Foursquare announced today that it’s partnering with the Kochava Collective, the world’s largest independent mobile data marketplace. Foursquare tells Localogy that this will embolden its mission to enhance marketers’ first-party intelligence with real-world location data.
More specifically, this deal brings Foursquare additional data by which to segment audiences. This is a branch of location-based mobile ad-tech known as audience targeting. It’s all about pinpointing individuals based on their psychographic profiles, which can be a function of the places they go.
That last part is where Foursquare already shines, given extensive and privacy-compliant mobile movement data. With the thesis that “you are where you go,” this is a powerful way to devise audience segments and profile users accordingly. It’s one of many arrows in Foursquare’s quiver.
Today’s deal strengthens that capability with additional data, which adds layers of meaning to the audience targeting exercise. To quantify that, Foursquare’s 800+ audience segments will be matched with Kochava Collective’s 400+ million device reach, including offline visitation data.
“Foursquare’s integration with the Kochava Collective data marketplace increases the already massive distribution of our location data into the platforms already used and trusted by our customers,” Foursquare CRO Rob Jonas told Localogy. “Kochava can now further activate the SDK already embedded within customers’ mobile apps to run real-time match tests and seamlessly perform 1st party data enrichment with our Audiences.”
From Info to Insights
One beneficiary of such data, according to Foursquare, is brand marketers who want insights about their customers. Tracking their behavior in a location/movement sense can reveal info that can then be cultivated into insights about everything from product positioning to availability.
The endgame here is a combination of customer acquisition and retention. The former can be achieved through “look-alike” profiling to target prospective customers. And the latter is all about insights to better serve existing customers and maintaining their loyalty in a data-backed way.
Practically speaking, one way all of the above could play out for a given brand is understanding customers’ “visitation journey.” What media do they encounter in the path to a store visit? Knowing that can inform several aspects of marketing campaigns to speak to new and prospective customers.
For a few other examples, features will include (verbatim from Foursquare):
Location-Based Audiences: Identify and segment audiences based on interests and behavioral patterns extrapolated from geo visitation. Discover new ways to increase overall retention and intent to convert.
First-Party Audience Enrichment: Layer location visitation data on top of your internal first-party data to better understand brick-and-mortar brand affinity among your users.
Tailored Omni-channel Approach: Curate specific cross-media campaigns to connect your core users with relevant messaging on their preferred channel to increase overall user lifetime value.
We’ll keep watching to see how this plays out in practice, and how Foursquare continues to beef up its capabilities to continue layering in new meaning and insights to the art of location data.
