Proving There is More to Location Targeting in Mobile, xAd Launches Proprietary SmartFencing™, SmartLocation™ Technologies - Early results delivering double-digit improvement in mobile campaign performance 

NEW YORK- xAd, the leading mobile-local advertising network, today announced new, proprietary technology that takes standard mobile geo-targeting to the next level. xAd’s SmartLocation™ and SmartFencing™ technologies allow for more accurate and relevant mobile-local targeting at scale, benefitting the network’s growing list of local and national advertisers.

“The results our clients have experienced so far have been extraordinary due to SmartLocation™ and SmartFencing’s™ ability to not only improve campaign efficiency through the reduction of ad waste, but the tangible improvement in performance through increased ad relevance.”

Today, only a fraction of mobile traffic carries an accurate latitude / longitude (lat/long) or GPS-based signal. As a result, advertisers have found it nearly impossible to scale hyper-local campaigns or campaigns that utilize virtual geo-fences as the primary source of targeting. Through xAd’s SmartLocation™ technology, usable publisher inventory is increased four to five times what is available in the market today. This is done through the SmartLocation™ algorithm which analyzes the multitude of location signals being passed by each publisher and scores them according to accuracy and performance. Each advertiser campaign is then able to leverage the most effective location data based on their campaign objectives and target performance metrics.

“The industry cannot take location signals at face value,” said Chi-Chao Chang, President of Products and Technology, xAd. “What we have found through our SmartLocation™ technology is that location inputs are often inconsistent on a per ad request basis. In fact, some of these signals are just plain wrong.”

Chang offered an example, “We have seen some publishers pass what appears to be a lat/long or actual consumer location, but upon further investigation, the signal is actually a center of a zip code or a city that has been converted to lat/long. As a result, many ad campaigns are running on inventory that is not suitable for this level of granular targeting, resulting in wasted ad impressions and overall lack-luster campaign performance.”

Chang concludes that only through a proper balance of location accuracy and scale that this type of hyper-local targeting is possible. “There is a lot of science that goes into local mobile targeting and xAd is 100 percent committed to this effort.”

Through the use of accurate location signals combined with real-time and historical mobile search behaviors and other data variables – xAd is able to target ads based on where the advertiser’s ideal audience is at any point in time. As a result, xAd’s SmartFencing™ technology generates fences that continually move as the target audience does with the goal of optimizing both reach and performance for advertisers. This is a departure from traditional static geo-fences that have become standard in the industry today.

"Our Smart technology is the next evolution in mobile advertising, taking all location information currently available to us in the market, making sense of it, and putting it to good use, and we do this all without relying on user or cookie tracking,” continued Chang. “The results our clients have experienced so far have been extraordinary due to SmartLocation™ and SmartFencing’s™ ability to not only improve campaign efficiency through the reduction of ad waste, but the tangible improvement in performance through increased ad relevance.”

Enhancing Advertiser Performance

An early indication of the impact SmartLocation™ and SmartFencing™ have on campaign performance can be seen in the most recent results achieved across xAd’s growing list of national advertisers who are seeing performance rates that are nearly double previous benchmark averages.

“In today’s mobile world, consumers are anything but stationary. They are constantly on the move and expect to be able to connect instantly with the information they need,” said Kerri Smith, Director of Mobility at iProspect. “Their exact locations are becoming more and more important and, as a result, our ads need to be able to evolve with the new traffic patterns that emerge. xAd’s Smart technology allows us to more accurately target our campaigns and account for this highly mobile and constantly moving audience.”

xAd’s local search and display ad network reaches over 85 million mobile consumers each month and is the only network with the ability to not only ensure accurate local targeting – but enhance it through the use of real-time and historical local search behaviors and other available data variables. The results are performance rates that are two to three times the industry average.

About xAd

Since 2009, xAd has grown to become one of the largest mobile advertising networks in the U.S. and the only one offering the ability to target ads using a combination of accurate location signal and search context. Across its network, xAd aggregates and manages billions of monthly ad impressions from which it derives the largest supply of location based advertising inventory in the market. For over a million national and local advertisers, xAd delivers targeted mobile location@scale.

xAd is based in New York City with several satellite offices across the U.S. and internationally. For more information, visit xAd.com.