Beware - location-based advertising is already in Kenya

Think about it. Which ad is more likely to score a sale? A tantalising beer advert that’s served up to a consumer walking past a bar, or the same ad that plays to someone already in their pajamas on the couch at home? It’s a no-brainer, right? You would think it would be easy - Advertise to a target audience based on where they are - but in reality, it’s far more complicated and we see limited examples in Kenya.

Thanks to global innovations, a few Kenyan marketers are now leveraging real-time data to better target consumers based on where they go. They are effectively measuring how digital ads drive foot traffic into stores, and even connect the consumer journey from ad exposure to store visit to purchase data. Location-based marketing has the potential of becoming a massive industry. It allows marketers to leverage the consumer obsession with mobile devices to create significant amounts of location data and insights.

One company that has seized the opportunity in Kenya is iProspect. iProspect is a global, media agency that drives digital performance for many of the world’s largest brands. Over the past nine months, their Kenyan office’s top priorities have been payments, beacons and coupons. It collects location data that’s both “explicit” and “implicit,” meaning there are Facebook and Instagram check-ins, but there are also indirect location data such as mentions, photos, and geo-fences on other social networks. In other words, if you make your location known publicly online in Kenya, you’re ripe for an iProspect ad. The company aggregates around 63 million location data entries a month, the majority of which are implicit from five million unique users.

Location-based mobile advertising has started working wonders for few early adopters in Kenya. Companies can no longer afford to ignore the power of location data, and marketers that are slow to adopt location intelligence will soon be trounced by their competitors. Better location targeting means less time and money wasted on sending your message to people who literally couldn’t care less about it.

For consumers, location-based ads mean less noise and more relevant content. Ads containing offers and promotions for nearby stores and products provide real value for shoppers, transforming an ad from a potential nuisance into something consumers may be grateful to receive.