“Today’s ubiquitous use of smartphones has created a tsunami of data and inevitably some new challenges for advertisers, agencies and trading desks”, states adsquare when introducing its Buyer’s Guide to Mobile Audience Data.

Always within reach and ready to use, smartphones are for many the most personal and convenient device to stay informed, making their users particularly susceptible to advertising with relevant content.

In order to promote making use of the trendy channel, the company adsquare created an independent ‘Audience Management Platform’ that allows marketers to reach a defined target group with personalized advertising on their smartphone apps - subject to location and household data. Best of all, adsquare is directly connected to the display advertising ecosystem, which means supply-site and demand-site platforms for display advertising space.

Considering that advertisers, for instance in Japan, are expected to spend more than ¥454.2 billion ($3.75 billion) on smartphone ads in 2016, as a recent CyberZ study revealed, adsquare’s offer could be in high demand in the APAC region, too. In fact, spending is set to grow solidly even more over the next few years, especially in display advertising, the report revealed.

Thanks to specially developed ‘onboarding algorithms’, offline, online and mobile data from advertisers and selected data providers can be activated and made available for mobile campaigns. For this purpose, adsquare’s platform divides the world into millions of "squares" and calculates in real-time the local context and the usage behavior of anonymous users. The technology works without cookies and has even been awarded for the exemplary handling of data with the ePrivacyseal.

Besides offering trustworthy technology, adsquare provides many useful tips on how to optimize and employ mobile audience data for campaigns in its whitepaper, giving the following recommendations:

• Define clear campaign goals by starting to identify which target group you want to reach and knowing exactly what you need.
• Consider making use of evaluated and standardized pre-defined audiences (e.g. business travelers or music lovers), since comprehensive audience modeling, precisely timed segments, and complex combinations of high quality data points, are that way given.
• Select the right data providers with are those with the most suitable and qualified data sources for your needs. Some are probably experts in location, some for app usage, some for purchase data, and others for pure household data. Your preferred platform should pre-select only high quality trusted brands and provide comprehensive information about each individual supplier to help you make the best decision. Often the best approach involves selecting and combining multiple data points from different providers.

• Choose the right platform, as there are usually numerous ways to access mobile data and define audience targeting criteria. Probably the best way is via the DSP (Demand Side Platform) you are already working with. In some cases, your DSP may need to first technically integrate and sign a data usage agreement with the data platform. When choosing a DSP, you want to look out for a partner with a high quality portfolio of data integrations, whereas an AMP (Audience Management Platform) is focused on the purchasing of data and audiences. When selecting your preferred platform, opt for partners that provide quality assurance.
• Be aware of limiting factors, such as reach issues. Generally, the more targeting criteria you pile in to your campaign, the more you are limiting the reach. Yet, as programmatic campaigns with rich, efficient mobile audience data are not limited to e.g. a single location, they are able to reach entire audiences based on local context history instead. Furthermore, when it comes to ad serving, not every app publisher can handle every possible creative format, therefore you have to ensure the inventory you are bidding on is capable of serving all campaign-related creatives. In addition, it’s highly advisable to work with a blacklist, as opposed to a whitelist when campaign planning, to ensure a much smaller chance of missing out on potentially valuable traffic.  Or why not simply talking to your DSP about employing the most effective bid strategy to increase reach?
• Gain insights for campaign optimization, by monitoring the success of your campaign(s). Ideally, reach forecasts, campaign monitoring and post campaign reports should be provided by your chosen partner upon request.

Clearly, adsquare’s ‘Audience Management Platform for Mobile Programmatic Advertising’ gives advertisers and agencies full control and transparency when creating audience segments besides enabling direct integration into their preferred DSP. More and more data-driven, today’s marketing and advertising industry can enrich in real-time millions of bid requests from publishers and global SSPs, as for instance Smaato, AppNexus or Nexage, to the advantage of publisher’s inventory monetization and more targeted and relevant ads for customers.

By Daniela La Marca