How's your week going? Spring has arrived here on the East Coast, and pandemic-era restrictions are gradually lifting, so we're excited for the coming months. That being said, if you're using geolocation for ad-targeting, you may be sweating a bit more than you usually do this time of year. Which brings us to the primary theme of this week's Data Feed - Geolocation Data.

What is geolocation data? 
It is a signal of a person’s location at a certain point in time. This signal can come from tracing a landline phone (old school), an IP address, or a mobile phone’s GPS (the focus of this week's Data Feed).

What is it useful for?
Geolocation data from mobile phones is incredibly rich. Consider two use-cases: 

We’ve identified a few more use-cases here that specifically apply to commercial insurance and lending.

What’s changing?
The key issue with mobile geolocation data is user consent. If you’ve ever installed an app on your phone (iOS or Android) - you’re providing consent for location-based tracking (and tracking across other apps on the phone), unless you’ve specifically opted-out. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, there were already concerns about user consent and privacy, but they were put on hold because the data proved quite useful for social distance metrics and contact tracing. While the pandemic continues to rage in certain countries, Apple believes it’s time to put the user first again, by asking users to opt-in to tracking (both within app and across app activity).

What will be the impact?
The immediate disruption of these changes will be significant (Forbes provides an in-depth analysis). For audience-based targeting (a $400BN market), ad effectiveness will decline significantly. For visit-based tracking, the iOS portion of mobile panels may decline by a minimum of 40% initially. But there is a silver lining - first, Android users are currently unaffected and second, mobile data aggregators have historically been quite savvy at rebalancing and normalizing their panels. To learn more about this topic, tune into our joint webinar with Unacast tomorrow!

Other Recommended Feeds

900+ attributes to describe a property! (or watch the webinar) 
A wide-ranging conversation with HazardHub (a leading provider of property perils data) about the future of alternative data in the property space, and their key perils attributes.

Looking for contractor leads? Try Buildzoom 
Demyst discusses how to multisource B2B leads, with a special focus on Buildzoom, a recently onboarded vendor that operates a construction marketplace with an extensive database of verified contractors.

Alternative data for property insurance is taking off!
Demyst discusses the latest trends in property data and interviews the TensorFlight team to learn more about their geospatial data product that uses aerial imagery to assess attributes such as “distance to pool,” “roof condition,” and “distance to trees.”

Have a great rest of the week!

Prashant Reddy