Our CEO Matt Longley joined Justin Cooke on The Business of Marketing podcast to discuss the evolution of Mobsta, the Mobsta Intelligence Engine and how geo-behavioural intelligence, vector-based analysis and real-world data are helping brands make better media and commercial decisions.
People don’t stay in neat audience buckets. The person heading into work at 8am isn’t necessarily thinking, feeling or behaving like that same person at 8pm. Location changes. Context changes. Intent changes. And so does behaviour.
That idea is fundamental to how we think about audience intelligence at Mobsta. And in a recent conversation with Justin Cooke on The Business of Marketing podcast, Matt Longley discussed Mobsta’s evolution into a data intelligence, business intelligence and commercial analysis business. At the centre of that evolution is the Mobsta Intelligence Engine.
The Mobsta Intelligence Engine brings together billions of real-world behavioural signals and multiple datasets to build a richer understanding of how people behave across location, time, movement and context.
Rather than looking at audiences as fixed segments, Mobsta uses geo-behavioural data and vector-based analysis to understand where behaviour is now as well as the direction in which it is moving.
People move between locations, environments, mindsets and moments throughout the day. Their likelihood to visit a store, engage with advertising, make a purchase or respond to a particular message changes with them.
Our approach to vectorial intelligence looks for those patterns of movement and change. For advertisers, that creates the foundations for vector-based analysis and planning in advertising: using behavioural direction, location intelligence and contextual signals to identify where, when and how brands have the greatest opportunity to connect with an audience. Multilayered, complex, and incredibly insightful.
This intelligence can be applied directly to media strategy, planning and activation. Mobsta can use real-world behavioural intelligence to help identify when audiences may be most receptive and how opportunities change across channels including digital out of home (DOOH), digital audio and connected TV (CTV).
Rather than treating channel, audience, location and time as separate planning decisions, the Mobsta Intelligence Engine allows those signals to inform one another. That enables more dynamic, precise and contextual media activation.
A national advertiser, for example, may still buy media at scale, but the intelligence behind that campaign can reflect behavioural differences at a much more granular level: by location, time of day, audience movement or commercial opportunity.
The same real-world behavioural signals that can help improve advertising is also helping to answer much broader business questions for our clients.
Why is one store outperforming another?
Where are customers travelling from?
Where might a retailer be losing customers to a competitor?
Why does average basket size change between different locations or audiences?
Where could the next store or physical location perform best?
Where is there untapped demand?
What can current customer movement and footfall patterns tell us about future growth?
These are questions of commercial intelligence, customer intelligence, location intelligence and business strategy, not simply CMO brackets. And they are increasingly the conversations Mobsta is having with clients.
The Mobsta Intelligence Engine can bring together signals around footfall, audience movement, visitation, retail behaviour, location, customer journeys and commercial performance to help businesses understand what is happening in the real world and, critically, what they might do about it.
Traditionally, data and audience insight might be used to respond to an existing advertising brief. But by combining geo-behavioural data, commercial datasets and real-world behavioural signals, Mobsta can help identify the business challenge that may eventually create the brief.
By ingesting client data sets and combining them with our own, the Engine becomes even more powerful; allowing clients to see patters, insights, gaps and solutions they would not have otherwise been able to explore.
Matt discusses an example in the podcast where Mobsta was asked to replicate a regular retailer intelligence report. Using the Mobsta Intelligence Engine, the team was able to explore a much broader set of signals around store movement, footfall, basket size and audience behaviour.
If a business can understand shifts in customer behaviour earlier, it can potentially identify changing commercial conditions, growth opportunities and competitive threats earlier too.
That moves the conversation from reporting what has happened towards understanding what may happen next.
And that is an important part of how we see advertising evolving.
Traditional analysis often provides a snapshot by asking:
Vector-based analysis adds direction by asking:
For us, vectorial analysis is about adding movement, probability and direction to behavioural intelligence.
When applied to advertising, it can inform more responsive vector-based media planning and advertising strategies. And when applied to wider business decisions, it becomes a form of predictive commercial intelligence, helping organisations understand where growth, demand or customer behaviour may be moving.
Mobsta’s roots remain firmly in media. That experience has given us a deep understanding of audiences, advertising activation and real-world behaviour.
But the Intelligence Engine is allowing us to apply that expertise to a much wider set of challenges which is fully aligned with where media agencies and brands see the space evolving and the services they're increasingly asking for.
Today, conversations can move from audience intelligence to customer intelligence, from geo-behavioural targeting to on the ground strategy, and from media optimisation to commercial growth analysis.
For retailers and brands, that could mean identifying opportunities around store performance, competitor analysis, customer acquisition, basket growth or future locations.
For agencies, it can mean adding a deeper layer of behavioural and commercial intelligence to client strategy and proposed solutions.
And over time, the same capabilities have the potential to support much wider questions around physical infrastructure, location planning and real-world decision-making.
A theme that runs throughout Matt’s conversation with Justin is the idea of possibility.
Mobsta has changed considerably over the last few years, from our technology and products to our proposition and the types of conversations we are having with clients.
We don’t see that evolution as finished. We are continuing to explore how real-world intelligence, geo-behavioural data, vector-based analysis and the Mobsta Intelligence Engine can help brands, agencies, businesses and society make smarter decisions for growth.
Sometimes that will lead to a better media campaign. Sometimes it will lead to a new commercial insight. And sometimes it will uncover a question nobody had thought to ask yet. That’s where it gets interesting.
Listen to Matt Longley, CEO of Mobsta, discuss the evolution of the business, the future of business intelligence and the opportunities ahead with Justin Cooke on The Business of Marketing podcast.
🎧 Listen to the full conversation on Apple Podcasts
🎧 Listen to the full conversation on Spotify Podcasts
For more information or if you'd like to ask us a question about your business or commercial challenge, drop us a line at contact@mobsta.com.