Locala, a leading drive-to-store platform, announced today that they have entered into a partnership with zeotap, the global deterministic identity and data platform. The partnership will enable Locala to leverage zeotap’s deterministic audience segments and consumer insights on behalf of their clients for their drive-to-store campaigns across Europe, the US, Canada and LATAM.

Zeotap provides data from unique enterprise sources such as security companies and payroll providers.  It has access to more than one billion global unique profiles with ID-verified sociodemographic and raw app usage data as well as granular purchase intent data.  Thanks to this partnership, Locala can now provide a holistic understanding of consumers, allowing marketers to turn them into actionable insights in order to meet their business objectives.

“Partnering with zeotap provides us with audience segments based on real-world consumers and their behaviors. This coupled with our already hyper-precise location data and audience targeting capabilities will allow us to further reach the right audience at scale, ultimately driving incremental in-store visits on behalf of our clients.” said Stan Coignard, Americas CEO and Co-founder of Locala.

With access to zeotap’s deterministic audience insights mid and post-campaign, Fusio by Locala will be able to optimize strategies in real-time and further provide insights into in-store visitors as well as the engaged audiences within any advertising campaign – through the implementation of a lightweight pixel.

“Quality, transparency, and results are what we stand for. We want to help brand marketers all over the world achieve their objectives and better customer acquisition, cross/upselling and reduce churn. Our end-to-end digital solutions based on the highest quality data at scale allows us to do that. Through the partnership with Locala, we want to make this a reality and bring this data to the hands of any brand wanting to implement a holistic marketing strategy.” says Daniel Heer, CEO & Founder of zeotap.

At the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity 2019, Locala announced the results of the first worldwide study assessing the market share of drive-to-store advertising investments.

Commissioned as an independent research study from IHS Markit, The State of Drive-to-Store Advertising 2019 gives a thorough view of the evolution of drive-to-store ad spend, worldwide and by country, for the next four years.

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Have a look at this infographic to discover the key takeaways of the study!

For more information, and to access the full study, click here: The State of Drive-to-Store Advertising 2019.

The commissioned study, The State of Drive-to-Store Advertising 2019, shows that the worldwide share of drive-to-store investments for retailers will reach €55Bn. in 2019 – 58% of the total advertising spend for the industry. This investment is expected to reach 65% by 2023, or €75Bn., a 36% growth driven by digital-to-store spending.

On the occasion of Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, Locala, the Drive-to-Store specialist, announced they have commissioned an independent drive-to-store advertising research study from IHS Markit (Nasdaq: INFO), a world leader in critical information, analytics and solutions with over 15 years of advertising-sector expertise.

While many studies by media, format or method of purchase already exist, The State of Drive-to-Store Advertising 2019 is the first research study that assesses the size of the advertising market across all types of media from a drive-to-store campaign perspective. The study surveys 400 advertisers from all retail sectors in support of the market data and forecasts generated by IHS Markit.

Some key figures:

• In 2019, drive-to-store will represent €55Bn. for retailers, 58% of the industry’s total advertising budget globally.

• Automotive is the leading sector in drive-to-store investments with €15Bn. spent in 2018.

• In 2023, mobile will become the major format for drive-to-store investment, growing from 19% in 2018 to 26% in 2023 globally.

• The advertising impact, particularly on sales and the number of in-store visits, is the first factor that pushes retailers to invest in drive-to-store.

• Conversely, advertisers who do not measure the impact of their drive-to-store campaigns name their unfamiliarity with the technicalities of the measurement tools available on the market as the main reason for it.

Finding 1: Drive-to-store growth is led by digital

Generating in-store traffic has always been one of retail’s main goals, and advertisers are dedicating an increasingly greater part of their advertising strategy to it. Indeed, the world retail advertising market will reach €113Bn. by 2023, by which time more than half will be attributed to drive-to-store. This growth is strongly led by the digital-to-store, the leading media used by retailers to increase the number of in-store visits. As a matter of fact, in 2023, digital will represent 68% of worldwide drive-to-store spend as opposed to 54% in 2018.

Finding 2: Advertisers are increasingly looking for activations that can be measured and optimized in real time

The rise of digital-to-store can be explained by a growing demand for effective and measurable solutions. These new innovative solutions are a result of the staggering growth in mobile use and its technical specificities, especially when it comes to geolocation data, which enables brands to bridge the gap between the online and offline world. Therefore, the drive-to-store media mix will evolve tremendously in the coming years, led by mobile and social media, which are considered the two highest performing media channels to generate traffic in points of sales by the advertisers surveyed. Incidentally, by 2023, mobile will become worldwide retailers’ favorite channel, with the study forecasting that they will allocate 26% of their drive-to-store advertising spend to it. In comparison, the study forecasts that, overall, these same retailers will spend just 7% of their drive-to-store budget on press, 6% each on leaflets and radio and only 4% on Out-of-Home. Despite these figures, retailers will continue to use traditional media in their media mix to attract consumers to stores. They will, however, turn more heavily to digital solutions like on-demand TV, programmatic audio, and digital out-of-home.

Finding 3: Retailers want to measure the concrete impact of their drive-to-store strategy in stores, giving up more traditional media KPIs

The study shows that advertisers who set up a drive-to-store strategy are mainly looking for ways to measure the concrete impact generated in their points of sale. This way, the number of visits, particularly incremental visits, and sales in stores are the first key performance indicators (KPIs) mentioned by advertisers as a way to measure the impact of their drive-to-store strategy. Traditional media KPIs such as reach, repetition, click-through rate and impressions rank last.

Finding 4: Some sectors are more inclined to Drive-to-Store

Overall, there are significant levels of drive-to-store adoption among all retailers. However, levels of adoption vary from one country to another, which is why it is important to look at particular market dynamics. This is reflected by the Automotive industry which, although leading global drive-to-store spend in terms of revenue with over €20 billion by 2023, does not always come first in terms of shares country-wise. Notable country-specific trends include the strong performance of the Restaurant industry in France and CPG in Italy, where both will have more than a 95% share by 2023, far ahead of Automotive.

By 2023, three industries will stand out from the rest to lead the worldwide drive-to-store market. Automotive will come first (28%), followed by Grocery (26%) and Restaurant (19%), which will complete the triumvirate. When it comes to performance, digital media will drive growth across the retail ad market with a 66% share by 2023, up from 58% in 2018, with a focus on mobile. Indeed, the latter will grow its share of the drive-to-store market to reach 26% in 2023. However, social will be the fastest mover, doubling its share over the same period, going from 10% to 20% by 2023.

To access the full study, click here: The State of Drive-to-Store Advertising 2019

Locala, a leading drive-to-store platform announced today a strategic partnership with Tapad, a global leader in digital identity resolution, to provide its clients with a holistic view of anonymous customer journeys across digital devices. This move responds to a rising need in the industry as each customer’s path to purchase becomes increasingly complex. Studies have shown more than 80% of consumers conduct research on products both online, offline and on a variety of devices before completing a purchase.*

Locala is now the only player able to measure and optimize traffic for retailers across multichannel touch points including desktops and mobiles websites, as well as in physical stores. Consumer journey data coming out of these consumer environments should no longer be siloed. It is essential for retailers to keep up with shopping habits across multiple channels. Customers are still researching online prior to purchase and eventually buying offline.

The Tapad Graph™ provides privacy-safe digital identity resolution that, when integrated into Locala’s drive-to-store solution, will allow Locala clients to benefit from a holistic view of the consumer journey. This game-changing omni-channel view allows marketers to optimize experiences for audiences across multiple devices and channels, leading to a higher return on marketing spends.

“Advertising metrics should no longer be separated across the digital and physical worlds,” explains Christophe Collet, CEO of Locala. “Our clients can now fully benefit from insights on their customer behaviors both online and offline to better manage their media investments and optimize in the best performing channels.”

Digital cross-device measurement capability is key to helping advertisers leverage their customer’s mobile micro moments. Marketers can now cover the entire journey from display, video or audio inventories to in-store or online conversions. With this move, Locala can now provide holistic attribution models to their clients, allowing future opportunities for high-impact digital investments.

“We are very excited to partner with Locala as they expand into the digital cross-device landscape,” explains Tom Rolph, VP of EMEA at Tapad. “There is no doubt that there is a large market demand for better multi-channel attribution, and we are proud to be their partners by offering our pioneering digital identity resolution solutions that help solve marketers’ evolving needs.

*Google CEE and IPSOS – June 2018

About Tapad

Tapad, Inc. is a leader in digital identity resolution. The Tapad Graph™, and related solutions, provide a privacy-safe approach to connecting device identifiers to brand and marketer data, thereby allowing for enhanced measurement, attribution, reach and ROI of marketing campaigns. The Tapad Graph™ enables marketers around the world to maximize campaign effectiveness and drive business results. Tapad is recognized across the industry for its innovation, growth and workplace culture, and has earned numerous awards, including the TMCnet Tech Culture Award. Based in New York, Tapad also has offices in Chicago, London, Oslo, Singapore and Tokyo, and is a wholly owned subsidiary of Telenor Group.

