location of a smart device.”

The growth of personal communication device use have enabled the use of indoor positioning fed through local wireless networks. As a result, consumers now use indoor LBS in shopping malls, multiplexes, universities, campuses, and airports. It’s also a mainstay at hospitals, stadiums, government offices, museums, convention centers, hotels, resorts, and even in parking areas.

The post U.S. Indoor Location Based Search Could Grow 45% appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

In Western Markets, a third generation of location based services is now underway. It has forecast retail/shopping, ambient intelligence, hyperlocal social and personal asset tracking/BLE beacon applications to emerge as the next wave of important location based services over the next 5 years, with ABI Research forecasting a four-fold increase in revenues by 2019.

In emerging regions the value of location is not lost with strong local deals/offers markets already emerging.

“In Asia,” says Senior analyst Patrick Connolly, “ABI Research sees LBS downloads breaking 4 Billion in 2019. In China, major Internet companies can see the necessity of location and are acquiring/integrating as they move to mobile.”

“Tencent,” Connolly adds, “the Chinese Internet giant, has spent approximately $200 million to acquire an 11.28% stake in mapping company NavInfo. This follows Alibaba’s acquisition of AutoNavi. Tencent has also invested in the Chinese Yelp, Dianping, which is one of the top three players in the local deals market, which is estimated to have reached $1.2 Billion in 1Q14. Sina Weibo, which floated on the NASDAQ in April also has its own Places application.”

Lastly, in a reversal of previous LBS application trends, ABI Research expects to see many of these companies expanding into international markets in the future.

The post Third Generation May Be the Best Generation of LBS appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

When it comes to this fast-growing market, TechNavio is now projecting a healthy CAGR of 43.01 percent from 2013-2018.

Location-based services (LBS) use location, determined by a user’s mobile device, to search for and promote products and services near the user.

Location-based advertising, TechNavio explains, is largely based on the integration of three variables: What (the user’s requirement), where (their location) and now (a user’s necessity for real-time information).

In recent years, the penetration and sales of GPS-enabled smartphones and tablets have increased significantly in the US. In 2013, the US reported a penetration rate of more than 65 percent for location-enabled smartphones, and this is expected to increase to over 90 percent by 2016.

“The huge number of smartphones being used in the US acts as a catalyst for the incremental adoption of mobile LBS applications such as location discovering, friend finder and location-based advertising, shopping and networking,” explains Faisal Ghaus, Vice President of TechNavio. Consequently, enterprises have finally begun to recognize the value in offering adverts specific to their customer’s location and are adopting LBS to attract new customers.

The post Report: U.S. Location-Based Search, Advertising Market Thriving appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

For starters, we’re looking at a $4 billion plus market by 2018.

ABI Research’s quarterly Location Technologies Market Data measures the uptake of indoor location technologies, mapping and new companies entering the space.

The overall market of technology installations is forecast to break the 25,000 mark in 2014, ABI says, while handsets capable of supporting indoor location will be in the hundreds of millions within two years. As a result, the major companies will start to make their moves.

“Apple’s new A7 co-processor coupled with the acquisition of WifiSLAM highlights indoor as a priority,” says Senior ABI analyst Patrick Connolly. “Both Apple and eBay have announced support for dedicated BLE beacons, a technology that is set for a huge 2014 as major IC and device OEMs make it widely available.”

“Google continues to expand on indoor mapping, and has openly discussed some of its indoor location plans at I/O,” Connolly adds. “On the Wi-Fi side, four major AP providers (Cisco, Motorola, Aruba, Ruckus) have now acquired a company in this space. It was also interesting to see Nokia retain its mapping and indoor capabilities, identifying it as a new area for future growth.”

The post Apple, eBay, Google Marching Into The Indoor Location Market appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

On October 22nd, at 11:00 a.m. PST, Locaid will lead a thought-provoking discussion about the strategies and best practices associated with optimizing location-based mobile marketing to earn more and accelerate business growth.

