Identifying Non-Humans Will Be Just as Important

Understanding the type of proxy a visitor is connecting to the internet with, such as anonymous, transparent, corporate, public, or education, will become increasingly important to help online marketers optimize their campaigns and improve their overall performance. Incorporating the use of proxy data into their technology strategy will allow marketers to avoid wasted impressions, fight click fraud, and enhance attribution and analytics. With an increased focus on the monetization of ad content and ad platforms, many businesses are wary of proxy traffic that may throw off targeted ad campaigns. For example, relying on just an IP address-geotargeted city for a proxy would often lead to incorrect targeting (the user is hiding his or her location behind a proxy, and the IP address yields the location of the proxy - rather than the user’s location). So, to avoid wasted impressions or misleading geo-targeted impressions, companies will look to block proxies through the incorporation of proxy data into their targeted campaigns.

Synthesizing Online Data Points to Build Real-Time Personas

One of the most important pieces of knowledge a marketer can have is an understanding of who their consumers are and what they are interested in. Historically, our data has provided a comprehensive understanding about a particular connection via an IP address, most notably from what location a connection is being made, among other useful, real-time data points. However, the ability to view this data across a specific time frame and gather a solid picture of users’ categorical interests can provide increased value by delivering actionable insights into a given audience.

Using Context to Build Augmented Audience Segmentation

2017 shows promise of augmented and anonymous audience segmentation, providing a heightened sense of context and new insights into the digital interests and transactions of consumers. As the largest processor of IP geolocation data, our history lends itself to this new way of computing context, giving marketers and advertisers the ability to comprehend not only where their consumers are geographically, but also where they are digitally. In other words, painting a richer picture of online audiences such as the categories of websites visited, etc., allows for a deeper understanding and more impactful targeting of digital consumers.

There are a variety of different geolocation technologies available today, sometimes making it difficult for marketers to discern between one vendor or another. Good data is the foundation of any successful geolocation technology, so make sure accuracy and reliability are high on your list of criteria when you start evaluating which technologies will be the best fit to support your location-based strategies this year.

What online location-based strategies do you have planned for 2017?