Urban Airship's Segments introduces better location-based push message targeting

Builds on location and context over time

Following its $3.5 million acquisition of location-based service SimpleGeo, Urban Airship has announced the first location segmentation push messaging service, Urban Airship Segments.

Segments aims to build on Urban Airship's existing service, which has already served 17 billion push messages across 60,000 apps, by learning about an individual's location and context over time to create more precise targeting.

Target acquired

"We are taking a different approach to location," said CEO Scott Kveton.

"One that deviates dramatically from the scenarios we hear every day, where someone crosses an invisible line and is somehow then super receptive to whatever offer the nearest marketer wants to jam down their phone."

This is done using conditional logic to combine location information with tags encompassing in-app behaviours, preferences, and device prodiles to build audience segments.

For example, a company could offer a Guide to NYC Nightlife to users tagged 'hometown:seattle' and 'device:ipad' who are currently located in Lower Manhattan.

All hands on deck

Urban Airship is also announcing a strategic partnership with location-based developer Meridian to provide indoor location targeted mobile messaging.

This will enable developers to identify audiences with certain behaviours and preferences down to a neighbourhood-level.

This would allow venues or retailers to target attendees and customers to direct them to special offers or points of interest.

iOS and Android device libraries are available now, allowing developers to add location detection and gather the events necessary to enable location segmentation in preparation for the launch of the API and web tools expected in May or June.

[source: Urban Airship]

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