Part II: What now? – Consented Data

Nikolai Scholz
Director, Product Management,
Adara

Apple’s move with Privacy Relay has started the ball rolling on fading out the IP Address as a means to identify an individual’s location. Both Ad Exchanges and Publishers will start recording at best “approximate” IP addresses and a Location Vendor’s ability to map them to points of interest will be next to futile. Location Data is far from lost though! With the help of the classic Puzzle “Connect the dots”, I will walk you through how consented location data is not only a good alternative but potentially even better to the IP Address.

As previously covered, the IP Address is vast, yet inaccurate. The reason it is a good source of information is the pure volume of it. The more IP Address data you get on an individual, the higher the precision of identifying their location and movement. Take the image below as an example. Each dot represents a change in location for a traveler. The numeric value represents the timestamp. By connecting the dots you build what we call the “Traveler Journey”.

In the case of Location Data that is fixed to the IP Address, you will rarely hit the mark precisely since there is no exact address you can match to. You will also sometimes miss the target altogether. Here is how it could look:

Now imagine if you were able to get the exact address of each location at the time or even ahead of time of arrival. Sounds too good to be true, but this is where consented data comes in. Consented data is data that is recorded on an individual with their knowledge and permission. The location permission feature by Apple is one form of consented data. A more prevalent datastream is transaction data. Any time a traveler transacts online, there is a lot of location information being recorded. Take a restaurant booking as an example. When you book a restaurant you share your address and the restaurant’s address, both with timestamps; time of booking and reservation time. Now scale this data to your entire destination and you have yourself a full map of points of interest recording the comings and goings of travelers.

To find out more about Adara’s consented location data please reach out to our team at Adara.

In conclusion, the location data landscape is changing. Apple’s move is only the first step to devaluating the IP Address for location identification. It is time to review your data sources and their dependencies. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out and Adara will be happy to consult with you.