Locala announces today the release of a pioneering global product feature, Uplift Trust, for its FUSIO by Locala platform. FUSIO by Locala is the first SaaS solution to optimize media investments in real-time for drive-to-store campaigns. The Uplift Trust feature is an industry first, allowing marketers to see if the in-store uplift rate of their campaign is statistically reliable.

The new indicator informs clients if there has been enough data generated by their digital advertising campaign to compute a relevant uplift rate, or if more people need to be reached in order to collect a sample significant enough to prove a trend. This is all done during the campaign, allowing marketers to adjust campaign parameters to gain better results.

The uplift rate of a campaign is a key figure that represents the increase of visitors in a physical store of an advertiser due exclusively to an advertising campaign, proving the campaign’s real impact. This proof that the uplift rate is statistically sound gives marketers further confidence in the efficacy of their digital advertising.

The uplift methodology is determined by comparing the total number of visits by the control group, or the non-exposed visitors, to those that were exposed to at least one of the ads and seen in-store post-view. If a marketer changes targeting capabilities during their campaign, the control group is dynamically optimized in real-time to ensure the comparison remains accurate and consistent.

Uplift rates are calculated using scientific methods to remove biases and provide objective insights but numbers may be statistically unreliable if the data gathered is only representative of a small sample of the population that could be potentially reached. A reliable trend is needed to prove that a drive-to-store campaign has actually brought more people into stores. Locala now provides this to marketers through Uplift Trust.

“At Locala we are committed to providing brand advertisers and media agencies with full transparency into all stages of their digital advertising campaigns,” Christophe Collet, CEO and Founder at Locala. “As the first in the industry to implement live uplift calculations within a digital platform, we are proud to now go one step further to offer transparency into uplift accuracy for drive-to-store campaigns with Uplift Trust.”

Read the news in English in The Drum, Lovely Mobile News and Business of Apps, in French in CB News, IAB France and the MMA, in Italian in Programmatic Italia and Daily Online, and in Spanish in La Publicidad and Marketing Directo.

Locala, Futurs.io, Dentsu Aegis Network’s digital performance agency iProspect, Smart, Mondadori MediaConnect, and Next (Altice) are launching the “Adschain Consortium” to address the persistent fraud in the programmatic supply chain. This ambitious alliance will apply blockchain technology to industry transactions to bring more transparency for all the stakeholders.

Online advertising fraud is estimated to cost the industry an annual loss of $17B USD. A source for this concern is the increasing number of intermediaries in the programmatic supply chain jumbled in between the publisher and the advertiser. This murky ecosystem depreciates the value for everyone and transparency is lost at each level of exchange.

Adschain Consortium is a project aiming to address this persistent concern and was inspired by recent efforts, like the Ads.txt, to standardize the industry. This initiative to leverage the blockchain technology will bring more security to the entire programmatic supply chain by making the intermediary actors for each impression transaction transparent.

The implementation is simple: advertisers can declare a list of authorized buyers and publishers can also communicate an official list of authorized resellers. These authorized agents can automate reference to this open ledger before any transaction to validate legitimacy. Both supply-side platforms and demand-side platforms have access to the same information to eliminate unauthorized sellers or buyers in the programmatic supply chain. This distributed ledger protocol will be based on Ethereum to provide more transparency, trust, security and traceability to the entire programmatic supply chain.

The success of any blockchain technology application rests on a proactive participation of all stakeholders. To build this proof of concept, the Adschain Consortium is currently selecting advertisers for test campaigns. The consortium is encouraging more active contributors and membership from across the online advertising supply chain to guarantee the success of this initiative.

Read the news in English from The Drum, Mobile Marketing Magazine and Marketing Dive and in French from IAB France, mind Media and CB News.

Ed Silhan joins Locala as the Chief Revenue Officer for North America, a new position based in the New York office.

Ed comes to Locala after almost 20 years of experience in the digital space at PayPal, eBay and most recently SITO Mobile where he participated in the dramatic growth of their revenue streams. In his new role, he will be responsible for leading the strategic increase in revenue and sales in the region.

“We’re excited to have Ed join the Locala family. He has a proven track record of being data-driven and tech-savvy while delivering results,” explains Locala CEO of the Americas, Stan Coignard. “He brings a mix of sales, marketing, and advertising expertise that will be pivotal in our continued growth in the Midwest and on the West Coast. The traction is here, and we found the best person to leverage it.”

Before joining Locala, Ed worked at Meredith Corporation for five years, starting as a Regional Manager before moving up to the position of National Advertising Director. He then became a Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Remedy Health Media where he oversaw the expansion into the consumer products market. At both Paypal and eBay, as Head of Advertising Solutions in the southeast region, Ed was responsible for optimizing the use of first-party commerce data to develop and manage cross-channel digital media programs for large enterprise clients. In his role as Executive Vice President, Head of Sales at SITO Mobile, he led their substantial increase in revenue as well as the development of their presence in the marketing technology industry.

“I’m beyond thrilled to join Locala, a global company that puts transparency at the top of its priorities while empowering brands throughout the user experience,” says Ed. “In the U.S. alone, marketers are expected to increase their spending on technology by 27% over the next four years. As the only mobile tech platform to be accredited by the Media Rating Council (MRC) across the entire mobile journey, Locala is perfectly positioned to help companies meet their digital advertising goals.”

Pierre Padiou, formerly heading the sales function in North America, has been promoted to Chief Operations Officer of the region.

Locala announces today the opening of its first Canadian office in Montreal. The expansion follows Locala raising $12 million in series B funding and demonstrates its commitment to growing globally.

Hadrien Bailly, a veteran in the mobile industry, will be leading the new team based in Montreal. Hadrien has been with Locala for over three years, first as a sales manager and then becoming head of sales for Locala’s UK office before moving into his most recent position as a senior mobile strategist. Before joining Locala, he held numerous client facing roles in the area of sales and business development, bringing almost ten years of experience to his new position as Head Of Country, Canada.

“Drive to Store campaigns are becoming increasingly strategic for advertisers and media agencies. It’s also true for Canada where mobile represents half of the digital budgets,” says Hadrien Bailly, Head of Country, Canada. “With so much opportunity here, I’m excited to say that it is the obvious choice for our third location in the Americas.”

With Locala’s continued growth as well as expansion into Canada, the company maintains its dedication to providing its clients with optimal technology that bridges the gap between digital advertising and the real world. Locala has over 160 employees and serves more than 600 advertisers worldwide with offices located in the USA, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America and now Canada.

Locala has completed a study analyzing the Cost Per Incremental Visit (CPIV) of more than a hundred marketing campaigns that aimed to increase in-store traffic. Using the proprietary data from the study allows Locala to be the first to provide CPIV benchmarks and to create a new online tool using this data to calculate the return on investment for drive-to-store campaigns.

Incremental Visits: The New Standard for Assessing Campaign Effectiveness

When establishing the impact of a digital campaign, the most important KPI for marketers is incremental visits to their point of sale. These are visits calculated using the uplift methodology that compares the number of visitors exposed to an ad to those in a similar group not exposed to the ad. Therefore, advertisers are only paying for visitors that are directly attributed to their campaign and not organic visitors or those influenced by other media. Due to its clear connection between digital ads and visits, the CPIV KPI is the new standard to measure the true impact of drive-to-store campaigns. However, until now, there was limited data available to provide CPIV benchmarks to marketers.

The World’s First CPIV Benchmarks

To address this issue, Locala has created the world’s first CPIV benchmarks of seven industries. After analyzing millions of ad impressions and store visits that occurred between January and July of 2018, Locala established average Cost Per Incremental Visit benchmarks. The study makes it clear that the price of an incremental visit to a store is directly correlated to the average purchase value of the industry as well as the frequency of purchase. For instance, we now know that the average CPIV for an industry with a high purchase frequency, such as a fast food chain, is only $3. However, the average CPIV is $75 for the automotive industry which also has one of the lowest purchase frequencies. Are advertisers receiving a solid return on their investment when paying for in-store traffic? Before this study, the answer was unclear.

Determine Drive-To-Store Campaign ROI Instantly

Locala created an exclusive online tool that uses the CPIV study’s data to allow retailers to estimate the potential return  on investment of a drive-to-store campaign. When  marketers enter their campaign’s allocated budget, the average purchase value and the conversion rate of the point of sale, the tool automatically calculates the projected campaign turnover and estimated return on investment. On Locala’s website, advertisers can access the free tool providing calculations in US dollars, euros and British pounds.

