10 Practical tips for using Geo-Location to reach target audience in Digital advertising
Before we get into the article piece, let’s have a pretext of what we cover in this study on location- or geo-parameter-based digital advertising. In this context, targeted advertising is something advertisers and publishers look into to reap optimal benefits for their marketing or advertising efforts. The information mentioned in the write-up helps both newbies and AdTech experts. Some recommendations would be pointed toward Revive Adserver users as most of the study was based on this open-source ad-serving platform. Also, one can find suggestions for modules and plugins to enhance the existing and primary Adserver platform.
Geography and digital advertising
Geography plays a primary role in creating customized and targeted marketing campaigns. Geo-marketing is one of the areas with the most technology pumped into it as it can focus directly on an individual user, which can help marketers or salespersons customize the message about a product or service to that customer to ensure their needs are met sufficiently.
The evolution of gadgets has been brought out with high demands recently. The GPS (Global Positioning System) is used worldwide to reach the targeted audience with the help of their locations. Geography plays a vital role because it helps create customized and targeted marketing campaigns. A young columnist, Wesley Young, also explains the advantages and how local search marketers can use geo-location.
For instance, when True Religion Jeans Company wants to target a particular area to promote its retail stores, Gary Penn has stated,” 65,000 Geo-targeted emails were opened with a 2.5% click-through rate and a 1% in-store conversion, a significant impact for one campaign with a small data set, per True Religion’s Director of Global e-Commerce.
Aide of location-based service in advertising
The ads based on the targeted audience were much higher than the industry benchmark of all the verticals, according to the Local Search Association’s LSA Insights database. The targets would be found on the exact real-time location of a mobile user and adjusted for other factors like weather, local conditions, events, or happenings around a certain distance, which also would fall in this category. This shows that Geo-targeting doubles the performance of all kinds of methods in marketing, from email campaigns to paid search.
It is evident from the LSA that, in further days, Geo-targeting will grow high, as the need for mobile has surpassed PC use because every individual is trying to get more local information from the workplace or home. People trust collecting coupons and loyalty points for a purchase of some product, which leads them to provide their location details. Geo-targeting targets the particular audience to provide the information based on their area, via web or mobile. In the beginning stage of a business, some would be restricted to work only on the targeted site, which sometimes helps to identify their interests deeper.
Know the difference: Geo-Targeting vs. Geo-fencing
Geo-Targeting
Geo-targeting in the context of marketing and digital advertising is the method of determining the Geo-location of a website visitor and delivering different content to that visitor based on their location. This includes country, region/state, city, metro code/zip code, organization, IP address, ISP, or other criteria.
Geo-fencing
Geo-fencing is a feature in a software program that uses a global positioning system (GPS) or radio frequency identification (RFID) to define geographical boundaries. It allows an administrator to set up triggers so that an alert will be given when a device enters or exits the limits prescribed by the administrator.
Here are 10 practical tips for using Geo-location information to reach your target audience.
Find a venue where your target audience will have specific wants or needs while focusing on the Venue of the targeted audience; it has to be specifically categorized and not just related to the whole area. For instance, it must be classified as malls, stadiums, airports, and universities, which specify the Venue. When it is a stadium, it sets short events where the fans are hosted by two different cities or schools or fans of a specific music genre of one demographic. When moving to the airports, the weekend targets would be leisure travelers and families looking for casual dining, and the weekdays would be business travelers looking for high-end restaurants. Likewise, the students of ages between 18 and 21 would be targeted by the dance clubs and bars.
1. Exclude locations where your target audience will not be
Geo-targeting is not only about focusing on the target audience when necessary, but they can also exclude the Venue when it is not necessary. In some regions, when the particular audience is targeted, they might not be available; in those cases, they will be left without the targets. For instance, when university students are targeted for promoting clubs and bars, they cannot be targeted when they are away or during their summer breaks.
Meanwhile, the exclusion of locations may tend to have higher-rated ad targets. To lower costs, the Digital marketing agency Meditative explained how to opt for the targeted region without other areas.
2. Define a radius by distance or time around your store or an area of interest.
Geo-fencing sets a perimeter around a physical location and serves ads in that area. The ads provided will be more innovative, acknowledging the user’s location or including location-based features like helping the audience find the nearby ATM, service center, or hotel near the airport or train station, which may provide them with a discount option. This is one of the recent trends that has gained popularity among advertisers who run both online and offline stores.
Since the audience would be on the move, Geo-fencing can be achieved on open-source Ad server platforms such as Revive Adserver by integrating a small add-on plugin developed and made available by ReviveAdserverMod.com, a repository of hundreds of other plugins as well.
There was another way for the perimeter to find the audience, with time, instead of noting the distance.
For instance, iGeolise, a company, developed a platform called TravelTime, an API that allows mobile apps and sites to search by time rather than distance. The audience of condominium units is mainly attracted to this. For example, it helped them to look after the restaurants targeting hotel patrons within a 10-minute walking distance.
