Programmatic ad platform Pubmatic and location specialist xAd have jointly launched what they claim is the first ever location-enabled private marketplace for premium mobile ad inventory. The move follows the launch of the two companies’ shared location-verified mobile marketplace in May.

The marketplace will serve tens of billions of monthly impressions in a variety of categories, including 2.4bn monthly impressions in the Automotive sector, 2.3bn in Shopping, and 1.2bn in the Grocery category. The majority of the inventory will be app-based, location-verified and aware, transparent and rich media-enabled. The marketplaces will enable the targeting of a range of mobile-specific parameters, including IDFA (Advertising Identifier) MRAID, and latitude/longitude.

While mobile is often used to browse for products and services, most retail transactions still happen in-store. Pubmatic and xAd believe the launch of the location-enabled private marketplace will make it easier to link mobile advertising directly to sales through the use of location data to pre-define categories of inventory originating from high foot traffic locations such as grocery stores, shopping centers and auto lots.

“We have believed for a long time that mobile’s ability to reach and influence consumers’ purchase behaviour when they are in close proximity to a store location represents a significant opportunity,” said xAd CEO Dipanshu Sharma. “The ability to identify premium supply coming from in and around key points of interest can do for mobile what search did for the internet in the early digital days.”