“Thanks to mobile, digital’s effect on the offline world is measurable. The first KPI that the market used to evaluate this impact was the cost per visit. However, it is now apparent that simply measuring visits has its limitations. These first CPIV benchmarks will allow brands to better understand and evaluate the real cost and value of a true incremental visit. Going beyond simply doing a study, we’ve decided to equip decision-makers with a tool to independently calculate their return on investment for their drive-to-store campaigns,” explains Christophe Collet, CEO and Founder of Locala.

Access The Drive-To-Store ROI Calculator exclusively on Locala’s website.

The news is also available in French on E-Marketing and in Italian on Programmatic Italia.

Locala announces its participation in Dmexco, a tradeshow bringing together key players in digital business, marketing and innovation. The event will be taking place September 12-13, 2018, in Cologne, Germany. During the event, Locala will be showcasing the latest version of FUSIO by Locala, its drive-to-store technology.

Marketers will have complete access to a handful of exciting new features that bridge online campaign investments with real-world results, such as incremental visits to stores. Visitors will have the chance to learn how the FUSIO by Locala platform is tackling geolocation, measuring effectiveness and the fragmentation of the advertising campaign process.

“Attending the most important European technology event of the year, Dmexco, is a must for Locala. With the new version of FUSIO by Locala, we are responding to a real need on the part of media agencies and advertisers: having a single interface allowing them to manage online and off-line drive-to-store campaigns in complete autonomy,” explains Christophe Collet, Founder of Locala.

The Locala Product Team will be on-site providing live demos of FUSIO by Locala’s exclusive drive-to-store features.

Geotargeting and Location Data Accuracy

Currently, a geolocation campaign is based on a radius placed around a point of sale. These geotargeting zones may include places such as schools, hospitals or uninhabited areas lacking any potential clients for the advertiser. Locala has developed an exclusive feature, Dynamic Catchment Areas, to define a point-of-sale geotargeting zone according to the time required to reach the location on foot or by car and geographic areas of mobile users who have a high affinity with a brand.

The quality of the geotargeted campaign depends on the GPS coordinates of devices. In programmatic, these coordinates are sent by the publisher within the bid request. It is therefore essential to verify and validate the accuracy of the data, all in a few milliseconds. To identify and exclude fraudulent GPS coordinates, Locala has developed GeoAccuracy®. This feature allows the user to filter out suspicious X-Y coordinates, including those of IP addresses or uninhabited areas.

Incremental In-store Visits

Although assessing the effectiveness of a drive-to-store campaign based on its in-store traffic is not enough, it continues to be a common industry practice.  Often these total visits can include organic visitors of a brand, who go to the point of sale without having seen the brand’s advertisement. To guarantee additional visits are in response to an advertiser’s campaign, Locala offers the only advertising platform in the world able to measure and optimize in real-time the incremental visits to stores, generated by the users exposed to a message. This data feeds an artificial intelligence algorithm to optimize media investments. The optimization is based on the parameters that generate the most incremental visits, such as creative formats, specific targeting areas or publishers.

Campaign Management Fragmentation

Lastly, today most of the advertising technology remains highly fragmented. Due to its complexity, the process can be difficult, slow and lacking transparency for trading desks and advertisers. FUSIO by Locala is the first SaaS drive-to-store full-stack technology to resolve these issues.  FUSIO by Locala offers users not only the option to independently manage advertising campaigns but also the capability to do so with ease, speed and transparency.

“Technologies that can attribute and optimize digital campaigns based on real world measures, such as store visits, mark a major shift for the advertising industry. Brands and advertisers can be more confident that their digital investments align with their ultimate business objective – generating more sales,” says Tom Cijffers, Chief Client Officer USA, MediaCom.

Locala launches a brand new KPI – the Cost Per Incremental Visit (CPIV). Marketers will only pay for additional visits into stores generated by online campaign impressions. Brands can be sure that their drive-to-store results exclude organic visitors and are only measuring visits generated directly as a result from digital campaigns.

For digital marketers, it is imperative to attribute online media investments to real-world impacts into stores. In late 2016, Locala first introduced the CPLP (cost-per-landing-page) to charge advertisers based on incremental visits into e-shops directly from online impressions. The new CPIV KPI goes even further to boost incremental visits into real world stores for retailers and marketers. Moreover, this KPI is tailored for each advertiser based on their industry, campaign period, and existing brand awareness.

The traditional cost-per-visit (CPV) ad model is already an industry standard, however this is not a holistic indicator of digital campaign efficiency. Measuring the total number of visits into a store can include organic customers or those who may have been inclined to visit based on other channels like TV, radio, print or out-of-home. Locala’s CPIV KPI addresses this challenge by identifying and charging incremental visits generated into stores exclusively from online campaigns. Differentiating incremental visits is possible because FUSIO by Locala is the only ad tech platform with the capacity to measure and optimize visit uplifts into stores in real-time.

However, the true cost per each additional visit into physical stores can vary across advertisers and target consumers. Locala’s CPIV takes this into account with a unique machine learning algorithm in the FUSIO platform. Advertisers can choose to measure store visits from various 3^rd-party independent actors already integrated into the FUSIO technology. The platform’s AI capabilities calculate and optimize campaigns in real-time by comparing between groups of exposed and non-exposed users. Ultimately, the goal is to optimize towards the best footfall uplift and analyze user behavior by adjusting high-performing parameters like targeting vicinities, creative formats, publisher lists, and device types. Locala provides each advertiser with a tailored CPIV pricing to generate store visit uplifts in the real-world or online.

“A drive-to-store strategy that can boost visits into a point of sale from an online campaign presents huge potentials for retailers to boost revenues. However, each visit comes at a price that should not be fixed across the board. For example, the true cost of an incremental visit for a fast-food chain is not the same as the visit of a potential car buyer into a dealership,” explains Christophe Collet, CEO of Locala. “Focusing on incremental visits is a revolutionary shift for marketers and will surely become the new KPI for the industry.”

Read this news on Ad Tech Daily
Press coverages in French on CBNews &  eMarketing
Press coverages in Italian on Advertiser & Programmatic Italia
Press coverage in Spanish on La Publicidad

Locala announced last week that it has joined the IAB Tech Lab to be an actively engaged member in driving mobile-first initiatives from the independent consortium. The IAB Tech Lab is made up of digital publishers, ad technology firms, marketers, agencies and companies from around the world with interests in the interactive marketing arena.

Locala is one of the few mobile-native demand-side platform (DSP) players among the IAB Tech Lab members and will aim to help the consortium put forward more in-app specific technical standards for the digital advertising industry.

“In recent times, we are seeing the digital advertising industry maturing in strides, our industry remains a wild west in need of specific and evolving technical standards,” explains Pierre Wurmser, Chief Product Officer at Locala. “Bringing forward dedicated technical guidelines for in-app environments will ensure a more sustainable and scalable digital ad ecosystem for every stakeholder.”

One initiative that Locala is looking to put in the spotlight is a standardized norm for image ratios of native in-feed ad formats. Publishers have various editorial sizes and there are differences between device types and operating systems. Native ad placements are not at all uniform across in-app environments. Standardizing technical specifications will help to address viewability and fraud concerns plaguing the marketplace with the possibility of universal measurements. Initiatives to put forward standardized technical specifications for mobiles will encourage more monetization and opportunities to scale up in the ecosystem. The “Mobile App Support for Ads.txt” released by the IAB Tech Lab last week is a clear sign that the industry needs more dedicated specifications for the mobile app landscape.

“We welcome Locala into the IAB Tech Lab. Our members are key to advancing our mission of enabling sustainable growth of the global digital media ecosystem, especially as we transition into the post-GDPR era.” says Dennis Buchheim, Senior Vice President and General Manager, IAB Tech Lab.

Locala remains committed to independent and collective efforts to mature the digital advertising landscape. Most recently, the company also joined the GDPR Transparency and Consent Framework put forward by IAB Europe and IAB Tech Lab. Locala is now proudly among the list of registered Vendors & CMPs.

Read this news in Mobile Marketer
Press coverages in French on the UDA  & Mobile Marketing Association France websites

Locala today announced that it has raised $12M USD in a Series B round from Sofiouest with participation from existing investors Bpifrance and Entrepreneur Venture. The company launched their platform, FUSIO by Locala, in February this year, in SaaS and will now accelerate their technology developments with an ambitious focus on proprietary real-time features to measure traffic and sales into stores. This funding is part of Bpifrance’s Investments for the Future Programme (Programme d’investissement d’Avenir) from its dedicated Digital Ambitions Fund (Fonds Ambition Numérique).

Locala’s proprietary technology was created towards the end of 2011 by Christophe Collet, after his first start-up Adenyo, was sold to Motricity in a US$100M deal. Today, the French start-up has expanded into an international group with eight offices worldwide and 160 employees. The company works with global brands including Renault, L’Oréal, Pernod Ricard, Subway, and Levi’s, as well as leading global media agencies. Each year, Locala delivers more than 5000 campaigns to demonstrate digital advertising efficiency for its clients by measuring real-world store visits following online exposure.

