Web 3.0 will allow users to take control of their data. Location data can no longer be used as an analytics product, don’t give their precise location away that easily, or that often, any longer. But location is still a viable planning currency and can be used for measurement, to lessen advertising’s impact on the environment, and algorithms. If anything, location will become a large part of how Web 3.0 operates.
Scalable, anonymized, and accurate operator data can show where your audience is, nationwide, and when they’re there. It can be leveraged by any media channel to inform planning, pinpoint buying and measure effects.
So how will the Web’s relationship with location change? It’s all about trends, not individuals, identifying patterns of visitation across audiences temporally; activating campaigns against thousands of postcodes, not hundreds of thousands to deliver relevant rather than seemingly prescient media.
Well, rather than specific location it will be about whole postcodes rather than thousands of data points per user. The Web won’t need to know what people think but rather identify behaviour at scale and identify the trends within niche demographics.
Operator data even offers campaign measurement, showing what type of people are accessing which apps most and where and when. This may allow you to see the types of audiences in the vicinity of a store, or that of a competitor. All of this is possible with mobile operator data without counting, tracking, or identifying individual devices.
Essentially the silver lining for us here is that Web 3.0’s relationship to location will allow us to be far smarter with our messaging to our audience and their niche.
