Let’s look at some location-related items. Here’s a new self-service platform for location-based advertising from GroundTruth, which says it sees two-thirds of U.S. smartphone users. Just sign up, register a credit card, and start targeting ads to people near a specific location. Lots of possibilities here. I wonder if they take payment in rubles?
Artificial intelligence has become so common that it barely registers as a product differentiator. That must be frustrating to AI pioneers. If the folks at TinyClues are feeling that pain, they’ve eased it a bit with a $18 million Series B investment in their system, which uses retailers’ first party data to choose the best product for each individual in email, mobile push, direct mail, and Facebook campaigns. The company says its clients have increased campaign revenue by an average of 49%.
The opposite of people-based marketing is content marketing, which markets to anyone interested in a particular topic even if you don’t know their identity. If privacy regulations and other changes make identification harder, you can expect content marketing to grow. That’s presumably the logic behind Sphere, Outbrain’s new, invitation-only network of publishers who will offer their content to each other’s audiences. It’s also positioned as a way for marketers to escape the walled gardens.
Amazon advertisers can now measure results outside of Amazon stores using a new service from Stackline and Gigi. Gigi will enable unified audience buying for Amazon Marketing Cloud and Amazon DSP, which run ads in Amazon’s online stores and streaming TV channels such as Prime Video. Stackline’s panel-based multi-retailer attribution will track customer behavior across Amazon, Walmart, Target, and other major online or in-store retailers.