Category: NetAcuity

For decades, marketers have relied on postal codes as a core component of location-based targeting. While this level of data has delivered meaningful insights and campaign results, today’s competitive digital landscape demands even greater precision. That’s why Digital Element continues to innovate, expanding the boundaries of IP geolocation with the launch of IRIS  – France’s standardized geographic unit – now available through NetAcuity’s Alternate Area Database.

What Is IRIS?

In France, IRIS (Ilots Regroupés pour l’Information Statistique) refers to statistical blocks used by the French National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (INSEE) to collect and analyze data. Each IRIS zone contains approximately 2,000 residents and is designed to represent a coherent area from a demographic and urban planning perspective. While postal codes in France can be large and sometimes inconsistent, IRIS zones offer a standardized, fine-tuned way to understand population characteristics and trends at the neighborhood level.

Think of IRIS as France’s equivalent to Australia’s SA1 or Germany’s PLZ8 regions—purpose-built for statistical analysis, yet perfectly suited for marketers seeking smarter geolocation targeting.

More Granularity, Same Commitment to Privacy

By integrating IRIS into the Alternate Area Database, Digital Element enables businesses to map IP addresses to these smaller statistical units. This upgrade delivers sharper geographic resolution than traditional postal codes, unlocking new levels of campaign precision and audience understanding—without sacrificing user privacy.

IRIS areas are small enough to deliver actionable insight but aggregated enough to ensure individual data remains protected. This makes them ideal for privacy-compliant demographic profiling, content localization, and fraud prevention.

Why It Matters for Your Business

• More relevant targeting: Deliver messages tailored to hyper-local communities
• Smarter planning: Understand audience distribution and behavior across smaller, more meaningful areas
• Greater campaign ROI: Boost conversion rates by aligning offers with the real-world context of your audience

Whether you’re managing digital advertising, localizing content, or conducting market analysis, IRIS gives your team a deeper, more accurate picture of the French market.

Now Available in NetAcuity

IRIS is now available through NetAcuity’s Alternate Area Database and can be licensed on its own or alongside any of Digital Element’s 18 other databases for maximum insight.

And this is just the beginning. Following the successful rollout of SA1 in Australia and now IRIS in France, Digital Element will soon be adding PLZ8 regions in Germany to the Alternate Area Database—further expanding global access to hyper-local IP intelligence.

For a deeper dive into the launch of IRIS and what it means for location-based data innovation in France, be sure to check out our official press release. It highlights how IRIS complements our Alternate Area Database strategy and what’s next as we continue expanding across global markets.

Ready to go deeper with your location targeting in France?
Learn more about the power of IRIS and how it can enhance your marketing, analytics, and security strategies by reaching out to support@digitalenvoy.com.

Since commerce has gone online, marketers have relied on IP addresses for targeted marketing campaigns. In today’s competitive marketplace, the ability to target marketing efforts with precision is more critical than ever.

Since 1999, Digital Element has been helping marketers target their audiences precisely by postal code globally. This level of detail not only enhances the effectiveness of marketing campaigns but also drives higher conversion rates and better ROI.

While postal codes are granular, advertisers are always eager for even more precise data to gain deeper insights and improve performance of their targeted campaigns, and Digital Element has the answer.

A Deeper Understanding of Your Marketing Campaign

For census and planning purposes, many countries have created standardized geographic areas in addition to postal codes. These alternate areas help governments collect and analyze population data, but they also unlock valuable opportunities for marketers who need more precision than postal codes alone can offer.

In Australia, for example, these areas are known as Statistical Areas Level 1 (SA1), defined by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). SA1s are designed to be relatively small and consistent in population size—typically between 200 and 800 people, with an average of about 400.

SA1s represent the smallest unit in Australia’s statistical area hierarchy. Other countries use similar systems, such as PLZ8 regions in Germany and IRIS zones in France.

In the image above, the red lines show the postcodes in Melbourne, Australia and the white lines are SA1s.

