Foursquare Makes Good On Promise To Sell Data For Retargeting

Foursquare has joined the “big data” club, making good on an earlier promise to sell location and other user-behavior information to third parties. The company has said it wants to be “the location layer for the internet.”

As reported yesterday in AdAge, Foursquare is now making customer data available to DSP Turn:

As part of its efforts to generate new sources of revenue, Foursquare is working with ad-tech company Turn to allow advertisers to use its treasure-trove of location data to retarget Foursquare users on other websites, according to executives familiar with the situation.

Data from its own app and site users (e.g., check-ins) is combined with data gleaned from its developer partners, who use Foursquare’s location database. Turn (and others) will presumably add this data into the mix of retargeting options available to advertisers.

Foursquare has created personas or audience segments in part based on location and check-in data. The two slides above are from a Foursquare presentation published by Valleywag in April.

Selling its data is part of a larger Foursquare initiative to accelerate revenue growth and create multiple revenue streams. As another part of that effort the company recently introduced post-check-in ads on its app. Foursquare has also recently introduced self-service promoted listings for small businesses.

While Foursquare has access to plenty of money its ultimate fate will likely be an acquisition. And I still believe the best fit is Yahoo.