As the saying goes, it’s all about location, location, location. Moving into 2015, this could not be a more true statement for digital media. As geo-targeting becomes more sophisticated and mobile advertising activity increases, marketers are using GPS, Near Field Communications (NFC) and the Internet of Things (IoT) to increase their real-time relevancy. According to eMarketer, advertising in this space is projected to broaden from $11.3 billion in 2014 to a projected spend of more than $16.1 billion in 2015 – all to reach consumers on-the-go.
There are, as might be expected, benefits and challenges with each location-based medium. How you determine what is best for reaching your audience is based on the definition of the target, your objectives and of course the budget. In an attempt to help in the decision-making process, I have outlined four strategies for consideration when zeroing in on a target audience.
Social Targeting: Connecting with an audience has never been easier than through social media via Facebook and LinkedIn. With self-serve platforms on these two social media outlets, the required minimums of $20,000-$25,000 per month for a premium managed service are avoidable. For as low as $10 a day companies can now set up promoted posts on Facebook or sponsored posts on LinkedIn to find their specific audience. Via the self-serve platform, advertisers select broad demographics such as age, gender and interests. Want to get even more focused? Select more detailed targeting such as specific companies, countries, groups and job functions. Recently, Facebook launched local awareness targeting that allows companies to target a universe within a certain geographic radius. This can help drive traffic in-store or create awareness of an unknown need via a coupon. These options can be used separately or mutually depending on how niche advertisers want to go. Bear in mind that response can be affected if your universe is really small, however, optimizing the audience size can be done daily to find the right universe. With these social media outlets, companies can also A/B test ads, provide special deals for fans or followers, and retarget those who visit a company site (through Facebook exchange partners) all without a large out-of-pocket expense.
IP Targeting: Utilizing the Internet Protocol (IP) address assigned to devices participating in a computer network, IP targeting provides the opportunity to deliver content to an approximate geography at a particular time. The benefit of IP targeting is reaching people based on where they work, live or play. If you want to reach a key set of companies with your offerings, IP targeting is a potential answer. A word of caution: since advertisers cannot layer demographic data over the IP address there is a larger potential for waste. If your main objective is to reach a specific job title or function within a company, then there are definitely more succinct ways to target.
Hyperlocal Targeting: By definition hyperlocal targeting is the ability to reach an audience with a particular interst or need without being in a specific area. For example, a company may want to reach anyone who wants to know about the Dallas Cowboys. By placing advertising on local Dallas-Fort Worth sites (ESPN Dallas, WFAA.com, etc.), the business will target that audience no matter where they are in the world. By adding demographic information the audience becomes even narrower and waste is minimalized.
Geofence Targeting: As a media strategy geofence targeting allows advertisers to concentrate their advertising efforts to an audience within a set area. Targeting can be as broad as a city or as specific as an address or longitude/latitude. If you want to reach participants at a trade show this is an excellent way to serve your company’s ads to them. What about serving your ad when the target is near your competition to drive them to your products? A geofence is your answer.