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Power your Digital Media Campaigns with GeoFencing

ad targeting with geo fencing

What is geofencing?

Geofencing is a location-based targeting method. Essentially you are creating a virtual fence around a geographic location like a city, location within a city or a smaller area within a city, etc I am sure that gets you excited and why not, the opportunities are enormous. Haven’t we all marketers been dreaming since B-School days about how crazy it would be if messages could be sent within a small geo locale. Well, here we are, geofencing is for real.

Geofencing uses the global positioning system (GPS) or Radio frequency identification (RFID) to set geographical boundaries, creating a virtual barrier. This boundary outlines the radius of selected areas to focus and targets consumers within the fence.

What is the difference between geo-targeting and geo-fencing?

So geo-targeting has always been around and what’s the difference here? Well, Geofencing is the creation of a virtual barrier around a location using IP addresses. The Ads targeted using this tch can be seen on a computer, tablet, or mobile device by any users within this geo-fenced location.

On the other hand, Geotargeting refers to delivering ads to people that meet campaign targeting needs inside a defined geographic location. Geotargeting is all about specific consumer criteria, such as interest, demographics, location, etc. Usually, in geotargeting, you can exclude locations and that has helped many a client who depends on Google Ads Campaigns for driving leads. When your digital marketing campaign needs to reach out to larger geographical audiences geofencing is not your go-to option.

To make use of geofencing, a user must first establish a virtual boundary around a specified location. This could be as simple as a circle drawn with a desired radius around a specific location on Google Maps. This virtual geofence would be set via the tools and software required and then will be able to trigger a response when a targeted set of users enters or exits that fence, as specified by the targeting settings of an online marketing campaign.

For example, let’s say you are a company who offers niche products/services and know where your target audience is known to reside or work. You can thus ask your digital agency to explore opportunities of targeting people within this geofence and target users of mobile apps only or even target video views only and so on. This allows you to access relevant prospects which in turn has a better chance of generating higher ROI.

Another example, from the google developers page about geofencing is about an airline app. The company can define a geofence around an airport when a flight reservation is near boarding time. When the device crosses the geofence, the app can send a notification that takes users to an activity that allows them to get their boarding pass.

Geofencing is another awesome opportunity in the digital marketing agency arsenal to bring measurable data specs to each campaign which can aid better optimisation and boost ROI.

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