The Lab is very happy to report that our parent agency Interpublic has taken a minority stake in Placed, the Seattle-based mobile attribution company that we just featured in our partner spotlight last week. Placed measures mobile ads’ effectiveness in driving customers into stores, using a panel of consumers who in exchange for rewards have agreed to share their physical location data when they download a Placed app. They currently have the largest opt-in panel of mobile location data, with more than 200,000 smartphone users.
This investment was led by The Lab, and highlights our ongoing efforts to better measure the fast-growing mobile ad market.
“Attribution is a pain point of mobile,” said Chad Stoller, managing partner of IPG Media Lab, IPG’s media innovation and investment unit that will oversee the holding company’s relationship with Placed. “How do I know this is working? There need to be better metrics when it comes to mobile.”
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For IPG, the Placed investment will help clients make more efficient mobile media buys, Mr. Stoller said. IPG will work with Placed as it develops its own proprietary ad products as well as leverage Placed’s data to strategize other types of media buys for clients, he added.