Location Intelligence company GroundTruth announced today that the Media Rating Council (MRC) has granted it accreditation for Location, Place, and Visitation data sets. This validates GroundTruth’s bona-fides when it comes to responsible and privacy-compliant practices around tracking users and collecting data.
The timing is right for this as contextual targeting has emerged in the age of privacy. The way that translates to location intelligence is to target users based on who they are versus where they are. This involves audience segments — everything from soccer moms to college students to business travelers.
The point is that reliable real-world visitation patterns can provide clues to determine these key signals like user identity, brand affinities, and purchase intent. That pattern detection and intelligence are what GroundTruth specializes in, and the new MRC accolades represent a badge of authenticity and best practices.
“Brands face immense pressure to reach their customers in such a time of flux and changing shopping behaviors,” GroundTruth COO Eddie Dingels told Localogy Insider. “As we’ve proven, visitation data not only helps drive higher in-store sales but e-commerce sales as well.”
Determination
Going deeper the accreditation invokes GroundTruth’s Location, Place, and Visitation data sets, as noted. Specifically, it validates that the data collection methodology represent effective and privacy-compliant ways to target ads and measure performance. This traces back to GroundTruth’s place-visitation data.
“For marketers, the difference between accurately identifying a person in one location versus a neighboring business is critical to generating actual business outcomes,” said Dingels. “GroundTruth’s technology platform has provided increased accuracy using our blueprint technology and quality assurance algorithms.”
The MRC primarily vetted GroundTruth’s ability to detect place visits and assign them to a location. This involves three criteria: location determination (accuracy of location signals), place determination (precision of place mapping), and visit determination (ability to distinguish and verify actual visits).
“Visitation data is one of the fundamental building blocks of everything we do at GroundTruth,” said Dingels. “It’s not only core to our marketing platform’s current capabilities, such as building audiences, media targeting, and attributing performance but also plays a crucial role in developing future marketing solutions.”
Trust and Legitimacy
Notably, this milestone follows a similar news item we covered last year when Foursquare got the MRC nod. Both companies specialize in location intelligence. Given heightened awareness of privacy and data collection — especially for all-things location — this MRC validation is a mark of trust and legitimacy.
As for the MRC and its credentials, it serves as a standards-bearer in the advertising industry to validate measurement and data practices. The organization has administered hundreds of audits over the past several years to ensure that services used by brand marketers are valid, reliable, and privacy-compliant.
For GroundTruth, MRC specifically reviewed its adherence to IAB and MMA guidelines for location-based ad measurement. It also conducted an independent CPA audit to confirm accuracy in its place visitation data. Its methodology for determining consumer location and visits were also vetted.
“This new accreditation further provides brands that level of confidence and validation from a credible third-party source such as the MRC,” said Dingels.
