Data powers businesses of all kinds, and GroundTruth is no exception. But not all data is created equal. The accuracy, reliability, and overall quality of data can vary dramatically — and that can lead to very different marketing outcomes.
It’s for this reason that, as a company, we put so much emphasis on data at scale. Scale is incredibly important, because it’s what allows GroundTruth to be so selective about which data we use to support targeting efforts for our marketing partners’ campaigns.
The nature of data matters. And so does our approach to using it.
More Data Goes Further
The data we have access to is nothing if not comprehensive. We see 30 billion global visits annually, and have insight into activity on 2 out of 3 smartphones in the US every month.
With such massive amounts of data, we have the ability to be selective with which data we use to develop the most effective location marketing campaigns. Through our Location Determination technology, we check and filter through all of our data to ensure that the lat/longs we use are geo-precise. In the end, we only use a small percentage of the location data we actually receive.
Even minor errors in location boundaries can cause significant issues with audience definitions, and that can lead to inaccuracies. For example, the inclusion of MAIDs (mobile ad IDs) in audiences where they should not appear, or missing MAIDs from audiences that should include them, might result in wasted ad spend or missed business opportunities. This can be even more problematic when campaigns are run at scale.
Data Quality is Key
Data quality also impacts user privacy, which correlates with audience precision. It’s our policy to use MAIDs, which represent users’ devices and therefore the users themselves. Because MAIDs can be reset by the user any time, consumers are safeguarded. GroundTruth doesn’t track people or their personally identifiable information (PII).
Data quality is our foundation, and we take data accuracy and third-party verification very seriously. Location accuracy has improved dramatically over the past ten years, and evolved from inexact radial circles like the “blue dots” on Google Maps to more sophisticated mapping technology. This includes our own Blueprints, the only proprietary mapping technology designed specifically for location-based marketing.
Blueprints allows us to digitize the physical world in order to understand where the true boundaries of locations lie, and paint a clear picture of the MAIDs that have and have not entered those boundaries. Our mapping platform marries automation and a human touch. While many of our Blueprints are auto-generated, all are then evaluated, enhanced, and improved upon by our global team of dedicated Blueprinters.
The Added Perks of Data Accuracy and Scale
GroundTruth has been a leader in developing more refined ways of understanding location visits accurately and at scale. We’ve expanded our data quality efforts beyond mapping to provide our clients with the most precise data to help them reach their desired audience. This includes:
Store Hours. How frequently does the user visit a store? What are the store hours, and when did the visit take place? We only count visits that occur during open store hours.
Employee Status. Understanding employee status allows us to include or exclude employees from the audit.
Dwell Time. How long did the user spend in the store? We use dwell time to filter for inaccurate visits.
Speed. How fast was the user moving when we tracked their visit? If they’re moving faster than our speed threshold, we do not count the visit.
Horizontal Accuracy. What is the percent accuracy of the latitude/longitude we received? If the horizontal accuracy that falls within a mapped location is not higher than our percent threshold, we do not count the visit.
We want our marketing partners to know there’s more to data than meets the eye, and that data quality forms the foundation for all business results that GroundTruth drives for our clients and partners. Interested in speaking with us about our approach to data and scale? Contact our ad experts today.