E-commerce remains a critical channel for brands and retailers to generate sales. However, 90% of worldwide consumer transactions are still taking place in physical points of sales. Traditional media channels like radio, out-of-home, and print advertising is estimated at $365 Billion USD* this year, combined with digital ad spending worldwide, valued at $266 Billion USD*. Despite the continued growth in both channels, attribution models to evaluate true returns on media investments are lagging behind. FUSIO by Locala, the company’s technology platform, aims to bridge online and offline investments by delivering real-world metrics attributed from digital advertising campaigns. The platform displays foot traffic into stores in real-time, hence enabling data-driven online optimization to maximize the overall campaign performance.

FUSIO by Locala is the advertising platform with the most independent 3^rd-party measurement integrations in the market. “Our store visit metrics are delivered by various partners to ensure that we are not judge and jury on our campaign results and effectiveness,” explains Christophe Collet, CEO of Locala. “Clearly the industry is shifting paradigms in terms of attributing media ROIs and this new funding will allow us to be at the forefront of this disruption.”

In addition to displaying incremental store visits in the platform as a direct result from online impressions, the company recently launched Dynamic Catchment Areas (DCA). This is a unique feature to power drive-to-store campaigns by geotargeting users based on their brand affinity and travel distance into store on foot or by car. This Series B funding will continue to fuel technology development with a focus on expanding the platform’s AI-based features and growing sales in the United States. Ultimately, Locala has set their sights on going beyond store visits to eventually measuring and displaying consumer purchases in stores directly in the platform in real-time.

“Technologies that can attribute and optimize digital campaigns based on real world measures, such as store visits, mark a major shift for the advertising industry. Brands and advertisers can be more confident that their digital investments align with their ultimate business objective – generating more sales. Financial investment in this space, to improve accuracy and quality, will be welcomed by the advertising community,” says Tom Cijffers Chief Client Officer, USA at MediaCom. 

Locala is projecting a revenue target of US$100 million by 2020. “Digital innovation is at the heart of our investment strategy,” explains Patrice Hutin, CEO of Sofiouest. “Drive-to-store solutions define the future of retail and we are confident that Locala and its technology, FUSIO, will be a worldwide game changer in the industry.” Existing investors, Bpifrance and Entrepreneur Venture adds “We are excited to continue our support for Locala, this time in partnership with Sofiouest. In these past years, Locala’s management has proven their ability to achieve both their technical and commercial roadmaps together with an international expansion.”

*Worldwide Ad Spending Report eMarketer Forecast, September 2017

Read this news in Mobile Marketer, Mobyaffiliates & IAB Singapore.
Press coverages in French on Le Figaro, Stratégies & Frenchweb.
Press coverages in Italian on Programmatic Italia & Advertiser.it.
Press coverage in Spanish on LaPublicidad.

Locala announces a new data partnership to provide clients with more foot traffic measurement options within their drive-to-store campaigns. This integration with adsquare lets FUSIO by Locala users see and access hourly updates of incremental store visits directly generated from their mobile campaigns. Marketers can optimize campaign budgets in real-time based on the best performing parameters to boost visits from mobile ad impressions.

This integration comes on the heels of the recent integration with Factual to provide clients with more options to complement their drive-to-store campaigns. With FUSIO by Locala, marketers have the peace of mind that their campaign effectiveness measurements, such as impressions, clicks and incremental visits; are impartial and double verified. This integration will be live this summer.

“We are committed to impartial measurements and transparency for our platform, FUSIO by Locala. To achieve this, we continue to seek out strategic third-party measurement integrations with reliable industry actors,” explains Christophe Collet, CEO of Locala. “This partnership with adsquare and their store visit metrics adds to our growing list of partners, giving our clients more options when running drive-to-store campaigns with Locala.”

Locala announces today its renewed Media Rating Council (MRC) accreditation for HTML5 mobile web and in application display and rich media Served Impressions, Clicks, and post-click metrics including Installs, Opens and Landings. Today, the company remains the only platform accredited by MRC for app installs and opens, and continues to advocate for advertisers to choose accredited metrics as success indicators for all mobile campaigns.

“We are proud to continue our MRC accreditation, certified metrics is one of the foundations of our technology, and key for us to remain the trusted partner for major brands and agencies,” says Christophe Collet, CEO of Locala. “We are still unique in the market with post-ad metrics for mobile campaigns and are committed to providing this transparency for the industry.”

To inform and provide advertisers with clear visibility into their mobile campaign measurements, Locala’s technology will now deliver cautionary statements to the advertisers when their campaigns are are being tracked with non-compliant methods (non-HTML5 traffic). Besides from distinguishing compliant and non-compliant traffic in the platform, Locala is taking a proactive position to inform clients when the chosen tracking method will likely include a high degree of general invalid traffic (GIVT). The goal is to be proactive and transparent with mobile campaigns so clients have full understanding of their campaigns results and potential risks.

“We congratulate Locala for its industry leadership in bringing greater transparency and quality to mobile measurement,” stated George W. Ivie, Executive Director and CEO of MRC.  He added, “This is especially evidenced by Locala’s MRC-accredited post-click metrics, which go beyond current industry minimum standards to shed additional light on consumer actions after the measured click occurs.”Locala is dedicated to educating advertisers about different tracking methods from publishers and the benefits of javascript tracking versus pixel tracking. Furthermore, the company’s impression and landing page measurements go beyond the industry’s ‘begin-to-render’ standard and is counted when impressions and landing pages have rendered plus one second. To retain MRC accreditation, Locala undergoes an annual review through an intensive independent CPA auditing process.

About MRC

The Media Rating Council is a non-profit industry association established in 1963 comprised of leading television, radio, print and digital media companies, as well as advertisers, advertising agencies and trade associations, whose goal is to ensure measurement services that are valid, reliable and effective.  Measurement services desiring MRC accreditation are required to disclose to their customers all methodological aspects of their service; comply with the MRC Minimum Standards for Media Rating Research as well as other applicable industry measurement guidelines; and submit to MRC-designed audits to authenticate and illuminate their procedures. In addition, the MRC membership actively pursues research issues they consider priorities in an effort to improve the quality of research in the marketplace. Currently approximately 110 research products are audited by the MRC. Additional information about MRC can be found at www.mediaratingcouncil.org.

Read the news from the MMA US, in French on E-Marketing, in Spanish on La Publicidad, and in Italian on Programmatic Italia.

FUSIO by Locala announced today the integration with Triton Digital®,the global technology and services leader to the digital audio industry, of its audio advertising marketplace, a2x®. This partnership provides Locala clients with programmatic audio inventories combined with the possibility to define dynamic geolocation targeting and footfall measurements in brick and mortar stores.

“Audio advertising remains a key channel for retailers given the rise of music streaming and podcast consumption, and digital audio advertising spend is projected to see double-digit growth worldwide,” explains Stanislas Coignard, US CEO at Locala. “We are thrilled to be integrated with the a2x® marketplace, which enables advertisers using FUSIO by Locala to geo-target their digital audio messages, as well as measure important KPIs like completion rates and footfall visits into points-of-sales.”

Following this integration, FUSIO by Locala is the only platform that can bridge digital audio advertising campaigns with real-world visits in stores. For retailers, this is a game-changing feature to geo-localize potential shoppers in store proximities with branded digital audio messages. Marketers can truly evaluate their digital media impact by measuring store visits generated from their digital audio ad campaigns.

“Brands are continuously seeking native, immersive ways of connecting with their target audience, and the mobile-first, one-to-one, non-skippable nature of digital audio makes it a powerful vehicle to do so with,” said Benjamin Masse, Managing Director, Market Development and Strategy at Triton Digital.  “We are pleased to provide FUSIO by Locala clients with the ability to add digital audio to their media mix for the first time.”

The global audio marketplace, a2x®, is the world’s first programmatic buying marketplace for digital audio. The industry-leading marketplace enables buyers to execute highly targeted and brand safe audio ad buys across a highly engaged digital audience.

About Triton Digital

Triton Digital® is the global technology and services leader to the digital audio and podcast industry.  Operating in more than 40 countries, Triton Digital provides innovative technology that enables broadcasters, podcasters, and online music services to build their audience, maximize their revenue, and streamline their day-to-day operations. In addition, Triton Digital powers the global online audio industry with Webcast Metrics®, the leading online audio measurement service, that makes it easy for advertisers and brands to determine the best destination and time to reach their target audiences. Through unparalleled integrity, excellence, teamwork, and accountability, Triton Digital remains committed to connecting audio, audience, and advertisers to continuously fuel the growth of the global online industry. 

Read the news on BusinessWire.
Find the news in Italian – Programmatic Italia, in Spanish – La Publicidad, in French – CB News.

Locala announces today moves by senior leadership for offices in the US. Stanislas Coignard, previously Chief Strategy Officer at Locala’s headquarters in Paris, France, will now take over the leadership of the company’s expansion in the Americas as US CEO.

