It’s a known fact that mobile location-based advertising (LBA) is booming, helping users find nearby businesses while at the same time helping brands reach new customers. According to a new research report from Berg Insight, the total global value of this market will grow from 526 million EUR in 2012 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 65% to 6.5 billion EUR in 2017. This will then correspond to 32.8% of all mobile advertising and marketing, representing around 5% of digital advertising, or more than 1% of the total global ad spend for all media.
The appeal of mobile location-based ads is obvious – companies get to precisely target prospective customers using real-time location, making it a viable channel for both major corporations (which are still the biggest ad spenders) and small businesses.
The “problem” (if it’s a problem at all) is that the LBA value chain is still forming and there are a large number of players involved in the fragmented ecosystem. Companies range from LBA specialists such as Verve, Placecast and xAd, to LBS players like Telmap, Telenav and Waze, and operators such as AT&T, SFR and the new UK joint venture Weve. Furthermore, there’s an abundance of location-aware applications and media which serve geo-targeted ads, including Foursquare, Shopkick and SCVNGR.
But that’s not all – we also have coupons and deals providers like Vouchercloud, Yowza!! and COUPIES; search solutions such as Yell and Yelp; and proximity marketing providers like Proxama, NeoMedia and Scanbuy. Finally, let’s not forget a number of traditional mobile advertising players which are also active in the LBA space, for example Millennial Media, Madvertise and Nexage; as well as major digital and telecom players like Google, Apple and Facebook…