As tech firms track consumers' locations, advertisers swoop in for the sale

San Francisco

MAPPING technology advancements from Google Inc and Facebook Inc, which provide more precise user location data than ever before, are starting to make a dent in advertisers' longtime scepticism about boosting mobile ad spending.

Major retailers have restricted mobile to 10 per cent or less of their ad budgets because of difficulty gauging their effectiveness and a limited ability to target shoppers by location.