Ad Dollars Help Fuel Proliferation of Beacons and Proximity Sensors
Beacons and other proximity sensors those small devices that communicate with mobile apps in physical environments just keep sprouting up all over the place. Their number, pegged at 13 million sensors as of the last quarter of 2016, has nearly tripled in a year since Q4 2015 when there were 5 million counted.
Advertising dollars are helping to fuel their proliferation. According to a new report from ProximityDirectory, 42% of the 272 companies offering proximity services operate ad networks that enable advertising targeted based on location data intercepted through beacons, Wi-Fi sensors and other technologies. Around 30% of those firms allow advertisers to target mobile and online ads to people whose devices have been spotted by proximity sensors in specific locations, or measure whether they showed up in a location after being exposed to an ad.
The State Of The Proximity Industry Q4 2016 report is the latest from ProximityDirectory, a research arm of Unacast, an Oslo-based outfit that connects location data generated through proximity data partners to ad platforms including Lotame, Mediamath and Oracle.