Stanislas Coignard co-founded Locala with Global CEO, Christophe Collet in 2011 and has been leading the company’s strategy since. He will oversee Locala’s operations in the US and LATAM markets. To meet this growth, he will also be doubling the teams for both the New York and Miami offices in 2018.

“Our technology, FUSIO by Locala, brings a compelling value proposition to the market as the only platform that can attribute digital media investments with real-world impact,” explains Stanislas Coignard, US CEO of Locala. “I am confident that our solution, founded on transparency and independent 3^rd-party accreditations, like the MRC, is a huge advantage for marketers in a hyper competitive landscape.”

Pierre-Emmanuel Padiou, a company insider, is also moving from Locala’s head office in France to the New York office as Head of Sales East Coast. Previously, he held various roles within the company ranging from VP Sales France and VP Sales EMEA. He has a successful track record of driving growth and development for Locala into five key European markets. He will now spearhead the growth of Locala’s customer base and build key relationships for the company’s development across the Atlantic.

Read the news in AdTech Daily, MarTech Series & Mobile Marketer

James Rogers joins the company as Managing Director for the Asia Pacific (APAC) region and will be based in Locala’s Singapore office.

Following five successful years at InMobi across two continents, James will now lead Locala’s APAC activities with a focus on growth acceleration and solidifying the company’s presence in an increasingly competitive marketplace.

“James joins the company with an accomplished track record of driving sales and business partnerships in APAC,” explains Christophe Collet, Locala CEO. “I am excited to welcome James on-board as we continue to expand and enter into a new growth stage.”

Prior to joining Locala, James was the Head of Sales at InMobi for the Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam markets. He first started in the UK and eventually relocated to Singapore in 2015. James played an instrumental role in developing key relationships for InMobi’s commercial team over the span of five years. Before relocating from the UK, James led the mobile sales strategy at Telegraph.co.uk and launched the publisher’s first mobile and tablet apps.

“As consumer’s media consumption in the region continue to be dominated in mobile, Locala’s offer for advertisers is more relevant than ever before,” explains James. “I am thrilled to be a part of the team and lead our fast-growing team in Singapore.”

Locala announces today the appointment of Andy McNab as the first UK Managing Director. He will lead the expansion of Locala’s activities in the UK with a strong focus on driving sales growth in the region and managing the enlarging team.

“We are excited to welcome Andy to the company. UK is one of our most important markets in Europe with considerable growth prospects,” says Christophe Collet, CEO of Locala. “I am confident that he will continue to grow Locala in the UK, increase our client engagements, and solidify our position in the market.”

Andy is an industry veteran with nearly two decades of experience in the digital advertising space. He won an IPA Media Owner Award and was namedCommercial Director of the Year in 2014. Prior to joining Locala, Andy led Rocket Fuel’s growth in the UK for more than six years starting as Managing Director and later promoted to VP of UK, Australia, and Nordics. He also held the position of Agency Director at AOl for four years and has spent nearly a decade as Sales Manager at MSN.

“I am delighted to be joining the company and leading the fast-growing team in London,” says Andy. “Locala has a breakthrough technology for marketers with ongoing innovation, it will be an exciting challenge to make sure the company stands out in a very competitive business environment.

Find the news in Mobile Marketing Magazine, MarTech Series, & Mobile Marketer

Locala welcomes Nicolas Saraiva Da Silva as Head of Partnerships at headquarters in Paris, France. This new addition to the team comes in parallel with several strategic partnerships for the company.

Prior to joining Locala, Nicolas was based in London for the past three years, working within the Mozoo Group. He joined Mozoo in 2012 and has held various positions ranging from Traffic Manager to Head of Product & Innovation. His primary mission at Locala will be to grow the company’s partnership network with strategic programmatic players, data partners, measurement services, SSPs and premium publishers in the industry.

“I am excited to be joining Locala to spearhead new partnership initiatives for our technology and our clients. I believe that expanding our partnerships is key to empower marketers with more choices and flexibility in their mobile campaigns,” explains Nicolas Saraiva Da Silva. “Our technology stands out in the industry because of our open and agnostic approach.”

Earlier this year, Locala joined forces with Integral Ad Science, to make their viewability measurements available to the platform’s users. In addition to this, the company partnered with Factual to offer near real-time measurements of foot traffic in physical shops from online mobile campaigns. Finally, the company also started working with Zvelo to combat ad fraud with a sophisticated invalid traffic (SIVT) dataset filtration.

Read the news in Mobile Marketer

See the announcement in French on CB News, Offre Media, Stratégies, Air of Melty & Pub Digitale .

Locala announces a global partnership with Integral Ad Science, the measurement and analytics company that empowers the advertising  industry. FUSIO, Locala’s full stack programmatic platform, is now integrated with viewability measurement by IAS.

Locala clients worldwide can now benefit from IAS’s industry leading viewability measurement on the FUSIO campaign dashboard. IAS’ viewability solution is accredited by the MRC for mobile browser viewability measurement. This new partnership will complement Locala’s service, which is separately MRC accredited for served impressions, clicks, landings, app opens and installs.

“Viewability is a critical concern in mobile campaigns; this is why we are partnering with Integral Ad Science to make their measurement available to our clients. Brands now have access to additional metrics from another MRC accredited provider, and a more in-depth view into their campaigns,” explains Christophe Collet, CEO of Locala. “Reliable and validated metrics are the foundations for efficient and impactful mobile campaigns.”

“We are excited to join forces with Locala to further improve quality and transparency for mobile campaigns,” says Nick Morley, Managing Director, EMEA at Integral Ad Science. “Viewability is becoming a must-have standard in the mobile market, as is the case for desktop campaigns today. Integrating viewability measurement is a trend where we will see other players from the mobile ecosystem follow suit.”

Read the news in MarTech Series.

Locala continues expanding activities in Europe with a new office in Madrid, Spain since early 2017. After only 6 brief months, our Spanish office is already working with more than 15 advertisers and major media agencies in the market. Leading this expansion is Maxime Noizat, Country Manager of Locala Spain. Maxime started his career in London at ZenithOptimedia and joined Locala in 2014.

“At the time our Paris head office was a team of less than 50 people justexpanding our activities in France and only just picking up our international expansion,” explains Maxime Noizat.

“It is so amazing to see how our efforts have grown worldwide, and I am especially excited to be leading the expansion in Spain. Our growth doesn’t stop here, in the Madrid office alone we are looking to recruit 6 more talents by the end of the year”

Locala stands out from its competitors with a mobile-first full stack technology that can be adopted as a SaaS or managed service for media agencies and advertisers. Our technology is currently the only player that has been certified by the Media Rating Council for metrics on the entire mobile user journey. Our clients will only pay for accredited KPIs based IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau) and the MMA (Mobile Marketing Association) best practices.

Read the news in Spanish on La Publicidad.

Locala is now the first SaaS platform for mobile to measure in-store visit attribution for mobile campaigns worldwide.

Locala, a leading mobile programmatic technology company, announced today a partnership with location data provider Factual to integrate its location data in Locala’s FUSIO platform for clients worldwide.

FUSIO clients will be able to access Factual’s measurement offering, which enables advertisers to optimize against foot traffic during campaigns and derive post campaign conversion and lift metrics for attribution. Brands will now be able to understand how shoppers at various retail locations interacted with their mobile marketing campaigns, by measuring in-store footfall and ad engagement on a daily basis.

“Mobile is the only channel that can help brands bridge their online and offline marketing efforts – this partnership will give our clients a sophisticated level of location based audience targeting capability as well as live insights into their campaigns and optimise budgets accordingly,” explains Christophe Collet, CEO of Locala. “Instead of extracting campaign learnings after the fact, advertisers can ensure their drive-to-store mobile campaigns are always successful and contribute to their overall business objectives.”

The partnership will also enable advertisers to access Factual’s Geopulse Audience targeting solution within the FUSIO DSP, empowering them to reach highly customized audience segments based on real-world consumer behaviour. Factual’s location data, including more than 100 million local businesses and points of interest worldwide, is now fully integrated into Locala’s mobile-first DSP. Brands have the flexibility to reach and target location-based audience categories and chains such as hotels, sports venues, and restaurants directly from the FUSIO DSP in self-service. These features will be fully available for clients via Locala’s platform on October 16th, 2017.

“Factual’s location data is neutral and accessible, and continually validated against rigorous criteria,” said Mandeep Mason, managing director of Europe, Factual. “As advertisers invest increasing budgets into location-based mobile marketing, they need to ensure they’re receiving access to high-quality and transparent targeting, optimization and measurement capabilities, which this partnership will aim to provide.”

Read this news on MarTech Series, or in French on
CB News, and in Italian on Daily Online.

zvelo, the leading provider of categorization services for web content, web traffic and web-connected devices, today announced that Locala – the mobile-native ad tech company providing a premium programmatic platform for advertisers and brands – has successfully deployed zvelo’s new Invalid Traffic (IVT) dataset to combat ad fraud.

