HangIt pushes ads to your iPhone everywhere
There is a new type of billboard, and it is coming straight to your iPhone. HangIt has launched a new mobile marketing channel dubbed Location-Driven Engagement, which enables any app to better engage its customers with “in the moment” messages that utilize the smartphone owner’s precise location. You might already be experiencing this new type of outdoor advertisement if you live in the Georgetown area of Washington, District of Columbia.
Here’s how it works. HangIt’s platform combines a mobile software development kit (SDK) that the company says can be integrated in a day with a Campaign Portal that allows organizations to “hang” their marketing messages anywhere to be delivered to smartphone users at that target location. HangIt uses all of your device’s location technologies to determine your location, including GPS, cell towers, local Wi-Fi, beacons, and your smartphone’s accelerometer.
This means that the location-based notifications do not have to be tied to an inside iBeacon or similar indoor technology. Since HangIt can use your phone’s GPS and nearby cell towers, too, ads can be targeted to you as you walk past a popular historical monument, for example, just as easily as when you pass by a retail store.
Currently, HangIt’s platform is at work for more than 25 local retailers and restaurant customers in Georgetown, and has delivered more than 10,000 messages to users since the service first launched in late fall 2014. The SDK enables app developers to set up location-based push notifications that alert the user when they are near a participating retailer or restaurant, or push out a message of the HangIt participant’s choosing to the smartphone. The message comes up as a push notification, but when you tap on it, it can lead to HTML5 rich content or open the corresponding app on your phone to give you more information.
Three new apps will start using HangIt in the near future. The first, Fly, will launch HangIt as a way to notify users when they are in places where other users record lots of video, such as local attractions, to make sure you don’t miss an opportunity to get a great shot.
Second, VideoKits Pro, a mobile application designed to allow users to capture videos using already planned storyboards, will use HangIt for creative approaches. For example, a producer doing documentary work could receive crowdsourced content from users based on a specific location.
Finally, a leading portfolio platform for young job seekers, Portfolium, will use HangIt to target users based on location opportunities like academic events, sports tournaments, art shows, and much more.
HangIt has opened its platform to any app, for free, allowing any developer to make use of the SDK for their own location-based push notifications.