RANCHO PALOS VERDES, CALIF — IP addresses for targeting is a particular challenge for marketers due to the volatile, unpredictable nature of signals that change locations constantly, creating measurement and attribution problems that a location-focused approach aims to stabilize.
Digital Envoy, the data provider that focuses on geo-location, sought to respond to those issues in Jan. 2025, when it launched LocID, which promised to deliver consistent location signals for better targeting, measurement, and fraud prevention.
“IP addresses, which have been [the ad industry’s] bread and butter for over 26 years, is like looking at a hyperactive toddler on sugar bouncing around the room,” Charlie Johnson, VP, International at data platform company Digital Envoy, told Beet.TV contributor David Kaplan at the Beet Retreat LA. “What LocID does is act like the responsible adult coming into the room and keeping it into that one spot.”
LocID shifts focus from tracking IP addresses to anchoring on physical locations that don’t move, bringing stability to identity infrastructure, Johnson added.
Buildings don’t bounce
IP addresses change regularly. And that creates fragmentation issues for identity solutions built on them as core signals. Johnson noted that it’s a particular problem for connected TV ads, where IP translation remains essential.
“If we look at the location, buildings don’t run around the way IP addresses do,” Johnson said. “We can bring some calmness to the noise.”
This location stability can unite disparate solutions including mobile advertising IDs, cookies, and other signals by providing consistent anchor points rather than volatile identifiers.
Matching challenges stem from movement
Data set mismatches often blamed on IP addresses actually result from significant changes when a user (and their devices) move from one time zone to another.
“The IP address might be the same, but if the timeframe has changed, then the information around that IP address could have changed,” Johnson said. “If we instead stabilize the location, and then we manage the IP address changing around it — problem solved.”
Privacy-first by design
LocID development prioritized privacy considerations beyond current legal requirements, anticipating future regulation rather than building to today’s minimum compliance standards.
“One of the things about coming to working on LocID was taking a privacy first focus and not necessarily thinking about what the law is today, but what the law might be tomorrow,” Johnson said.
The approach avoids tracking individual people or devices. Instead, LocID creates anonymized cohorts at location levels that provide targeting stability without personal identification.
Ecosystem pulls together
Johnson expressed surprise at industry-wide enthusiasm for stable identity solutions, noting unprecedented cross-ecosystem alignment around the problem.
“In my many years working in this industry, I’ve never seen so many different parts of the ecosystem come together and say, ‘Gosh, yes, I have that problem. I want to solve that,’” Johnson said.
Stakeholders approach LocID from different perspectives. Brands seek measurement accuracy, while publishers want to protect their content; and advertisers, in turn, are driven by better user experiences that attract consumers’ greater attention. It’s all about addressing challenges caused by IP address chaos.
“One of the things that’s been extremely exciting is seeing the whole ecosystem pulling together,” Johnson said. “Looking at it from the many different unique challenges they have that are all underpinned by figuring out these fidgety little IP addresses.”
