BigGeo launches tool to turn store visits into ad audiences
What's the deal? Calgary-based BigGeoDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → has launched Audience Composer, a platform that builds digital advertising audiences from visits to physical locations. Marketers can create audiences around their own stores, competitors' sites, or broader business categories, then activate them on platforms including Meta and The Trade Desk.
How it works: Users select locations, date ranges, and filters, then review audience size before publishing. BigGeo says the underlying location data is refreshed at an aggregated level, with customers controlling their refresh schedules.
Potential uses include restaurant chains reaching visitors to competing locations, golf brands running retention campaigns, and outdoor advertising operators building digital audiences around billboards. The company says its team will help customers build their first campaigns before handing over control.
What's the endgame? Audience Composer adds an advertising application to BigGeo's geospatial technology, which traces back to Calgary venture studio Vivid TheoryDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → and research developed at the University of Calgary. That work, led by lead scientist Faramarz Samavati, centres on a three-dimensional digital Earth system that processes large volumes of location data.
"Your budget goes to audiences shaped by the places that drive your business," said chief executive officer Brent Lane.
Why now? Cookie and mobile-tracking changes are making conventional third-party audiences less dependable, pushing marketers toward location-based targeting. NIQ launched a close comparison, TDLinx Audiences, in September for activation through The Trade Desk.
What could go wrong? Location-derived ad audiences face rising privacy scrutiny, so consent quality, data handling, and safeguards will matter as much as the targeting itself. The announcement also offers no evidence yet of adoption or campaign results.
The signal: BigGeo's bet is that defining audiences by place and time window is a cleaner way to reach shoppers as tracking tools erode. Whether that advantage holds will depend on both marketer uptake and how well it navigates the privacy questions that come with mapping real-world movement.
Read more: calgary.tech
Image credit: Generated with Gemini