Traditional postal codes in Australia can be quite broad, often covering multiple towns or large urban populations. There are approximately 3,333 postal codes nationwide. By comparison, the number of SA1s expands to more than 61,800 distinct areas.

In metro Sydney alone, a single postal code can contain as many as 40 individual SA1s. Each SA1’s smaller footprint enables more accurate targeting and more meaningful insights—without narrowing data down to an individual level.

This balance is critical. SA1s are granular enough to support detailed analysis and localized engagement, yet large enough to preserve anonymity and protect privacy. By focusing on smaller, more defined geographic units, companies can deliver personalized content that resonates with the right audience, at the right time, in the right place.

Why This Level of Granularity Matters in a Cookieless World

As third-party cookies continue to disappear, marketers are relying more heavily on signals that do not depend on personal identifiers. IP-based geolocation has emerged as a durable alternative because it enables geographic relevance without tracking individual behavior.

By working at the level of postal codes, cities, or alternate areas like SA1s, brands can:

• Localize messaging and offers without cookies
• Maintain reach and scale across browsers and devices
• Support privacy-compliant advertising strategies
  

This makes geographic intelligence especially valuable for campaigns where relevance is tied to where someone is, not who they are.

1. Get More Granularity without Sacrificing Privacy

Digital Element is taking IP-based location targeting to the next level with the introduction of its new Alternate Area Database.

This innovative feature maps IP addresses to individual SA1s in Australia, providing more precise geographic data by aggregating IP addresses from specific areas smaller than  traditional postal codes. By leveraging these detailed geographic boundaries, companies can enhance the granularity and accuracy of location-based data without compromising privacy.

The Alternate Area Database can be licensed as a standalone product or in conjunction with NetAcuity’s 18 other databases for more detailed insights.

2. Supporting More Accurate Targeting, Measurement, and Localization

With access to Alternate Area data, marketers can refine how they use location intelligence across multiple use cases.

For advertising and marketing, this means serving campaigns that are more closely aligned with local context, reducing wasted impressions and improving relevance at the neighborhood or community level.

For content and commerce experiences, alternate area data supports automatic localization. Product catalogs, pricing, language, subtitles, and regulatory messaging can adapt dynamically based on estimated regional location, without requiring logins or persistent tracking.

For analytics and measurement, greater geographic precision improves confidence. When campaigns are evaluated using consistent, deterministic location signals, marketers can better understand performance by region even as traditional cookie-based attribution becomes less reliable.

3. Designed to Complement Verification and Measurement Partners

NetAcuity’s Alternate Area Database is designed to work alongside existing verification, fraud prevention, and measurement solutions, not replace them.

By adding a stable, privacy-safe geographic signal, it helps preserve campaign scale and consistency as cookies fade, while enhancing the overall quality of location-based insights. This makes it a strong foundational layer within modern, privacy-first advertising stacks.

Looking Ahead: Expanding to France and Germany

The introduction of the Alternate Area Database in Australia is just the beginning. NetAcuity plans to extend this feature to other regions, including Germany and France. In Germany, the focus will be on PLZ 8 regions, and in France, the IRIS system will be utilized. These expansions will further enhance the granularity and accuracy of IP geolocation, providing valuable insights and targeting capabilities across Europe.

Revolutionizing IP Geolocation for Smarter Marketing

NetAcuity’s Alternate Area Database represents the next evolution of IP-based geolocation. By mapping IP addresses to smaller, well-defined geographic areas, it empowers businesses to make more informed decisions. Whether it’s for precise ad targeting, in-depth demographic analysis, or enhanced cybersecurity, the ability to map IP addresses to smaller, more accurate regions like SA1s unlocks new potential while maintaining alignment with Digital Element’s privacy-centric approach.

As this capability expands globally, it will continue to open new possibilities for brands that need precision, performance, and compliance in a cookieless digital environment.

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For more info on our capabilities, check out the resource center or reach out to support@digitalenvoy.com.