The IVT dataset – part of zvelo’s comprehensive ad fraud solution that also includes the Free Bot Detection Service and Comprehensive Page-level Traffic (CPT) dataset – is a continuously updated feed of IPs recognized as sources of non-human and bot traffic (NHT). This traffic can include the activities of data centers, web crawlers, fake crawlers, and malicious bots. Implementing the IVT dataset, programmatic platform businesses such as Locala can effectively perform pre-bid blocking of NHT-based impressions, thereby eliminating wasteful spending into suspicious and fraudulent ad traffic afflicting mobile advertising campaigns today.

Locala is complementing existing FUSIO fraud traffic filtration based on IAB spider list and activity-based methodologies, with zvelo’s technology to reinforce its data center IP filtration. By partnering with zvelo’s IVT dataset, Locala can ensure that a media product or service employs valid, reliable, and effective audience measurements. Sophistication of the platform’s fraud detection capabilities is one of the many updates Locala is addressing in order to meet evolving industry regulations.

The IVT dataset has also equipped Locala with the ability to filter out ad traffic created by malicious bots and other non-human sources, enabling the ad tech company to recognize – and eliminate – wasteful spending on ads that do not reach prospective customers. The fully deployed IVT dataset has further served Locala by filtering non-human sources from its ad impressions and clicks, of which the company discovered about 4% of each to be problematic. Locala has also been able to identify publishers delivering high percentages of bot traffic, allowing it to reallocate ad spend toward those publishers proven to supply higher quality traffic.

“The insights and capabilities yielded by zvelo’s IVT dataset have proven invaluable to Locala, both in our day-to-day efforts to identify ad fraud in our campaigns and to uphold our commitment to our clients,” said Christophe Collet, CEO of Locala. “Our technology is dedicated to staying ahead of fraud as it becomes increasingly sophisticated. This partnership with zvelo helps us to guarantee true ad engagements for our intended audiences.”

“Locala sets a powerful example, proving the accomplishments and accolades that an ad tech provider can achieve with accurate and detailed knowledge of who – or what – are truly the active sources within advertising data,” said Jeff Finn, CEO of zvelo. “We’re proud of the effective ways in which Locala has enlisted our IVT dataset to achieve success, and look forward to working alongside the company as it continues to grow.”

About zvelo, Inc.

As a leading provider of content categorization and malicious detection data services for web pages, devices and traffic, zvelo is the trusted partner for the market’s preeminent ad tech, network security, and mobile service provider/subscriber analytics vendors. zvelo solves a diverse range of business needs including providing the foundational datasets for web filtering, parental controls, brand safety, contextual targeting, subscriber analytics, and ad fraud prevention.

zvelo, headquartered just outside of Denver, is committed to providing the market’s highest quality data products and best responsiveness. The company has additional offices in the Philippines.

About Locala

Locala (Success for Mobile) is an innovative mobile advertising company, and the only technology platform today with MRC accreditations for post-ad measurements in mobile browsers and apps. Our mission is to deliver mobile ads that provide genuine personalized content for each individual user. We guarantee our clients full visibility into campaign insights from impression to conversion. The Locala programmatic technology guarantees MRC accredited standards and impressions and landing pages that are 100% loaded + 1 second followed by real clicks, and post-click engagements.

Founded in 2011 by mobile marketing pioneers, we now service more than 500 advertisers around the world. Locala is headquartered in Paris with over 130 employees and ten offices worldwide in the US, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Latin America. Discover more: https://www.s4m.io

Locala is happy to announce the nomination of Chiara Musicco as Account Manager in its Milan office. She will support the fast expansion of the company in Italy and manager the day-to-day with Locala’s principal clients.

“It’s a pleasure to welcome Chiara to the family,” says Andrea Pongan, Country Manager for Locala. “Chiara has a decade of experience in the industry, I am confident that she will be a great asset for our clients with insightful strategies. Her rich client-facing experience will be invaluable for growing portfolio in Italy.”

Chiara joins Locala with professional experiences both in Italy and in the UK. Prior to joining the company, she was a part of the digital marketing team at Wilmoths in the UK working with major automotive brands. Before moving to the UK, Chiara was managing consumer retail and luxury brands on their multi-media strategies at ZenithOptimedia and MEC. Most notably, she has worked on the digital media strategies for the Richemont Groupe, Pfizer, Coop and Sky Broadcasting.

“I am really excited to join the Locala team in Italy,” says Chiara Musicco. “The Italian office is not even a year old, and it is already growing so fast with so much potential. Brands need to think mobile-first in their media strategies and I am confident that our offering will be able to help meet their objectives.”

See the coverage on Advertiser.it

Locala recruits Nicolas Rieul as VP Strategy EMEA to join the team in its headquarters in Paris, France. He is a Board Member at the Mobile Marketing Association in France and IAB France.

“Nicolas Rieul is a key figure in the mobile advertising market and brings to Locala a wealth of mobile programmatic insights and experiences,” explains Stanislas Coignard, Chief strategy Officer at Locala. “Adding Nicolas to our team is a key move help evangelise Locala’s mobile and programmatic vision across all of our different European markets. Finally, Nicolas truly embodies the Locala spirit, he is passionate and entrepreneurial with an avant-garde mentality – he will actively provide his mobile marketing knowledge to our brand and agency clients.”

Prior to his move, Nicolas held several managing positions, VP Marketing & Research at Databerries and Head of Mobile for Dentsu Aegis Netowrk in France. Notably, during his time at Dentsu, he led a strategic team aimed at evangelising to advertisers on the importance of mobile media in their broader advertising strategies. His passions for mobile started early on in his career where he started at Mozoo and eventually became the Head of Ad Operations. Since 2015, Nicolas joined the MMA France as a Board Member. Today he represents France on the MMA’s EMEA board. He also sits on IAB France’s Public Affairs Commission focusing specifically on the European Commission’s new e-Privacy Legislation.

“Locala’s mission to uphold transparency in the industry, with its MRC accreditations and open technology were all important pull-factors that enticed me to join this team,” elaborates Nicolas Rieul. “In my new role, I will evangelise on Locala’s position in the mobile ecosystem and take an active role in shaping the ever-changing legislations on digital advertising in France and in Europe. As the programmatic space becomes more crowded with the increased presence of giants like Google and Facebook, it is important to remind the market that alternative players who respect both the user’s personal data and advertiser data do exist.”

See the news on MMA Global.
See the announcement in French on CBNews & Air of Melty.

Ipsos, leader des études en France, et Locala dévoilent les résultats du premier baromètre post-test de campagnes mobiles in-app. Dans un climat pourtant peu favorable à la publicité, l’étude révèle que les campagnes mobiles in-app ont un réel impact sur la manière dont les marques sont perçues par l’utilisateur et sur l’incitation à l’achat.  Le format interstitiel démontre sa capacité à laisser une trace mémorielle importante, tandis que le format MPU (pavé 300 x 250 px) contribue plus favorablement à l’image de marque.

Téléchargez l’infographie

Découvrir cet article sur CB news et Stratégies

NEW YORK, June 1st, 2017 – Locala (Success for Mobile), a mobile ad tech company with headquarters in Paris, France, has appointed Scott Dornblaser as SVP Sales Americas based in New York City. Dornblaser will lead Locala’s sales expansion across North and Latin America and report directly to Fred Joseph, Locala’s US CEO and Global COO.

“Scott joins Locala with over 20 years of digital experience, bringing a wealth of sales and management experience to the growing Americas team,” explains Fred Joseph, COO at Locala. “After our initial successes in New York and recent expansion in Miami, Scott’s appointment is timely to help strengthen our expansion in the Americas.”

In his new role, Dornblaser will lead and grow the sales team based in the US, as well as grow the company’s revenues in the Americas.

“I am thrilled to be joining Locala. Working with a company dedicated to transparency and performance in the mobile space is a special opportunity,” explains Scott Dornblaser. “With the MRC accreditation, cost per landing page buying model, and unique creative capabilities, we have the best solution for any marketer who is serious about mobile advertising.”

Prior to joining Locala, Dornblaser held several VP Sales positions at Drawbridge and Conversant Media, where he grew the mobile revenues by four times and doubled the team over 3 years. Previously, Dornblaser was the General Manager of LivingSocial in New York City with an impressive track record, growing the company’s revenue by 100% year on year.

We conduced a study on 92 mobile programmatic campaigns across Europe, US, and APAC between June 2016 to February 2017. The results were compared to a similar research conducted last year. The study evaluated three key indicators, fully rendered impressions, fraudulent clicks, and mobile landing page arrivals to observe the state of ad fraud in the industry. See the full infographic.

