What Is Mobile Mapping?

By Tim Cronin

There are many ways for publishers and app developers to monetize their mobile offerings, and one of the main ways is by taking advantage of mobile mapping data. Geographic data can help app developers and publishers reach their intended audience with far more accurate targeting. But what is mobile mapping?

Mobile mapping is the process of collecting geospatial information (or geographic location information) from a moving vehicle, such as a car. The mobile mapping vehicles are equipped with photographic, laser, radar, or other equipment to build up digital maps and geographic data, sometimes creating geo-tagged videos and pictures. GPS devices use mobile mapping to create their street data, road images and even to show you a picture of your destination address. Turn-by-turn direction apps are a great example of a mobile service utilizing mobile mapping data and a user’s GPS-enabled smartphone or tablet device.

Data gathered from mobile mapping offers a key advantage to publishers and app developers who want to monetize their mobile advertising using targeting parameters such as geo-location. Using mobile mapping geographic data, publishers and app developers can choose whether to target users in a specific city or even down to a certain street or zip code. This type of targeting allows app developers and publishers to maximize ad impressions served, and in turn, increase their ROI.

One important thing to remember is that location is not everything. Publishers and app developers need to incorporate targeting into their monetization strategies. One such way is using consumers’ GPS to analyze where they go and then ensure that the types of ad units being served across mobile devices address those behaviors.