April 7, 2018
Advertising can be a tricky game. You want to get the word out about your brand and the products or services it offers, but you’ll end up wasting precious time and money if you’re advertising to anyone and everyone. So, how do you know who to advertise to and how can you reach them effectively?
One strategy to take is to advertise to your audience based on their location, and here are two methods allowing you to do this – geo-fencing and geo-targeting.
What is geo-fencing?
Geo-fencing involves serving advertisements to people within a virtual boundary – one that you can determine. It uses technology such as GPS and Wi-Fi to create a virtual fence around a specific area. Once someone enters this “fenced-off” area, they will receive your advertisement or notification via their smartphone or tablet.
This area can be as large or as small as you want. Companies with physical stores can set up a fence around their store to entice passers-by, or even around their competitors’ stores to win over new customers utilizing a conquesting campaign. It also allows you the ability to serve ads to your customers in places they frequent.
What is geo-targeting?
Geo-targeting uses similar principles and technologies to geo-fencing, but it uses pre-established areas rather than ones that you define yourself. For example, you could deliver your content to people in a specific town, city, zip code, or state. Geo-targeting can also be used to target audiences that match specific criteria.
What are the benefits of location-targeted advertising?
The main advantage of using geo-fencing and geo-targeting is that it allows you to deliver personalized, highly targeted content. This means that your potential customers receive content that is relevant to them, at a time that is also relevant.
I’m sure you’ve received plenty of emails and notifications that weren’t at all relevant to you, and they probably got instantly deleted. Those advertisements were potentially wasted. But, imagine you’re browsing stores for a new pair of shoes and you see an advert on your phone for a sale at a nearby shoe store. That’s sure to catch your attention!
The upside of highly targeted advertising is that you don’t waste time, money, or resources advertising to people who will never become your customers. This means your advertising budget is spent more wisely and you get a better return on investment from it.
To find out more about geo-fencing and how to incorporate it in your brand’s advertising, contact us to find out how we can deliver this service for you. Or, register your details for a free snapshot report to learn about your business’ online reputation.