How to do location based marketing

Needed in 2022: A New Approach to Targeting Audiences

For the past few decades, marketers have been told that behavioral data held the keys to stellar marketing performance. By tracking the sites users visit, the articles they read and the products they purchase, marketers will have the insight they need to assess a visitor’s interest, intent and brand loyalties at scale.

This approach was based on a lot of assumptions. A consumer who visits a gardening site has a garden, a user who reads about a new line of cars must be an auto-intender. More often than not, however, these assumptions were wrong, and marketing and advertising performance suffered as a result.

Now that the browsers are blocking third-party tracking cookies, marketers need a new way to target and engage users. That’s where location-based marketing comes into play.

What is Geo-targeted Marketing?

Location-based marketing lets marketers target their audiences based on the geolocation data that is part of a device’s unique IP address. IP data can be very robust, incorporating such data points as:

Geolocation data (longitude/latitude, ZIP+4 or POSTCODE)
Company Name
Domain Name
Home vs. Business
ISP
Organization
VPN/Proxy

How Does Location-Based Marketing Work?

Location-based marketing targets audiences based on where they are in the physical universe: at home, in an office, on a train, or shopping in a retail district. Moreover, marketers can use geolocation data with other IP data (e.g. type of Internet traffic) to home in on their exact audiences.

Retailers that open a new home goods outlet can target home users who live within a specific circumference of the store. Conversely, an ecommerce company that sells office supplies can target business users in an office complex.
Fast-casual restaurants can target workers in a corporate park with ads for a lunch special beginning at 11:00 AM, just when they might start to consider where to eat.
B2B companies can drive media efficiency in their campaigns by eliminating home users from their target list.

Optimize Geo-Targeting Campaigns

Location-based data also helps marketers optimize campaign criteria, including channels, audiences to target, day-parts, based on real-time results in order to drive conversions and media efficiency.

Let’s say you’re a marketer for brick-and-mortar pharmacy and your campaign goal is to drive in-store foot traffic. Geolocation data lets you answer the question: what is the optimal distance from an outlet to encourage in-store visits by new customers? Using this insight, you can concentrate ad spend on users who are within that distance.

Marketers can also merge geolocation data with insights derived from real-time user signals to enable the delivery of localized content and to ensure the right customer or prospect is always presented with the right content.

How to do Location-Based Marketing

Location-based data can be used in a variety of ways to target a local market:

Target “Clusters of Similarity”	Segment users based on a known similarity. For example, government-promoted “quit smoking” and “healthy heart” public-service campaigns can be targeted to areas with high rates of smokers and heart disease.
Location as Targeting Criteria	Adding location as a targeting option to audience profiling, to facilitate the development of true geo-demographic clusters, which are proven to deliver higher CTRs and command a higher premium.
IP + Real-World Events	Combine IP with real-world events, such as weather: A clothing retailer can promote warmer clothing as temperatures drop in a certain area, aligning ad targeting to real-world events.
IP + Demographic Targeting	If you know where your target customers live, then you can target ads based on demographic data relating to that area (e.g. school supplies to suburban neighborhoods with a high concentration of families).

Better Than Behavior Data

Marketers shouldn’t be that concerned that data-driven marketing will end as a result of emerging privacy regulations and changes to popular browsers. Location-based marketing is a powerful strategy that lets you home in on your audiences at the most opportune times.