CDP Institute

I guess there’s some irony in talking about location tracking at a time when much of the country is rarely leaving home. But the pandemic shall pass and when it does, marketers will be eager to connect the dots between advertising and in-store customer behaviors. Which brings us to this announcement that location-based ad and attribution vendor Reveal Mobile is partnering with Tapad, which will help them to measure retail foot traffic and target store visitors (and their households) across devices.

Somewhere in the same neighborhood, grocery giant Kroger and publishing powerhouse Meredith have hatched an alliance to apply Kroger shopping data to Meredith ad audiences. Brand advertisers will be able to buy shoppable ads on Meredith properties that push items directly into Kroger online shopping carts. Or maybe they push items into real-world shopping carts, which would be an even better trick.

Now that you’re all excited about location-based ad targeting, here’s a reality check: this Airship study of nearly 750 million app users worldwide found just 10.7% actually opt into location sharing. The rate is a much higher 23% for retail apps and has grown 39% during the pandemic, reversing a long-term decline in recent years. So don’t get the idea that location-based ads will have anything like universal coverage. You’re welcome.

How badly have marketers been hit by the pandemic? More than half – 55% — reported a budget cut, according to this Chief Marketer study. The marketing mix is also changing, with growth in social media, content marketing, influencer marketing, and email. Losers include search marketing, referrals, and, of course, live events.

Influencer marketing is particularly attractive in a social-media-dominated world, but it’s hard to influencers who won’t misbehave. IBM and Influential are here to help with an AI-based solution that analyzes influencer posts to find who’s brand-safe. It also marries offline purchases with online behaviors to measure campaign results.

CreatorIQ is another influencer marketing platform, combining influencer discover with workflows, brand safety, and measurement. They recently raised a $24 million Series C, bringing total funding to $41 million.

So, the #StopHateForProfit Facebook ad boycott happened with no meaningful impact on the company’s revenue but what our friends at The New York Times call “reputational harm”. Arguably more significant, Adobe announced it will join Twitter in banning all political ads in its Advertising Cloud. Not that were many to start with, but it’s another talking point for people who argue that ineffectively governed political advertising is worse than none at all.

Last week’s Congressional anti-trust hearing with Big Tech leaders was also mostly a non-event, although TechCrunch did find some juicy tidbits in the published back-up materials. If you needed a reminder of how powerful those companies are, and their potential for making a positive contribution, we have news that Google is improving its consent management platform with the IAB’s standard and CCPA. The net is to make it easier for publishers to collect consent for ad tracking and other GDPR/CCPA requirements.