The anticipated topics for discussion include the evolution of location-based marketing, the importance of an integrated mobile strategy, why leveraging location should be a primary targeting strategy, the best practices to optimize location-based marketing, how and when to leverage geofences to deliver results, and the importance of location + analytics.

To learn more or to sign up for the Locaid webinar, click here.

In case you missed it, last Thursday Mobile Marketing Watch, along with our sister sites mHealthWatch and mGamingWatch, hosted an emergency webinar for marketers and related professionals across numerous industries who must urgently educate themselves on a variety of emerging issues related to consumer privacy, location based services, and the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA).

To check out MMW’s webinar, click here.

The post Locaid Webinar to Offer Valuable Insight on Location-Based Mobile Marketing appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

According to Mobile Commerce Daily, the hotel brand is running a campaign in Washington state for now.

With the help of PayPal Media Network, the Best Western campaign encourages consumers to book their hotel stay directly from their mobile device.

“According to Best Western, the booking window for reservations is no longer weeks in advance,” explains Sarah Hodkinson, director of marketing and sales strategy at PayPal Media Network.

“Travelers are now waiting until they are on the freeway to book,” she said. “By leveraging location-based mobile advertising, hoteliers can capture these last-minute bookings by engaging travelers in proximity to their locations.”

Best Western has geo-fenced ads around its hotels and airports in the state of Washington. Additionally, the hotel brand is running the location-based mobile ads in geofences around competitors’ locations to sway consumers into a Best Western hotel.

We’re told that the ads help to inform consumers of how many miles they are away from a particular location. Copy for the ad reads “Book now” and leads mobile users directly to the Best Western mobile-optimized site for more information or to book a room.

The post Best Western Finds Success with Location Based Mobile Advertising appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

In it, the well-respected force in location-based mobile advertising indicated that the health of location-based mobile advertising is strong.

“Location Powered Mobile Advertising: The Impact on the Quick Service and Casual Dining Category” explores how location targeting is exploding within the modern booming business of mobile advertising.

Some of the noteworthy findings in the report include:

• Nearly 70 percent of all QSR/ Casual Dining campaigns leveraged location targeting
• QSR/ Casual Dining campaigns that leveraged location data performed 2x better than those that didn’t
• The leading location targeting strategies leveraged were Geo-aware, Geo-fence and Audience targeting
• Verve’s Place Insights audience targeting technology allowed us to analyze QSR/ Casual Dining campaigns and identify optimal audiences for QSR/ Casual Dining advertisers
• Verve’s advanced location analytics uncovered a 3x lift in foot traffic for a national casual dining brand

“The QSR/ Casual Dining category ‘gets’ location-based mobile advertising and has provided real leadership in the market. We are pleased to be the trusted partner to these brands as they leverage the Verve platform to build awareness, generate demand and drive foot traffic,” says Tom MacIsaac , Chief Executive Officer of Verve.

To download the new report from Verve’s website, click here.

The post Verve Issues Report on Location Powered Mobile Advertising appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

Along with that interest have come some surprisingly common questions.

“While this type of technology has been around for years, there’s still a lot of questions regarding location based mobile marketing, and concepts like mobile geofencing, and how these technologies can be used to improve your SMS marketing campaigns,” Johnson says.

On Wednesday, Tatango published one of the most insightful and must-bookmark blogs we’ve seen in a while. Having recruited good friend Rip Gerber, the founder of Locaid, to produce the aforementioned blog, Tatango is taking up the top 10 most commonly asked location based mobile marketing questions.

For example:

What is mobile geofencing?

Mobile geofencing, which is sometimes called Geotargeting, is a location-based service (LBS) where layers of location intelligence allow a brand to make decisions or take some action based on a geographical area of an SMS subscriber. Mobile geofencing isn’t a new technology either, and as our society becomes increasingly mobile, developers and brands are realizing the added value that mobile geofencing can bring to their SMS marketing campaigns.

To check out the full post (and we enthusiastically recommend doing just that) click here.

The post Tatango Answers The 10 Most Asked Location Based Mobile Marketing Questions appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.