Smart Ads offers country’s first real-time, location-based mobile ads

Smart Communications has introduced what it claims as the first real-time location mobile service in the Philippines via its mobile advertising arm Smart Ads.The service allows brands and advertisers to reach their target consumers via their mobile phones more accurately with the use of geo-fencing, a cellulartechnology that defines a virtual boundary around a real-world geographical area. This space can be programed to do actions like sending a campaign ad or a promo coupon to mobile users who trigger the command by entering the specified area.“Unlike other mobile ads solutions in the market, Smart Ads is the first and only service capable of determining the real-time location of subscribers who have opted-in or signified interest to accept mobile ads.  A subscriber’s location in real time is our main differentiator.  Brand offers delivered while they are still within the specified location,” said Leah Besa-Jimenez, media convergence group head at Smart.This means subscribers will be able to receive product deals and offers that are most relevant to them whenever they are near participating stores or branches. Advertisers, meanwhile, will not only be able to target promotions based on users’ real-time location, but will also be able to filter based on demographic, network usage profiles and audience segmentation among others.In addition, a campaign via Smart allows clients to reach the more than 72 million Smart, Talk ‘N Text and Sun Cellular subscribers through a ubiquitous medium which they take with them wherever they go.For privacy reasons, only opt-in subscribers will be able to receive real-time mobile ads, Smart clarified. Users may also choose to opt out from receiving mobile ads whenever they want to.Initial resultsThe telco touted that Smart Ads has received positive feedback from early clients - multinational brands operating in the Philippines in the FMCG (fast-moving consumer goods), QSR (quick service restaurants), and retail industries.Smart Ads said that basic location targeting alone helped one brand’s mobile campaign to reach a 7.6% response rate, which is well above the global average of click-through-rates for online ads (0.04%) and mobile ads (0.3%). CTRs are a measure of the percentage of users who opened the advertisement on their mobile phones“These encouraging results prove that serving up the right offer at the right place and at the right time is key to driving consumers to stores,” Besa-Jimenez said. “By utilizing our real-time location-based mobile ads solution, brands will be able to tap into their consumers whenever and wherever they want, because Smart Ads is primetime all the time,” Besa-Jimenez adds.