Advertising Insiders Talk Location Intel

While AI and retail media dominated a recent Advertising Week conference, a different conversation was brewing among some industry insiders: the importance of location intelligence in reaching customers and improving advertising effectiveness.

As brands like Home Depot and PepsiCo gathered, forward-thinking executives shared how geographic data is transforming their approach to customer engagement.

Innovative marketing leaders at Fortune 500 companies are using geographic information system (GIS) technology to glean insights from anonymous demographic, psychographic, and human-movement data and deliver precision-targeted campaigns.

For Scott Moran, head of product at Ampersand, a TV advertising sales company owned by Comcast, Charter Communications, and Cox Communications, GIS helps ensure messages reach the right audiences within a designated market area (DMA).

For Ricky Cadden, director of digital strategy at Balcom Agency, a full-service marketing firm, location analysis creates value for clients by furnishing a deeper understanding of consumer habits and media appetites.

Hear what Moran and Cadden had to say about turning location intelligence into competitive advantage in these excerpts from their Advertising Week panel discussion.

Understanding Messaging and Advertising Effectiveness Through Location

The 19th-century retailer John Wanamaker famously said that half of ad spending is wasted; the trouble is figuring out which half. Location analysis helps marketers unravel this knot.

Maps can show where key customer segments are concentrated and which advertising campaigns targeted them. By overlaying a campaign’s performance metrics on the same map, agencies can understand advertising effectiveness and the ROI of media buys. As Cadden notes, this analysis can also inform targeted messaging based on business goals in different markets.

Grounding Client Conversations with a Map

Maps reveal what spreadsheets often hide—transforming raw data into visible patterns that spark insights and business opportunities.

As location-savvy marketers like Moran and Cadden have found, a single demographic map can trigger pivotal questions: Why are customers clustered here?  Are our highway billboards targeting an audience that prefers to bike? Where should we place ads to outmaneuver competitors?

GIS is designed to help businesses answer these questions, making it an effective tool in presales meetings. A firm empowered with location intelligence can deliver demographic and psychographic insight that makes the difference in closing a deal.

How Location Analysis Improves Efficiency and Impact Across the Enterprise

Organizing data on a smart map is a vital step in unlocking value for a marketing team. As Cadden points out, having GIS as a single source of authority on a client’s business locations can save time and reduce waste.

But that first step only scratches the surface of what location analysis can do for agencies. As GIS is increasingly adopted across the enterprise, marketers are using the technology to enrich data in platforms such as CRM, ERP, and BI systems.

For example, one health-care business gave its marketing team access to the demographic insights its real estate team used for site selection. By understanding which consumer segments were inclined to access its services in each area, the company’s marketing teams could tailor messages to urban professionals or young Midwestern families, expanding the brand’s reach.

Some analysts have speculated that the world of marketing and advertising could change as much in the next two years as it has in the last 10.

However much the industry changes, one truth remains: To deliver marketing that’s more effective than a coin flip, advertising pros need deep location intelligence about customers and their communities.