Location-based targeting grew 50pc quarter-over-quarter: study

By Rimma Kats

November 10, 2011

Location, location, location

Local-based targeting grew 50 percent quarter-over-quarter and made up 66 percent of all the targeted audience campaigns on Millennial Media’s platform, according to the company’s recent report. 

The new Smart report proves that marketers are increasingly using location to better target consumers. The report also found that certain post-click options, such as the ability to watch video, grew 78 percent quarter-over-quarter.

“Using mobile to reach local consumers has been one of the major trends of 2011, and this was definitely seen in the third quarter of this year,” said Mack McKelvey, senior vice president of marketing at Millennial Media, Baltimore, MD.

“Local market targeting grew 50 percent quarter-over-quarter, and made up 66 percent of all the targeted audience campaigns on our platform,” she said.

“Additionally—advertisers also turned to individual post-click actions to drive these local consumers into their stores, and certain actions like “View Map” grew 27 percent quarter-over-quarter.”

Top verticals
The Millennial Media report also found that finance was the top U.S. ad vertical on its network – up from No. 3 in the second quarter of this year.

Finance also grew 356 percent year-over-year and entertainment was the top International ad vertical.

“The leading U.S. ad vertical on our platform in the third quarter was finance, which was up from the third spot in the second quarter, and has grown over 350 percent year-over-year,” Ms. McKelvey.

“Entertainment was the leading international vertical, and another industry we’ve seen make major gains is CPG, which grew over 375 percent in the last year, and is in the top 5 ad verticals both in the U.S. and internationally, ” she said.

Other findings
The study also found that six different verticals experienced triple digit growth or greater year-over-year.

This was led by the technology vertical, which grew 687 percent . CPG and finance both grew over 350 percent.

Millennial also saw that when consumers used their mobile devices while shopping in the third quarter of this year, the top activity was to search for particular items to try and find a better price.

The second most popular activity was to read product reviews. 

“The Smart report contains a chart from InsightExpress that shows how smartphone owners used their mobile phone while shopping,” Ms. McKelvey said. “Seven different categories had at least 15 percent of consumers reply that they engaged in that particular activity, led by price comparison shopping, reading product reviews and using their phone to scan a bar code.”

Final Take
Rimma Kats is staff reporter on Mobile Marketer, New York