Looking at fully rendered impressions there is a 4-point improvement in terms of discrepancies between the ad request and an impression 100% rendered between 2016 in 2017. This is an encouraging sign for advertisers because fully rendered impressions is the first step to actually engaging with mobile consumers.

Following the impression, the two engagement metrics such as click and mobile landing page arrivals are both susceptible to non-human traffic and fraud. Compared results from 2016, the study found an increase by 14 points of suspicious clicks identified in mobile campaigns. The number of users that click on an ad but never arrive on a landing page also increased by 17 points in this year’s study. This is a combined result of increasing investments into the mobile channel, hence more fraudsters arise as well sophistication in fraud detection algorithms.
Ad fraud can never be eradicated. Having transparent benchmarks on the state of ad fraud in mobile campaigns is a key step to help advertisers insulate their media budgets from non-human traffic. The industry as a whole is working together to standardize metrics, eliminate discrepancies and improve fraud detection. Advertisers can help this maturation by tracking with anti-fraud technologies that have been accredited by independent organizations like the Media Rating Council. A very first step is to qualify impressions only it has 100% rendered on a mobile screen to ensure true consumer engagements.

Locala launches a brand new mobile advertising offer, the Adbot, to leverage the rise of chatbots and redefine brand engagements. With this offer, advertisers can reach users across a vast selection of publishers and direct them into the Messenger App to carry out a personalised conversation in real-time. Lancôme France and ZenithOptimedia (Publicis Media) is debuting this breakthrough strategy to engage with mobile savvy consumers.

“Facebook’s Messenger platform is a key channel to spark conversations between brands and consumers. We wanted to help advertisers leverage the unique chatbot experience and maximize their reach outside the Facebook display environment. Our AdBot solution combines a wide reach of premium publishers with enriched data context via geolocation to make the most of all the chatbot functionalities in the Messenger application,” explains Stanislas Coignard, Locala Chief Strategy Officer. “Another key feature of this offer is that both user actions in-ad and post-ad are tracked and measured in the Locala platform.”

As a pioneer in digital innovations, ZenithOptimedia France decided to test out Locala’s AdBot strategy to execute a “smart sampling” mobile campaign for Lancôme France. “Most recent eMarketer figures show that 54% of Messenger users would like to receive branded promotions within the app. With this insight, we set out to rethink brand engagements in our mobile campaigns by integrating chatbots,” says Jérôme Perissel, Digital & Innovation Director ZenithOptimedia France. “This is a breakthrough user experience to obtain and convert consumers directly within their smartphones.”

With the Lancôme France chatbot, mobile users can describe their specific skin type to receive a personalised skincare routine. Each mobile user can choose from hand-picked products by the chatbot and receive free samples to test these from home. The chatbot will collect the user’s full name and address then finish the conversation with a confirmation and thank you message. During this campaign, Locala’s tracking and analytics platform measured every step of this branded user journey based on MRC accreditations from impressions, clicks, to app opens.

“We were able to deliver a fully personalised and interactive ad in this campaign – initiating countless conversations with our consumers while generating qualified leads and interest for our products. In such an intimate medium like the smartphone, it is imperative to be able to put in place mass marketing that delivers adapted messages to each consumers. This is why are very excited about the AdBot solution.” explains Berengère Delaporte, Marketing Director of Lancôme France.

“With our AdBot solution we are transforming the call-to-action as we know it, into a conversation-to-action. What’s makes this strategy even more impactful is being able to reach audiences via a large network of publishers be able to measure engagements at every step of the conversation between the user and the brand,” concludes Stanislas Coignard.

Read the French coverage in L’ADN and OffreMedia.

Milan, Italy, March 29th, 2017 – Locala (Success for Mobile), a mobile ad tech company founded in Paris, France, is growing its businesses in Italy with the opening of a new office and two senior hires. This new development comes as a series of successful expansions for the company to London, Düsseldorf, and most recently to Madrid, earlier this year.

“Italy is an important and strategic market for digital mobile ad investments. The fourth largest in Western Europe after UK, Germany, and France,” explains Christophe Collet, Locala CEO. “We are excited to bring our unique offerings into this market and provide advertisers with guaranteed engagements to maximise their media spends.”

Locala’s Italian office will be led by Andrea Pongan, who joins the company as Country Manager. He has more than a decade of industry experience, most recently as Senior Sales Manager at Rocket Fuel. Prior to this, he held several managing roles in various digital advertising companies.

“Despite having the lowest rate of smartphone penetration in Western Europe, Italy has maintained strong double-digit growth in the past few years,” says Andrea. “Advertisers will start to demand and see the added-value from a mobile-first ad tech platform providing transparent data insights.”

The second new hire in this new expansion is Benvenuto Alfieri, joining the company as Sales Director Italy. Prior to joining Locala, Benvenuto was the Sales Director at Quantum Native Solution and held numerous Senior Sales Managing roles in the industry. Following this expansion, Locala now has ten active offices around the world and is serving more than 400 advertisers each month.

Read the news coverage in Programmatic Italia.

Paris, March 20th, 2017. Locala reinforces its French team with new hire of Simon Perrot as Head of Sales France. Simon joins Locala from Spafax Networks France where he was the Managing Director. This strategic recruitment complements the rapid growth of the company within in France.

Simon Perrot’s principal mission in his role at Locala is to lead the sales team in France in its continued expansion. Pierre-Emmanuel Padiou, will move on from Head of Sales France to a newly created role of VP Sales Europe. In this new role, he will manage Locala’s sales teams in France, Benelux, Germany, Italy and Spain.

“Simon Perrot is a leading expert in the digital advertising ecosystem, both among pure players and within renowned media agencies,” explains Christophe Collet, Locala CEO. “This new hire combined with the fast growth of our sales team in France is a positive testament to our efforts in France, where media agencies and advertisers are increasingly putting their trust in our technology”.

With more than a decade of experience in the industry, Simon started his career at AOL Time Warner 15 years ago. He then jumped from various roles ranging from digital activity to purchasing and management at Omnicom Media Group for six years. Following this experience, Simon was the E-commerce Director at ParisCityVision, a leading player in the tourism industry, and the Commercial Director at meltygroup. Most recently in 2015, Simon was the Managing Director of Spafax France, specialising in mobile programmatic.

Read the French coverage in CBNews.

London, Feb 21, 2017 – Locala (Success for Mobile) acquired Netadge this week in a move to strengthen the company’s offerings in the programmatic industry and enlarge the current R&D team to more than 50 engineers.

Netadge is a leading self-service mobile DSP specializing in mobile RTB founded in France with presence in New York. This acquisition brings together two leading technologies in an industry shifting towards a consolidation of major players. “Locala is enlarging its technology stack to rival the biggest players today while accomplishing our vision to deliver a transparent, competitive, and certified technology, where advertisers have full ownership of their campaign data,” explains Christophe Collet, Locala CEO.

Following this acquisition, Locala has a projected revenue of $35M USD for 2017. In order to grow Locala’s technology, the company is aiming to double the size of its existing R&D team this year. The acquisition of Netadge represents a step closer to achieving this staffing target for 2017, as Locala will take on over a dozen accomplished data engineers as a part of this acquisition.

“This deal is an advantageous acqui-hire as much as it is a strategic business move,” Collet continues. “Hiring the best talent in the industry is key to Locala’s success and we are thrilled to welcome 14 senior ad tech experts into our product and engineering efforts, growing beyond a 50-person R&D team. We are committed to hiring the best minds in the industry from around the world – today our team is made up of more than 26 nationalities”. The talent search does not end here for Locala, the company still has more than 20 tech positions to fill in the coming year.

In 2016, NetAdge achieved more than $4 million USD in revenues and is actively serving over 50 media agencies and trading desks. “As the US tech giants continue on a path to dominate the programmatic industry, we are committed to remain a competitive alternative by reinforcing our technology,” concludes Christophe Collet.

For more information, please contact us.

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Read the news featured in ITespresso in French.

Locala is able to identify users at O’Hare, Hartsfield-Jackson, Heathrow and other global transport hubs

London, December 5th, 2016 – Locala announces its new capability to target more than 30 million airport travellers each week. Using enriched geo-localised user behavioural and contextual data, the company can now help brands boost their presences in the top 30 airports around the world.

“Consumers tend to deviate from their usual daily behaviours when travelling, and the only constant is their smartphones. Our goal is to reach people while they’re in transit, whether they’re tourists or business travellers, even when they are away from their everyday routines,” explains Christophe Collet, Locala CEO. “Brands that can deliver tailored, relevant messages to their consumers even when they are hundreds of kilometres from home, are truly transforming mobile advertising into a valuable service”.

Locala’s geofencing technology helps advertisers analyse and understand mobile user profiles at airports. The company combines anonymous mobile device identifiers with GPS coordinates, device language settings and online periods. This unique mix provides advertisers with more insights into their consumer behaviours and offers a new opportunity to engage with them at airports.

