Proximity & Beacons — Ad Revenues

Beacons are at the forefront of location-based services which are starting to pick up traction all around the world. In 2016, location targeted ad spending represented around USD 12 Billion of the USD 33 Bn Mobile Advertising Revenues. This is expected to rise to about USD 32 Billion by 2021, which would be nearly half of mobile ad revenues.

(Source: BIA/Kelsey 2017)

With location becoming a key for nearly half of mobile ad advertising, devising strategies that work mobile first would become important. Building content, apps and importantly ads focused on delivering through the smartphone become important for location based marketing. And the cycle for Return On Investment (RoI) on location based advertising can be reduced with targeted campaigns.

What about Beacons?

(Image source: www.appfutura.com)
The primary challenge for anyone and everyone associated with either manufacturing beacons or providing services using them is to show Business Value. The proximity industry has to show value across sectors from automotive to transportation and logistics along with consumer retail. Eddystone (Physical Web) & iBeacon are the competing standards with their own merits & demerits.

As Proximity Marketing techniques develop further, the technologies will mature & become better and will be able to delivery targeting, re-targeting & Personalization to the level that we currently see on e-commerce websites. Doing this on scale will be the challenge for the next few years.