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According to a report by eMarketer, 65% of US marketers use location data for targeting and personalisation, with Geofencing being the most popular location based marketing tactic.
But what about Geotargeting? How does it differ from Geofencing, and how can you use it to deliver more personalised and relevant experiences to your customers?
In this article, we’ll explore what Geotargeting is, how it works, and how you can leverage this powerful targeting strategy to drive engagement and increase conversions.
Geotargeting is an effective targeting option that allows you to target specific audiences based on their location.
By using geo specific location data from devices like smartphones, tablets, and laptops, you can deliver targeted ads and messages to consumers in a specific geographic area.
This technology has become increasingly popular in recent years, as businesses look for ways to optimise their advertising and reach the right audience.
Geotargeting is a marketing technique that uses location technology to determine the location of users and deliver personalised and relevant messaging to them.
Geotargeting can use an IP address, WIFI triangulation technology, browser cookies, and other location technologies to gather user location data.
Users can also opt-in to share their location information with businesses, which can be used to serve them with targeted and personalised content.
Some digital advertising platforms, such as the Fluid Ads Platform and Google Ads have Geotargeting functionality.
The purpose of Geotargeting is to deliver content, advertising, or services to a specific audience based on their geographical location.
By targeting users based on location, you can create a more personalised and relevant experience for consumers, which can lead to better engagement and conversion rates.
Geotargeting and Geofencing both fall under the category of location based marketing, however, they serve different purposes.
Geofencing is the practice of drawing a virtual fence around a specific location, whereas Geotargeting refers to the delivery of content, advertising, or services to address a specific audience based on their geographical location.
To explore the distinction between Geofencing and Geotargeting further, click here.
Keyword Geotargeting is a popular marketing tactic that is commonly used in a variety of digital marketing channels, including search engine optimisation (SEO), pay-per-click (PPC) and display advertising. It involves targeting specific keywords to users in a particular geographic location.
This technique enables you to deliver highly relevant messaging to users who are actively searching for a product or service in their area.
By including geographically specific keywords in your targeting options, you can ensure that your messaging is only displayed to users who are most likely to convert, resulting in higher engagement rates and a greater ROI.
To ensure the success of a Geotargeting campaign, there are certain best practices that you should follow:
Geotargeting is a highly effective targeting option that is used by a wide range of businesses for marketing; also called Geomarketing.
Geomarketing is the practice of using location data to target audiences in real world locations.
By analysing location data on where your potential customers are located and where they go, you can tailor your marketing to better target specific audiences and improve overall performance and ROI.
Geomarketing can help you optimise your marketing campaigns by harnessing location data to better understand customer behaviour, target specific audiences in real world locations, and improve overall campaign performance.
There are a few options to target potential customers in geographical locations.
Geofencing allows you to draw a virtual fence on a map and target people who enter the geofence. It is one of the most accurate methods of location based targeting as it allows you to target down to a metre.
Proximity marketing is another option for targeting people in geographical locations. Select the location you want to target and select how big you want the proximity to be.
Examples of Geomarketing include advertising based on a user’s location, location based promotions or coupons, and using location data to optimise store placement and inventory management.
Large fashion retailers with a global reach rely on Geotargeting to ensure that consumers in different locations are presented with the most relevant products and content. By leveraging location based technologies, retailers can deliver tailored messaging that reflects local tastes, trends, and preferences.
Geotargeting is used by brick and mortar stores to attract visitors to their physical locations based on the visitor’s location. By targeting users searching for specific products or services in the area, stores can display ads with enticing offers or incentives to lure them to a store.
A Geotargeting Platform offers numerous benefits to businesses, some of the key benefits include:
A Geotargeting platform enables you to design and build ads at scale, reducing the time and resources required to create and manage the visual elements of your campaign.
A Geotargeting platform typically offers multiple targeting options, including Geotargeting, retargeting, demographic targeting and contextual targeting. By combining targeting options, you can effectively hone in on the people who are most likely to convert.
Geotargeting platforms typically include detailed reporting and analytics functionality, allowing you to monitor and make adjustments to your campaigns in real-time.
Some Geotargeting platforms include retargeting functionality, enabling you to target consumers who have previously interacted with your ads or visited your website and left without converting.
For businesses that prefer to outsource their marketing, some display advertising companies offer a fully managed service, providing you with access to experienced professionals and a customised strategy.
The cost of Geomarketing can vary depending on the specific tools and strategies being used, as well as the size and complexity of your campaign.
Some basic Geomarketing tools and techniques may be relatively inexpensive, while more advanced strategies and software can be more costly.
