IP intelligence in sales and marketing

In today’s digital age, businesses understand the need to connect with their target audiences in a highly personalized manner. This is the reason why IP intelligence plays a crucial role in sales and marketing strategies.

Understanding IP intelligence

What is IP intelligence

IP intelligence is the process of deriving valuable information from IP addresses. As every online device on the Internet has an IP address, imagine the wealth of IP intelligence data that can be harnessed to augment marketing efforts, thereby boosting revenue. IP addresses can be associated with a user’s location, organization and more.

How does it work

IP intelligence relies on geolocation databases or APIs in order to map IP addresses to the usable data. At the most basic level, geolocation data enables the user to pinpoint the location of an IP address.

Online merchants and marketers can utilize this info to unveil browsing or purchasing patterns within a localized region. With such info, marketing plans can be tailored to better cater for each region’s specific trend.

In addition, IP intelligence allows users to identify the organization or company associated with an IP address. Organizational data can be used to power B2B marketing and lead generation.

Applications of IP Intelligence in Sales and Marketing

Content Customization

Businesses can customize their website content based on the user’s geolocation. IP intelligence also enables online merchants to show certain ads to visitors from specific locations. By only showing relevant ads to users, the sales conversion rate will definitely be higher for those ads.

Let’s take a look at a simple example of using the IP2Location.io IP geolocation API to retrieve the visitor’s geolocation data.

<?php
$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, 'https://api.ip2location.io/?' . http_build_query([
 'ip'      => '8.8.8.8',
 'key'     => 'YOUR_API_KEY',
 'format'  => 'json',
]));

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FAILONERROR, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, 0);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_TIMEOUT, 10);

$response = curl_exec($ch);

$obj = json_decode($response, true);

if ($obj['country_code'] == 'US') {
 echo "This is US.\n";
}
else {
 echo "This is others.\n";
}

?>

The above example just outputs a statement whether the user is coming from the United States or not. However, the code could easily be modified to display different contents for US visitors vs. non-US visitors.

Page Redirection or Blocking

Another common use of IP intelligence is to redirect users from some locations to one page and other users to another different page. A good example would be country specific pages on your website. Being able to get the IP geolocation means you can know which page to send your visitors to. Country specific pages are a good way to display content in the local language as well and show pricing in that country’s currency. Allowing users to purchase in their local currency means less headaches as there is no need to convert the price to their own currency beforehand.

IP intelligence is also great for blocking users from some countries. Some countries have a higher than usual rate of fraudulent order transactions. That’s when being able to block users from those countries will come in handy. Merchants can opt to block all users from a particular country if most of their fraudulent orders originates from there, thus reducing the risk of chargebacks.

Page redirection or blocking is easily achieved using the IP2Location Redirection plugin or the IP2Location Country Blocker plugin.

Or check out the rest of the IP2Location plugins and extensions that are available to help you make full use of IP geolocation.

Fraud Prevention

Fraud prevention is another sector that heavily relies on the use of IP intelligence. Online stores rely on fraud prevention strategies to automate checking of the online order transaction details. They serve to weed out fraudulent orders with little to no human intervention.

Thanks in large parts to the IP intelligence data derived from the IP address that originated the order, fraud attempts can be stopped quickly and efficiently. E.g., if the IP geolocation of the order does not match the shipping or billing address, that’s a huge red flag for fraud.

IP intelligence also contains data regarding the use of proxy servers such as VPN. Normal people don’t usually use VPN when making purchases online. Only fraudsters tend to hide their physical presence by using proxy servers.

The IP Geolocation API returns lots of data about IPs, including whether they are being used as proxies. This makes them highly valuable for online merchants to filter out potential frauds.

Read more about how IP intelligence helps with fraud detection.

Analytics & Lead Generation

Marketing professional these days rely on analytic tools like Google Analytics to better understand trends about visitors to their websites. Insights gleaned about the visitors’ locations and other pertinent info, can be analyzed to be turned into actionable marketing plans. Marketers get a better understanding of their customers’ behaviors which help in lead generation by prioritizing those with the highest potential for conversion.

Tips to drive traffic and increase sales

Choose the right target audience

Utilize IP intelligence to unveil a wealth of information about your target audiences. Every marketing department must spend their budget to maximize the ROI. In order to do so, evaluate which markets yield the highest conversion for your campaigns and focus your efforts and advertising there.

Highlight relevant ads

Once you’ve identified your target audience, be sure to show them ads that speak to their interests and needs. Tailor your ads to be highly relevant to your audience. That will help to increase your user engagement which will lead to higher conversions.

Test different strategies

People from different regions think and do things differently. As a result, all marketing efforts should take their regional individuality into account. For example, a region with a high number of working-class folks, will surely appreciate value for money goods as well as “Buy 1 Free 1” types of promotions. Meanwhile, a region inhabited by high-flying executives or celebrities, will definitely want access to more luxury goods. By testing what marketing strategy works in each region, merchants can potentially maximize their sales revenue overall.

Conclusion

There is no doubt that IP intelligence is key for businesses to gain a better understanding of what makes their customers tick. This allows the merchants to tailor their marketing efforts and provide a more personalized shopping experience to their users. By using analytics powered by IP geolocation data, businesses can drive more traffic to their sites and also increase sales conversion more effectively.