Location-based ad accuracy beats scale with Vicinity Media

Local Vicinity Media has created an infographic proving how it outperforms Google’s Display Network (GDN) across multiple sectors, at over 70% better in some cases. That’s not an unsubstantiated claim from the company that launched location-based mobile advertising in SA almost three years ago. They’ve grown close on 80% year-on-year to this point, with blue-chip brands across the QSR, banking, motor, cell and retail sectors as well as some of the country’s largest publishers as clients, as well as a second office with four employees in Dubai since mid-2015 and another office opening in Cape Town in January.

Team Vicinity Media.

Explaining their rapid innovation over the years based on client needs, Clarence says Vicinity Media has proven it can go up against global giants like Google and Facebook, who take an estimated 60% of every global marketing dollar, according to the Adtech Conference held in New York in early November.

Winning the ultimate David vs Goliath battle

But Clarence says bigger isn’t always better, or even more cost-effective. To test this, they compared Google Display Network’s (GDN) CTR statistics as published on Wordstream's website, comparing them to the same sectors across Vicinity Media's location-based mobile network over the months of August and September.

The results were surprising: Despite not running campaigns across all the same sectors, Vicinity Media found they delivered over 66% more clicks than GDN from the same number of impressions in the retail sector for example, and as the real estate sector is location-focused at heart, it produced over 70% more click-throughs than the equivalent number of impressions would on GDN.

So, while Google is undoubtedly a Goliath in this regard, Clarence reveals that Vicinity’s specific differentiators in their arsenal as the ‘David’ in this battle include true and accurate location targeting, premium ad units and formats, premium publishers, and location optimisation, which is used to generate “location-enhanced rich media communication that is both relevant and engaging”.

Watch the short video explaining how Vicinity Media's bringing a 'relevance and engagement revolution' to advertising below:

Clarence elaborates further below…

1. Share a brief overview of the GDN for the non-techies among us and why this is such an impressive achievement.

Clarence: GDN is Google’s Display Network, a network of publishers/mobisites across whose inventory advertisers can bid to display their ads to target specific audiences to maximise relevance and thus performance (CTR). It’s the biggest mobile network and works like Adwords, except it’s based on display, not search. Google claims to target over 2 million sites, while Vicinity has just 50 in its publisher network, so 50 publishers outperforming 2 million is like a school with 50 kids beating a school with 2 million kids at rugby. So Vicinity, with its limited inventory resource came out on top – sort of like New Zealand’s All Blacks, with their tiny population outperforming the rest of the world for decades!

2. Why are there so many irrelevant, wasted ad views and what can be done to minimise them and ensure a more captivated, relevant audience is reached?

Clarence: Unlike above-the-line ads or ATL, there’s no limit of digital ad space. Publishers can simply activate a new ad unit or a new page and multiply their inventory. Due to the ability to buy this inventory programmatically, and the massive supply, it’s becoming cheaper and cheaper to do so. This allows advertisers to buy at huge scale across the web, leading to those wasted or irrelevant views. For example, clients will target an audience across GDN but have no idea where the ads are actually ending up. The major characteristic of the mobile phone is that it changes location constantly – our targeting ensures clients can tap into this critical character of mobile phones.

3. That’s hugely important on our mobile-first continent. Share the mobile advertising trends you predict will dominate in 2017.

Clarence: Video will grow on mobile as it has across desktop, we can expect branded content as a new native ad unit, as well as a little bit of VR and of course location.

Seems going back to basics and focusing on mobile ‘location, location, location’ is a winning strategy after all. Click here to view the 'Vicinity Media vs Google' infographic, here for more from Clarence and the Vicinity Media team, and be sure to follow Vicinity Media on Twitter to keep up with their latest updates.