Surveys, activists, and government officials who warn that location-based marketing campaigns are a form of stalking are off-base, according to a study by mobile marketing provider Urban Airship maintaining that marketers can safely reach half their mobile customers with location- and proximity-triggered messages.
Analyzing some 4 billion push messages from more than 1,000 apps, Urban Airship found that an average of 62% of consumers agree to share their location with app providers. Mobile users must also opt in to push notifications to receive location-based messages, and more than half of them did, said the study.
“Our data analysis shows that assumptions around consumers being reluctant to share location are false and massively short-sell mobile,” says Urban Airship CEO Scott Kveton. “Users obviously value the location-based functionality of apps.”
Urban Airship’s campaign analysis showed that the location opt-in rate among individual apps in the study ranged from 60 to 80%.