Using Local Search and Geolocation Technology to Link Brands and Consumers

New shopping apps combining mobile local search with smart phone geolocation technology are creating a link between brands and shoppers that marketers have been waiting for.

Scott Dunlap, CEO of NearbyNow, will present retail-based iPhone applications developed in partnership with major magazine titles from Hearst, CondeNast and other top-tier publishers. Based on NearbyNow’s iPhone platform, these search apps allow consumers to view featured products in an editorial context, then shop online to find these items locally in nearby stores.

Once shoppers have compared price and availability and selected their item, it is placed on hold to be picked up at a convenient retail location. The service can then deliver “on the way” ads based on a customer’s current location, and time-based coupons to motivate purchases. These apps are doing something no other mobile shopping app has done until now: they complete the triangle between media, advertisers and consumers in a way not possible before. And by tracking customer actions through the buying cycle from search to purchase, they enhance marketers’ knowledge of customer behavior in a powerfully concrete way.

The first apps are demonstrating advertising click-through rates of between 15 and 25 percent, and conversion rates of nearly 10 percent – both significantly higher than industry averages for mobile applications.

Two of the apps Scott will present are wildly popular with iPhone users, and have been featured in the Apple iTunes App Store in the “New and Noteworthy” section, and as “Staff Picks.”