3. Adjust your bid on ads to prioritize better locations.
When it is targeted only to the specified address, there is a loss in the volume of the audience. It is just ten click-throughs; if 100 people see your ad, there is an otherworldly 10% click-through rate. On the lower performance locations, the campaign cost gets high. When more of the areas are targeted, the campaign cost gets low, which undergoes the adjustments of optimizing and performance.
For instance, when a musician in Chicago holds a concert, they prioritize bid adjustments at higher and lower costs depending on the targeted audience.
4. Use location-specific keywords for paid search ads.
Geo-targeting targets not only the physical location; it is a part where time is conveyed for the searching queries. Consumers focus on the searches of cities or states.
For instance, “Austin gyms,” “coffee shops near DuPont Circle,” or “uptown restaurants” provide location intent that you can target. Include location terms such as area code, ZIP code, neighborhood, community name, nearby landmarks, popular venues, tourist destinations, well-known street names, local jargon, and other keywords to help you get found when a consumer searches for businesses around you.
5. Predict your audience by geography.
Geography helps majorly to understand the demographics and information about the users in a particular area. It helps to know the residents’ income bracket, age, ethnicity, education, and other demographics and related interests. Even politicians use geo-targeting to predict demographics or common values.
It is matched up with the business’s target audience to find the consumers who like products or services.
For instance, when a ticket broker wants to advertise NCAA basketball tickets in Kentucky, he might consider using Kentucky basketball in its messaging. However, Louisville basketball would be preferable for any advertising within 50 miles of the city on the Kentucky side of the border and 70 miles into Indiana due to the strength of Louisville’s fan base in those areas.
6. Discover location intent by search history.
Though the consumers’ location is not in the same place as the search history place, they will be delivered with some of the ads specified to that place.
For instance, when a person travels to New York and searches for places like the Empire State Building, Central Park, and Broadway tickets, the hotels nearby would suggest that person with the related messages or ads.
7. Analyze consumer behavior and preferences from past locations visited.
It is never necessary to locate a person’s interest just with their current location. The location history of that consumer tends to know about their interests. It includes where they visit often, what things they like, where they want to buy, and even how they got there.
For instance, a consumer may receive a free coupon for Starbucks coffee from a bagel shop, even though they are outside that area. It should be because they visit earlier and visit later.
8. Use location-specific landing pages to provide relevant content.
To provide more relevant information, it is necessary to focus on the right consumers because when the landing page ad isn’t customized, the conversation could be lost when the correct user clicks the ad. The best way to get the targeted consumer is to create a landing page with the particular targets through Geo-aware targeting.
For instance, when a higher income consumer locates the website of a car, he must be displayed with the landing page of luxury vehicles, which is of deals with a cash off or lower interest rates. In contrast, lower-income areas will be shown with the agreement of economy vehicles with lower monthly payments.
9. Take advantage of geographic-specific events.
Geographic events and guides to target the consumers based either on the weather or traditional local holiday celebrations. Some festivals and circumstances are known in advance, and during those times, it helps predict and target the consumers easily, like St. Patrick’s Day in Boston. Still, some of the unexpected are also there, like snow storms in Dallas. These snow storms would encourage consumers to get snow shovels or blowers, whereas St. Patrick’s Day would promote its green-colored or festive attire, boosting their sales.
It is listed with many examples of how geography plays a prominent role in customizing and marketing targeted campaigns. Consumers respond to mobile marketing by clicking on ads more often, demonstrating greater acceptance of advertisements on mobile platforms. Since mobiles are increasingly equipped with Geo-location, Geo-targeting these devices and their users will become the following upcoming advertisers.
10. We are achieving Geo-location-based targeting on Revive Adserver.
With all the hype around the benefits Geo-location advertising brings to advertisers, publishers, and audiences alike, the volume of users using source Ad server platforms such as Revive Adserver is relatively high. Some may wonder if this can be achieved on their Ad server. The solution is yes; Revive Adserver users can do much more with geo-location-based advertising functionalities. A significant supplier of Revive Adserver plugins and modules, ReviveAdserverMod.com, has developed exclusive plugins to enhance the Geo-based functionalities on your Revive Adserver.
Why spend more when you can pay for only the Geo-location targeting you intend to use?
For instance, if you want to target your audience only based on ZIP codes, there’s a Geo Zip code targeting plugin, or if you want to target any particular state, there is a Geo-plugin by state.
Suppose you’re a marketer focusing on setting up a perimeter to draw customers to offline stores. In that case, a geo-fencing plugin’s ground-level targeting of potential customers is the right match for you. You can find more plugins and modules like these on ReviveAdserverMod.com.
The core reason for the popularity of Geo-based target advertising
From the start, marketers have always focused on reaching potential audiences rather than the random masses. As the digital advertising industry is on the verge of many revolutionary breakthroughs, like rendering personalized experiences for individual users, I feel Geo-based targeting is a milestone along the way. Corporations are becoming increasingly conscious of the dime they throw into marketing efforts and expect optimal revenue. These plugins are the right step forward in providing advertisers, publishers, and ad agencies with appropriate solutions. As the boundaries of digital advertising ever expand and are explored by bodies like the IAB, it is prominent that we can expect new ways to reach and render specific groups of audiences.
Authored by Kingson S