Glossary A–ZLetter M
Mobile location data
Mobile location data describes where mobile phones were at what time and, for advertising purposes, is usually analysed in aggregated and anonymised form.
It comes from the mobile network itself or from apps with location permission.
In out-of-home advertising, such data is used to estimate audiences: how many people pass a location, at what times of day, and roughly where they come from. A network operator can use it to show, for example, that far more people cross a station forecourt in the morning than in the afternoon. Effectiveness studies also use such data when they count store visits after an advertising contact.
The figures are projections, not counts of individual people. Not everyone carries a phone, not every phone is captured, and location accuracy varies by source. As a rule, location data may only be used for such purposes in anonymised form or with consent; the data provider takes care of this, but the operator should have it confirmed. Figures based on location data should always come with their source, period and method.