“Airports are more than just a transit area, it presents a huge opportunity for brands to engage with consumers. The smartphone is an extension of the individual so it is a must-have touchpoint when creating fully integrated brand experiences,” continues Christophe Collet. “Advertisers should be combining the ever presence of the mobile medium with real-time geolocation at airports to deliver seamless customer journeys.”

For example, Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport sees over 100 million travellers pass through its gates in one year, presenting a significant opportunity to engage mobile consumers during business and leisure travel. With more than two thirds of air travellers coming from middle to high income brackets, according to figures from the World Bank. This presents an opportunity for companies in the UK and US to leverage Locala’s fully accredited platform to engage with affluent audiences. Demographics such as luxury brand shoppers, digital high-tech users, high end car buyers and business travellers can be reached in a duty-free setting via mobile. Luxury brands such as L’Oréal have already used Locala’s technology to run successful cross-country campaigns.

According to the latest figures from the World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO), international tourists account for 1.2 billion individuals in 2015. This figure will grow to 1.8 billion by 2030. Brands must not overlook the economic opportunities with these travellers and should turn to mobile devices to standout in these high competitive airport spaces.

Read more about this offering in the press:
Exchange Wire
Travel Weekly Asia
Stratégies

Earlier this year, Locala examined 87 campaigns, composing of 2.3 billion ad requests, between January to June 2016 in Europe, the US, Latin America, and in APAC. The goal of this study was to to investigate the problem of ad fraud and existing buying models.

Between the ad request from the ad server and the moment when the ad renders on the user’s mobile device, a significant number of impressions are not delivered. Why ? This is due to various different factors such as network stability, heavy ad units, and device type. This is both fraud and invalid traffic. In the campaigns we analysed, we found that 26% of the total impressions were not seen.

We counted a total number of 64.4 million clicks but more than 23% of these were detected as suspicious traffic. Our technology applies a one click per impression counting method to weed out fraud. So after applying our anti-fraud algorithm, we counted only 49.5 million true clicks.
Invalid clicks can be detected through unique certified filtration technology that flag all suspicious clicks and non-human traffic (NHT). It is impossible to eliminate fraud traffic but advertisers should not pay for it.

Regarding post-ad analysis we found that a significant number of users don’t actually arrive or engage post click. After a real click, the smartphone user can arrive on a mobile web landing page or install an app.
In our analysis, out of the total post-clicks counted, 48% of the users actually never arrived on the mobile site. For apps, 66% of users installed apps that were never opened.
This is where measuring post-click actions is the best way to evaluate campaign effectiveness and avoid paying for fraud.

With huge investments at stake, Locala created a new buying model: the cost-per-landing-page (CPLP). This model measures a true engagement following a fully loaded impressions (100%+1sec), a true click net of fraud, and a true arrival of the user on the landing page.
We know that fraud cannot be fully eliminated but our guarantee is that advertisers will not pay for it.

Read this news published in Mobile Marketing Magazine

Following months of R&D and MRC accreditation, Locala unveils a next generation anti-fraud mobile ad technology with real-time visualisation of mobile campaign KPIs and a simplified user interface

London, UK, September 1st, 2016 – Locala (Success for Mobile), a mobile-first advertising technology company, will launch the new FUSIO by Locala platform to provide clients with a guaranteed anti-fraud ad-serving technology to identify non-human traffic and account for trusted KPIs from ad impressions to post-click actions within mobile sites and applications. This significant development follows the company’s recent MRC accreditation, becoming the only platform currently certified by the MRC for app installs, opens, and mobile web visits.

Mobile programmatic advertising is maturing at an accelerated pace, last year in the US alone, mobile ad fraud was calculated at $1.3 billion USD. As more and more investments are now at stake, it is critical for all stakeholders in this ecosystem to address fraud concerns. The FUSIO interface aims to simplify complex mobile campaign data, providing marketers with transparent visibility on KPIs to reduce wasted investments due to fraudulent traffic. With this data, demand-side decision makers will be better equipped to make strategic and effective media buying decisions.

“Mobile is a recurring and decisive channel along the path to purchase. Marketers need a mobile-specific platform to ensure they execute the most impactful campaigns and maximise their marketing spend in this omnipresent media landscape,” said Christophe Collet, Locala CEO. “The real challenge for brands is overcoming fraud concerns, so advertisers can then prioritize supply partners that generate higher percentages of certified traffic and actively combat suspicious traffic”.

The most significant improvement to the platform is the new user interface, including campaign duplication features and drag and drop interactions. Now ad ops teams can set up complex campaigns in a few clicks with ease. Furthermore, with the highly customizable widgets in each dashboard, campaign analytics are taken to a new level with powerful reporting and alerts for better campaign optimization, to remove suspicious traffic and drive efficient performance. The FUSIO platform is fully built on Rest APIs, so all campaign data can be automatically generated from the platform, making it easier for an advertiser to deeply connect FUSIO into an existing technology stack. This means that advertisers can connect to any structure such as a CRM database, financial system or data warehouse, to get the best of FUSIO outside the platform.

“The new platform is revolutionary for marketers. They can track and analyse their customer engagements effortlessly from mobile touchpoints and access the critical data for strategic optimizations all in real-time,” said Pierre Wurmser, Chief Product Officer at Locala. “The advantage of a mobile-native platform empowers brands to deploy dedicated strategies and KPIs to evaluate impact and drive performance.”

Locala will be revealing a first-look of the FUSIO platform at DMEXCO 2016 this month. DMEXCO takes places in Cologne, Germany and is the largest annual global business and innovation conference of the digital economy in Europe. Come visit us at stand Hall 7 / E061 – F068. To book a demo or for more information: communication@s4m.io

New York – Locala announced today the results of an extensive global study, the first of its kind, conducted on a sample of 1 billion mobile ad impressions across 30 campaigns, which revealed a huge loss of $10 Billion to advertisers through a lack of ad transparency.

Ad units analyzed in the study were separated into two formats, HTML 5 and static. HTML 5 formatted ads are employed in branding campaigns, while ads in static formats are for performance-based campaigns. The study found viewability issues in nearly 20% of ads in HTML 5 format, which were not seen or closed before being displayed. However for ads in static formats, the study showed a major brand safety issue with almost 40% of ads appearing in unfavorable contexts.

In terms of device-targeting, both ad formats suffered an 8% loss due to wrong display environments, meaning the ad has not been properly played. Additionally, Locala’s study found that campaigns with ads in static format are often performance-based, defined by the number of clicks and downloads, this explains why ads are sometimes disseminated in adverse contexts.

To tackle the mobile ad transparency problem, which accounts for a massive 30% loss in the mobile ad market currently valued at over $68 Billion*, Locala created the AdVerification Score, allowing advertisers to see a simple mark out of 1000 for each ad served and enables them to assess impact and success immediately.

As mobile-native experts and an established industry leader, Locala has created a scoring system for mobile ads that will raise the level of accountability and make the mobile space a safer place for brand advertisers.

“The AdVerification Score is a response to the recurring need for transparency among advertisers and media agencies. Often marketers assume that the mobile advertising ecosystem is an opaque black box. In reality, it is not. We are offering a solution that gives brands a clear view of all the important parameters within a campaign” explains Christophe Collet, CEO and Founder of Locala.

Locala combined three major criteria into the AdVerification Score to evaluate each mobile ad; brand safety, device-targeting and viewability. The Locala AdVerification Score examines performance from the ad request, (the moment when an ad is called), until the ad impression (the actual moment when the format is truly delivered to the user).

In practice, the AdVerification Score will evaluate the genuine delivery of each ad impression and clarify the reasons behind lost ad spend within digital mobile campaigns. This Score is now a fixed-feature on the Locala platform, allowing brands to see each AdVerification Score in real-time. Brands can strive for an AdVerification Score of 1000/1000 for each mobile campaign and end the void of rules and metrics in the mobile ad industry.

Different sources of loss in ad spend were used as criteria in the study and then computed to create the AdVerification Score:

• Brand safety; Locala’s referrer platform excludes incentivized, unwanted and bot originated traffic from media campaigns,
• Viewability; Locala’s viewability standard is satisfied only when the ad is 100% loaded plus one second (a metric which is stricter than the IAB standard).
• Device-targeting; The Locala device check feature verifies that ads are displayed on the corresponding devices.
  The results of the study revealed branding ads in HTML 5 format scored 872 out of 1000, which was higher than performance-based ads in static format that scored 627 out of 1000.

Christophe Collet concluded; “Establishing the AdVerification Score means trust for future growth. Brands can now strive for a higher standard where every single dollar spent on ad purchase sees a genuine return. By introducing the AdVerification Score, we are motivating the mobile ad sector to work harder at providing transparency in the ecosystem”.

See the infographic on The AdVerification Score

Source: *Mobile Internet Ad Spending Worldwide in 2015, figure from eMarketer.

This news covered by Media post / ClickZ / Cynopsis Media / Exchange Wire