AN INTERVIEW WITH
Eric Mugnier
Senior Vice President, North America, M&C Saatchi Performance
January 19, 2016
Before marketers jump in head first, they must think about location targeting beyond serving an ad to a mobile user who is near a physical store location. Eric Mugnier, senior VP of North America at performance marketing agency M&C Saatchi Performance, told eMarketer’s Tricia Carr how marketers can be smarter about location targeting and pitfalls to avoid.
eMarketer: What do marketers need to keep front of mind as they formulate their mobile strategy?
Eric Mugnier: We don’t think of mobile as a channel for advertisers, but more as a platform. We look at mobile as a bridge between all of the other channels. Marketers don’t need to know
how much they’re going to spend on desktop vs. mobile—they need to know that they’re going to spend on what’s most efficient for them.
Overall, brands should see mobile as a platform and look at the mobile user, because mobile is the piece that stays with the user at all times—when they’re watching TV, when they walk down the street and see a billboard or outdoor ad, even when they’re in front of their computer. Mobile is the connecter of all of this.
eMarketer: What is the level of interest in location targeting among the brands you work with?
Mugnier: Even before the iPhone and the App Store existed, there is one thing about mobile that has been there from the beginning for any marketer: “I am finally going to be able to target
a user based on their location.” That was there 10 years ago, and it’s still here today. Everybody’s still talking about it, but no one has nailed it or knows how to make the best use of it.
eMarketer: Are there right and wrong ways to use location targeting?
Mugnier: There is always an element of location in any campaign that you’re running on mobile. The thing that everyone thought they would be doing is targeting a user who is walking down the street next to a store. You push something to that user to interact with them on their phone and get them in the store to buy. Say you walk by Starbucks in the morning and get a message on your phone that says, “Why don’t you come in and get a coffee? Here is 5% off.”
“Using location in a clever way as part of your targeting and segmentation is one factor, among others, that will make a campaign successful.”
But that’s where it goes wrong. There are not many companies that have the Starbucks footprint. Although that works well for a company like Starbucks to some extent, for the mass market of advertisers, it’s not as useful. But using location in a clever way as part of your targeting and segmentation is one factor, among others, that will make a campaign successful.
eMarketer: What’s an example of a smart way to use location?
Mugnier: If I’m a book publisher or an app that sells books, I should target consumers at the airport before they get on the plane. They have X number of hours to spare. You can get them
to buy or download a book before they go to read on the plane.
That’s just an example—you can build behaviors for the audience that you’re targeting based on their location. It’s not using location for the sake of using location. It’s on a much deeper level to make sure that you are timing the segmentation with the way you want to use the location.
eMarketer: How much should marketers tailor their messaging based on a user’s location?
Mugnier: Marketers should use location to show users something that is more personalized without being intrusive. If a user has agreed to share their location, use it from an advertising perspective as a way to entice them. Personalizing the content and visuals to make an ad more relevant helps to convert them.
eMarketer: What pitfalls do marketers need to avoid when they’re targeting consumers based on their location?
Mugnier: Marketers need to be careful when looking at the way publishers offer location as one element you can target. Some publishers will hold the data and provide location based on
the user’s home address. Others will pass the location based on where the user is physically at the moment you serve the ad. You need to be aware of that, because you want to target them
when they’re at the best point in purchase consideration based on their location.
For example, a person might work in New York and live in New Jersey. If you offer them a spa treatment, they might want to do that on the weekend when they’re not working. But they spend all week in New York and you might target them based on their physical location.
Interview conducted by Tricia Carr on January 19, 2016.
