For most consumers, the holiday season starts with decorations and gift lists. For advertising agencies, it starts now, in Q3, when campaign planning, audience targeting, and media buying decisions are made under tight deadlines and tighter budgets.

Q4 is the most competitive quarter in advertising. Agencies are tasked with allocating millions in media spend across Halloween, Black Friday, Christmas, and New Year’s campaigns. But it’s not just about securing premium ad slots. It's about understanding where, when, and how to reach the right audience with a creative that resonates and converts.

Adtech leaders know the stakes. CPMs will spike. DOOH inventory will vanish overnight. And clients will expect last year’s results, or better. That’s why agencies aren’t waiting for the calendar to flip. They’re already neck-deep in Q4 planning. In fact, recent data shows that Q4 consistently drives a 20% quarter-over-quarter surge in ad spend across channels like retail media, paid search, and social. Retail media alone posted 23% year-over-year growth, driven by increased impressions and clicks.

Why agencies are investing in insights now

The window for planning is narrow. Creative development, media negotiations, and targeting strategies must be aligned by the end of September. Yet, many traditional attributions, particularly those reliant on third-party cookies, are becoming unreliable.

Agencies can’t afford guesswork in a season where ROI is measured in hours. They need targeting frameworks that reflect real-world behavior rather than traditional ZIP code assumptions or audience proxies.

That’s why leading agencies are turning to Echo Analytics to anchor their Q4 strategies in real-world behavior, not assumptions.

Planning in a cookieless world demands smarter signals

With cookies becoming obsolete and regulations tightening globally, agencies are forced to pivot toward privacy-first targeting strategies. First-party data has emerged as a core asset, but even that has limitations. It captures known users rather than the ones you should be reaching.

Echo Analytics helps bridge that gap with anonymized, non-PII location datasets that deliver deep, behavior-driven insights without compromising privacy. These insights reflect where consumers go, how often, and what they do, which allows advertisers to build real intent models grounded in reality.

Location behavior is the new audience signal

With third-party cookies phasing out and device-based IDs facing tighter controls, traditional targeting methods are drying up. Agencies know this and the smart ones are investing in new frameworks that model behavior from the real world, not browser trails or ZIP code stereotypes.

That’s where Echo Analytics comes in.

Echo has launched a new set of behavioral audience solutions, built from privacy-safe, location-based visit data. These segments don’t guess who someone is. They reflect where people actually go, how often they go there, and how those patterns evolve.

And they’re built for Q4 scale.

Syndicated audiences: Ready-made, behavior-defined

Echo’s syndicated audience segments offer a fast, effective way to activate location-based targeting. These pre-built groups, such as “Coffee Lovers,” “Luxury Shoppers,” or “Fast Casual Regulars,” are defined by actual visit behavior across thousands of physical locations. They’re refreshed regularly and can be deployed immediately in digital campaigns.

The value here is simple: Real-world behavior, no guesswork, no cookies.

Syndicated segments work especially well for broad, national, or category-based campaigns where precision still matters but custom logic isn’t required. And because the outputs are ID-based (MAIDs, IPs, or HEMs), they plug into most existing ad tech workflows.

Custom audiences: Tailored logic, campaign-ready delivery

When syndicated isn’t enough, custom audiences step in. Echo allows agencies to define rules based on client goals like visit frequency, recency, or spatial behaviors before delivering the corresponding IDs for activation.

Examples of insights include:

• “Visited QSR chains 3+ times in the past 14 days”
• “Lives in an area that over-indexes for high-frequency coffee visits”
• “Visited a competitor’s location but not ours in the past 60 days”

Outputs are flexible - tagged by H3 tiles or ZIP codes, mapped to MAIDs, IPs, or HEMs—and built to work across mobile, CTV, and DOOH.

This format enables teams to move quickly from planning to activation, using targeting logic that reflects the real world, not ad tech conventions.

Planning in Q4 means pressure. Echo brings clarity.

Campaign teams don’t have time for slow-moving segments, cookie workarounds, or incomplete data. They need high-fidelity audiences they can explain, trust, and act on. Echo’s new audience products are purpose-built for that exact need.

With these new syndicated and custom capabilities, agencies can now:

• Reach high-intent consumers based on actual visit behavior
• Eliminate reliance on PII or unreliable web signals
• Execute national campaigns or geo-targeted rollouts
• Plan with precision, act with speed

This isn’t theoretical. It’s already powering holiday targeting strategies for agencies in retail, CPG, and QSR.

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FAQs

How does location data improve targeting?

‍It captures actual movement patterns. By knowing where people go and how often, agencies can target based on real behavior instead of assumptions or outdated proxies.

What makes Echo’s data different?

‍Echo builds audiences using anonymized MAIDs and residential IPs. The data is privacy-safe, highly granular, and grounded in real-world activity—not cookies or modeled traits.

What’s the difference between syndicated and custom audiences?

‍Syndicated audiences are pre-built and ready to activate. Custom audiences are defined by your specific logic, such as visit frequency, recency, or brand-specific patterns.

Are these audiences compliant with privacy laws?

‍Yes. Echo uses non-PII identifiers and excludes volatile mobile network IPs. All data is built around privacy-first methodologies and global compliance standards.