NAVTEQ announced a great expansion of its LocationPoint ad network with major new publishers jumping on board. Among the partners announced at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, we now find major location-service providers such as Appello, Co-Pilot Live, NAVIGON, Ndrive, Poynt and Telmap, as well as hardware makers like RIM and Samsung – which will serve location-based ads in their navigation and other LBS apps.
As a result, local businesses will be able to serve relevant ads to consumers nearby. These ads will be contained in-application and provide built-in calls to action like “click to navigate” when consumers are close to local advertised merchants for consumers to visit.
Consumers on their end shouldn’t mind spotting additional points of interest while driving, as ads will be served in a non-distracting and non-intrusive manner.
NAVTEQ has conducted trial and commercial campaigns on the LocationPoint ad network through 2010. As an example, the European effort for McDonald’s garnered 7% consumer click through rates and won an EMMA for Europe’s most-effective location-based mobile ad campaign.