At Fluid Ads, we have Geomarketing packages to suit all businesses, regardless of size.
Have a look at our various pricing options by clicking this link.
There are several platforms available that have Geotargeting functionality.
Get the most out of your next ad campaign by using the right platform to target people in locations best suited to the goals of your business.
The first step to choosing which software to use for your Geotargeting campaign is to determine the best channel to reach your target audience. By selecting the right channel, you have a better chance of effectively reaching your target audience.
Consider whether you want to use display ads or social media to reach your audience.
Each channel has its own strengths and weaknesses, but your decision should depend on factors such as the target audience’s online behaviour, the message’s format, your marketing budget and the accuracy of the location targeting within the platform.
The two geo-location targeting options in the Fluid Ads platform are Geofencing Ads and Geotargeting Ads.
Geofencing Ads allows you to draw your own digital “fence” around a location. When a user that meets the campaign criteria passes through that area in real-time, a digital marker is placed on them which allows ads to be served to them.
Geotargeting Ads allows you to serve people with geographically relevant ads. It uses opt-in location services to determine the location of users.
The platform allows you to add postcodes directly into the platform or simply upload a CSV of addresses and set the radius to pool around it.
Google Ads targeting settings allow users to serve ads to countries, regions, cities and a radius created by the user.
Users can also target ‘location groups’ that include places of interest, a radius around a landmark or business locations. For example, someone in Manchester searching for hotels in London can be shown ads for hotels in London because they showed an interest in the topic.
Google Ads also allows users to exclude people based on locations. For example, if your business only operates in the UK, you could exclude anyone outside of the UK.
To maximise the impact of your digital advertising, it is important to keep in mind that the reach of your ad is restricted to the social media platform you choose to advertise on.
Therefore, selecting the right social media platform that aligns with your objectives is crucial for achieving performance gains.
For business-to-consumer (B2C), Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are commonly used platforms.
However, when it comes to business-to-business (B2B), LinkedIn remains the dominant choice.
According to Statista, Facebook had 2.91 billion monthly active users as of September 2021, making it the largest social network worldwide.
One example of the benefits of using this channel for advertising is the sheer number of people marketers can reach, but this could also be a drawback for businesses who are operating with a limited ad budget or are trying to conserve ad budgets.
Luckily for people who are limited by budget or only want to serve ads in their certain areas, Facebook location targeting allows you to target users based on country, city and region.
To start using the Geotargeting feature in Facebook Ads, you will need to make an account in the Ads Manager.
Twitter gives their users the ability to target specific countries, states / counties and postcodes as part of their campaign management settings. This can be a very good option if you believe that Twitter is the best advertising platform for your business and you want to target prospects in a specific geographic location.
Twitter monitors a user’s recent location using IP addresses, cellular signal and WIFI. To start using this feature, click the ‘Targeting’ option in campaign setup and scroll to ‘Select location, language and technology’ and then click ‘All locations’. This is where you will find the option to target specific geographic areas.
Instagram has the functionality to add a location to a post so when a user searches for a location, your post can be seen by anyone searching the location as a hashtag. Posts with a tagged location achieve nearly 80% higher engagement rates than posts without. When advertising on Instagram, you can target specific locations to ensure you are only reaching people in locations that are relevant to the goals of the campaign.
To use this feature, navigate to Instagram’s targeting feature in the Ad Manager section and choose areas that you want to target.
When advertising on LinkedIn, location targeting is a required option. With so many geographic locations available to target, this is a sensible requirement. LinkedIn identifies the location of user’s based on the information supplied by the account holder and IP addresses for short visits, however, when advertising on the platform, you can only target the long term locations of users.
To target locations with ads on LinkedIn, navigate to the locations menu and click ‘add locations’. When you start typing in the field, locations will begin to appear; select the ones you would like to target and exclude the ones you don’t.
If your target audience is of a younger generation, Snapchat is generally a good platform to advertise on; more than 50% of internet users aged 15-25 use Snapchat.
The platform allows you to target locations in the same way all of the platforms mentioned above do. This allows you to target a very specific audience demographically and geographically. Snapchat also allows you to do radius and longitude and latitude targeting.
Geotargeting is an effective targeting option that helps you to deliver personalised and relevant messaging to customers based on their location.
Geotargeting is different from Geofencing, which involves drawing a virtual fence around a geographical area, whereas Geotargeting refers to the delivery of content, advertising, or services to address a specific audience based on their geographical area.
Geotargeting is best used in combination with other targeting options to get the best from your marketing campaigns.
To add more sophisticated location targeting to your marketing strategy, create an account, or book a demo.