How SafeGraph Powers Location-Based Audiences

How SafeGraph Powers Location-Based Audiences

In The Ultimate Guide to Location-Based Audiences, we explored how location data is revolutionizing advertising by enabling more precise targeting for marketers. Now, we’ll dive deeper into how SafeGraph’s places data seamlessly integrates into audience-building workflows, providing adtech leaders with the tools they need to create more accurate and context-driven location-based audiences.

Accurate POI Data: The Key Ingredient in Building Location-Based Audiences

Creating visits for advertising audiences is both complex and critical for developing effective location-based ad products. While machine learning, high-fidelity GPS data, and sophisticated pipelines are necessary to map visits accurately, all of this technology relies on a key foundational element: accurate data about the underlying physical locations. SafeGraph Places provides this foundation with comprehensive POI data and accurate building footprint polygons, including detailed 'tenant-split' polygons. This detailed information makes it easier to distinguish between closely located businesses or identify individual tenants within multi-unit buildings. Without precise polygon data and rich POI metadata, even the most advanced technical solutions would struggle to deliver accurate results.

Building Audiences with SafeGraph Places

With SafeGraph data, RainBarrel was able to rapidly scale the development of audiences by 10x.

Although SafeGraph doesn’t provide MAIDs (Mobile Advertising IDs), geolocation data, or other personal information in its data about physical locations, our data plays a critical role in building location-based audiences. Here's how advertisers can combine MAIDs with SafeGraph’s POI and polygon data to build effective audience segments:

1. Collect MAIDs from mobile pings through a third-party source.
2. Map the pings using SafeGraph’s POI and polygon data to determine where these pings occurred.
3. Model visit patterns by using SafeGraph data features in combination with mobility data:some text
   • DistanceToPlaceCentroid: Data users can calculate the distance between the cluster centroid and the POI centroid.
   • DistanceToPolygonWkt: Data users can calculate the distance between the cluster and the nearest point on the POI polygon.
   • NAICS x Hour: Data users can combine the first four digits of the NAICS code with the hour of day, enhancing targeting by time of visit (e.g., visiting a bar at 11 p.m. vs. Walmart at 11 a.m.).

Once you’ve modeled the visits, you can create advertising audience segments like frequent Starbucks visitors.

Other Ways SafeGraph Data Enhances Location-Based Audiences

SafeGraph’s data can be used in various ways to refine audience building:

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Example 1: Identifying POIs by Category Tags or NAICS Codes 

Advertisers can use SafeGraph’s category tags or NAICS codes to identify specific types of businesses operating at POI, like gyms or restaurants, and build segments around frequent visitors to these locations.

SQL

_{SELECT placekey, location_name, naics_code, category_tags}

_{FROM safegraph_places}

WHERE lower(category_tags) ILIKE '%gym%' 

   OR naics_code IN (713940); -- NAICS code for fitness centers

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Example 2: Querying POI Counts in Specific Geographies 

Advertisers can analyze POI concentrations by region to identify high-competition or untapped markets.

SQL

_{SELECT region, COUNT(placekey) AS poi_count}

_{FROM safegraph_places}

_{WHERE lower(category_tags) ILIKE '%cafe%'}

_{GROUP BY region}

_{ORDER BY poi_count DESC;}

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Example 3: Checking if a Mobile Ping Falls Within a Specific Polygon 

Accurate audience segmentation depends on determining if a mobile device ping collected by an advertiser or third-party geolocation data company occurred inside a particular POI’s boundaries, providing more precise advertising strategies.

SQL

_{WITH ping_data AS (}

    SELECT device_id, ping_latitude, ping_longitude 

    FROM mobile_ping_table

₎

_{SELECT p.device_id, s.placekey, s.location_name}

_{FROM ping_data p}

_{JOIN safegraph_geometry s}

_{ON ST_Within(ST_MakePoint(p.ping_longitude, p.ping_latitude), s.polygon_geom);}

SafeGraph’s Role in Location-Based Audiences

Building successful location-based audiences requires access to accurate, high-quality data. SafeGraph delivers the essential POI and polygon data advertisers need to create precise, contextually rich audience segments to drive stronger campaign performance. With monthly data refreshes, SafeGraph ensures advertisers have up-to-date information on business and other attractions at different POIs to scale their audience-targeting efforts effectively.

To learn more about how SafeGraph’s data can enhance your location-based marketing strategies, reach out to us for a demo or to explore how our data can fit into your existing workflows.