Geo-Targeting & Geo-Fencing. What is the difference?
GEO-Fencing and Geo-Targeting. What are they and what’s the difference? Let’s discuss the items and issues as most, if not the majority, of business owners are greatly confused on these items.
In today’s market, there are so many ways to reach your audience online and through other forms of advertising.
How do you know which one is right to reach your audience? And how do you know which latest “buzz word” you should be researching to stay ahead of the curve?
We want to make things a little easier for you and breakdown the facts on a popular tactic that is often misinterpreted.
What is Geo-Targeting?
Geo-Targeting is a method in which you can show ads to individuals based on their specific country, state, zip code, city, or even neighborhood. This is not a new concept, nor is it overly complicated. This tactic can be used with multiple different platforms such as Google Ads, Facebook Ads, and Display Networks. You simply specify your desired target area and ads are shown to individuals within that radius. This is a great tactic for brand awareness and local campaigns.
What about Geo-Fencing?
This is where things get interesting. With geo-fencing, you can target individuals based on their precise location and serve display ads to their mobile devices. Targeting any size or shape “fence” you desire. Geofencing is the practice of creating “target” areas, which are areas your potential customers could/can/will be. Then we create a conversion zone, typically this is your business.
There are so many different ways to utilize this tactic! Like targeting visitors of your location to build customer loyalty, or similar business (i.e. your competitors). What about concerts, sporting events, conferences, or simply places where you think your clients and customers spend their time? Absolutely.
Geo-Fencing can even be used to complement or be used in exchange of a direct mail campaign. By using an addressable geofencing tactic we take your mailing lists and target those individuals on their devices rather than just their mailbox. Sounds awesome, right?
But wait you haven’t even heard the best part yet, geofencing takes tracking the success of your campaigns to a whole new level. You can see, not only the ROI in impressions, clicks, and calls, but also store traffic. Track the number of individuals that saw your ad and then visited your business as a result of it. Imagine all the ways you could reach your audience with these methods!
So now you know all the facts. Wanna use these tactics to grow your business? Let’s get started.
Get The Facts On Fencing
True geofencing has to be placed with a DSP (Demand Side Platform). Getting access to a DSP can be complicated in sifting through data as well as costly, with costs in the thousands per month. So some agencies that don’t have DSP access will try to sell small business owners on geofencing while actually giving them geo-targeting.
Baylee Teal – Digital Media Manager