AdIQuity Launches Geo Sense; the importance of Location Based targeting for mobile Ad Netowrks

Bangalore based mobile ad network AdIQuity, has announced the launch of a feature which will allow apps using the ad network to reach its consumers of a given target location. The new feature

is called Geo Sense and it'll allow advertisers and marketers to "Geo Fence" a particular location. This could mean area around a radius, a city or any unique shaped area that a marketer wants to cover.Rajiv Narayan, Head, Sales, AdIQuity Technologies said, “Mobile advertising has increased manifold over the last few years and this has also created demand for more specific targeting parameters. At AdIQuity, we understand that it is essential to help advertisers reach target audiences at specific touch points and geo-locales, apart from the standard mobile targeting parameters.”

"Location" and other ad networks 

There has been quite a bit of buzz around location, particularly from the mobile ad networks in India over the past year. And rightly so. The context of a lot of ads are based on location. For example, if an app shows me an offer on Flipkart when I'm in the US, it really doesn't make sense to me. (Geo)Location for advertisements is all the more relevant for mobile phones as they're, well, mobile! The possibility of using the same app from different locations by the same user is very high.

Mobile ad networks are well aware of this and over the past year, many major players have acquired or partnered with players who can add the location context to their arsenal. InMobi kicked it off by acquiring UK based Overlay Media, Vserv.mobi launched AudiencePro, which was a tie up with telcos (a first of its kind). AdNear started off as a location based ad network, but only for the APAC region and have used it in many a sales pitch.

There are mainly two ways to find out the location of a phone - one is either by the device itself and the other way is through the telecom carrier. Most ad networks use the former method, wherein the app's permissions would include exposing your location. If a user isn't comfortable with this, then he or she cannot install the app as there are no optional permissions in mobile app.

Apart from this, device based location tracking also has a problem of inventory, i.e., the number of location enabled applications. Anurag Singh, Co-Founder & ED, AD2C mentioned that “Location is often touted as mobile’s edge when viewed as an advertising medium, but there is little inventory out there that is location enabled. We look forward to AdIQuity’s solution to further help.”

The other method is through the carrier and the only ad network to have done it so far is Vserv.mobi, which can find out the location of a device without the app having to request for location exposure permissions for the user.

As of today, AdIQuity has reported more than 12,000 active publishers and 70 mobile ad networks as partners. AdIQuity also serves 18+ billion monthly impressions from 200+ countries. Will Geo Sense add to that number? Lets wait and see.