A survey of 1,000 parents in the US conducted by Cox Mobile, a division of Cox Communications found that 56% of parents reported their children kept location data sharing accessible on their mobile apps, and 31% of parents said their kids had been contacted on their device by a stranger. More than a third of parents said the stranger referenced their child’s location.
Measuring ad performance was never easy, but privacy-related data restrictions and fragmented media channels have made it much harder than ever. Google is offering Meridian, an open-source media mix modeling system that won’t be as precise as cookie-based measurement but does promise to draw a meaningful big picture. It’s in limited release now with plans to offer it to everyone “coming soon”.
Media mix models (MMM), originally developed in the 1960’s, have undergone a resurgence as new technologies make them easier to execute and click-based attribution becomes less credible. But evaluating MMM brings its own challenges. Australia-based Mutinex offers a vendor-neutral Open Source MMM Validation Framework which is now available for free to North American marketers and agencies.