SANTA CLARA, Calif., May 17, 2016 — Thinknear® by Telenav® (NASDAQ: TNAV), today announced the release of its latest Location Score™ Index, the first and only industry report monitoring the accuracy of location data used in the mobile advertising industry.
Since Thinknear published the first Location Score Index in May 2014, the U.S. mobile advertising industry has seen massive increases in the volume of location data available but little change in the level of location data accuracy throughout the ecosystem. The goal of the Index is to bring transparency to the programmatic ecosystem and help mobile publishers deliver higher quality location data to marketers. After two years of reporting, the data indicates a continued need for industry improvements and developer-focused toolsets that enable higher quality data.
While data quality levels, on average, have not changed significantly, the report highlights that the sheer volume of mobile location data continues to grow. “There is a huge amount of high-quality data available to marketers, but they need a trusted partner who can help them find it,” said Thinknear President, Loren Hillberg. “Sorting through the data is the difficult part, but the good news is that high-quality data is available at scale, and marketers are using it in new ways to connect with their audiences.” Marketers tend to agree. Roughly 70% of marketers polled in January 2016 by the LBMA in North America said location data was “valuable, actionable, and accurate”.
Thinknear has been actively building solutions to filter through the noise to deliver large volumes of accurate location data. Additionally, the MMA and IAB have both formed committees to address location data, indicating that industry standards may begin to evolve.
Thinknear’s analysis also indicates significant variance in data quality by source of inventory. “We’re often asked about data quality for specific publishers or exchanges,” said Hillberg. “We find that some exchanges perform far better than others, which indicates they are proactively taking steps to improve the quality of data passed by their publisher partners.”
With improvements in the volume of high-quality data, marketers are now more interested in the evolving use cases for location data in the mobile marketing landscape. Advanced audience targeting, better mobile creative, and attribution toolsets are all being driven by accurate location data. According to Thinknear, brands and agencies are actively seeking reliable data sources to better understand their consumers and more effectively reach those consumers in the mobile channel.
“We’re at a point where location has become mainstream,” says Hillberg. “In the past, location was the realm of restaurant and retail advertisers. Now, location use cases span every industry vertical and audience segment.”
To compile its fifth Location Score Index, Thinknear sampled and analyzed data from more than one billion ad impressions and performed location accuracy tests on more than 500,000 consumer ad experiences during the quarter.
For more information about Thinknear's Location Score and to download the full Location Score Index for free, please visit: http://locationscore.com.
