Contextual content is crucial for location-based advertising, says TripAdvisor’s Kevin Clapson
Location-based data is often misunderstood, said TripAdvisor’s VP of display advertising, Kevin Clapson, and advertisers and technology provides must partner to deliver true contextual content.
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Speaking at the Emerge Mobile event in London this week, Clapson said: “There is little point serving someone who is traveling an ad for a hotel in the city they’re in but what is valuable is restaurants and things to do nearby. Similarly, there isn’t any point serving them an ad for a restaurant in Kensington whilst they’re in Shoreditch, it just doesn’t work.’
Clapson was speaking at xAd’s inaugural Emerge Mobile event on a panel, chaired by The Drum’s Justin Pearse, also featuring AppNexus VP of strategic development Nigel Gilbert; Mindshare head of mobile Neil Bruce; and xAd GM EMEA Theo Theodorou.
Location-based data is a huge industry topic and enables advertisers to gain insight into consumer behaviour to target them in real-time. With ad-blocking becoming ever more prevalent, brands and agencies can add value by examining consumer past behaviour and start building audiences based on visitation data, what Theodorou describes as ‘real-world cookies’.
But the surge in mobile users also means that brands and advertisers need to become more strategic in their advertising. A survey by the Interactive Advertising Bureau revealed that 76 per cent of mobile purchasers said that they had engaged with a mobile ad in the last six months. A further 62 per cent planned to purchase more items through their mobiles in the next six months.
Clapson said he’s seeing a huge uptake in mobile users at TripAdvisor. Its mobile apps have been downloaded more 340 million times and he thinks the trend will continue.
“At the start of the year maybe 35 percent of our users were mobile. By the end of this year it will probably be 53 per cent. If it carries on with that trend, three years down the line we will be 90 percent mobile. As a business, we have to shift how we are going to get to that place,” Clapson explained.