At Mobile World Congress last month, Michael Weaver, VP, Channel Solutions at MediaMath, interviewed Iliccio Elia, head of mobile DigitasLBi, on the importance of geolocation. The below synopsis of the chat has been translated from the Italian publication 360com.
Associating a user with a geographical location gives marketers the ability to answer questions such as “What stores did this person visit in the past?” and “Where does he go regularly?” Starting from this point, Iliccio Elia, head of mobile at DigitasLBi, and Michael Weaver, VP of product strategy at MediaMath, discussed the rise of geolocation as smartphone adoption soars.
“The location is becoming an obsession for marketers,” said Weaver, “It is certainly important information, but it is only one of the channels for understanding who you are trying to reach, what to say and why,” echoed Elia. The supply side, in fact, “offers different formats for advertisers, but they must be good at knowing which one to choose,” said Weaver. ”
We must interpret the mentality with which consumers are approaching the format, and to do so requires research on multiple signals of where and what users are shopping and browsing, and the content they are consuming. “The analysis is one of the keys missing to many advertisers,” said Elia. Moreover, “Your plan must be clear,” because without a defined strategy, “you are likely to flood the user with ads.”
In an ecosystem that requires omnichannel, mobile is the first touch point. The advice for making the most of it is, “Listen more. We must be patient and collect a body of important data. Only then is it possible to say what the right time and the right thing to say are,” said Elia.