What if we told you there was a way to send your ads to the right audience at the right time, in the right location and it was far cheaper than most other options? Well, you probably wouldn’t believe us. But that’s why we’re writing this. Let’s talk about how geofencing marketing is going to reduce your advertising spend while increasing your conversions.
What Is Geofencing Marketing?
Simply put, geofencing marketing or location-based marketing is a way to place an invisible “fence” around a location or several locations. Inside this “fence” is the only place your ads will appear. These locations aren’t just buildings though, you can advertise to specific coordinates, zip codes, DMAs (designated market areas), states and more.
This gives you a better chance to reach your target audience when they’re at locations related to your business or at an event that your target audience is interested in. Best of all, it’s cheaper than buying a billboard or sponsoring a small part of the event and is more directly targeted, so you’re not wasting impressions. But since you probably haven’t heard of geofencing, you might need a little insight on where you can even start using them.
What Platforms Utilize Geofencing?
There’s a lot of platforms that use location data for geofencing like GroundTruth, Simpli.fi, LocationSmart®, and even Google Ads, but the key difference between each is how they utilize it and harness its power for you. While it’s not time-efficient to go into each platform and its pros and cons, we can dive deeper into the two main types of geofencing platforms: app-based and website-based. Both have their pros and cons, but each can help you reach your audience in the right place at the right time.
App-based Geofencing
Most geofencing platforms will use app-based geofencing, where they each have their network of apps that they partner with to deliver these ads. Within these apps are ad spots based on a few sizes, with the most popular being 300×250, 320×480, 320×50 and 728×90 (in pixels.) Using user demographics and location tracking, they deliver your ads to users of their selected apps when they enter your selected location (s).
App-based geofencing is much better for targeting your audience in a specific location because of the amount of data apps collect on each person and how they can track their location in real-time.
Website-based Geofencing
There are some platforms that utilize website-based geofencing, which targets people based either on user demographics or websites they visit, all in a certain location or locations you define. While some of these can potentially place ads in apps, they usually get shown on websites and there’s a variety of ad sizes as well, as it can place ads on both desktop and mobile. With this type of geofencing, you’re usually better off targeting people interested in a specific niche within a broad area. As this form doesn’t generally track people’s locations as well as app-based geofencing and because you’ll get people searching from a desktop, you’re better off targeting a zip code or a city.
The Future of Advertising
With all this data and insight, is this the future of advertising? Maybe not for big businesses, but for all others, it might be. While this idea isn’t completely new, the availability to small businesses is. To use this type of advertising, most agencies and platforms in this area have a $10,000 per month advertising buy-in. That’s just not affordable for most. Nowadays, most of these advertising platforms are opening self-serve options for small businesses and their associated agencies, which has made it more widely available.
But why has geofencing generally been so expensive in the past? Because it works. People want more targeted ads according to a study done by Adlucent. That same study showed that people were almost twice as likely to clickthrough an ad featuring an unknown brand if it was a targeted one. Sure, you may not be on the same level as a Target or a Walmart, but if your ad resonates with the consumer and makes them want to connect with your brand, then they’ll buy from you.
That’s where geofencing leads the way. While these big brands have the time and money to shotgun these display ads all over the internet, they generally don’t connect with most of their customers. Geofencing allows you to narrow down your target audience and create messages that are then delivered to your customers in a place where they are most likely to connect with your brand!
Where Does Your Business Start?
Well, you could start with one of these platforms offering self-serve platforms for small businesses. They’ll teach you how to use the software and help you enroll in your first campaign, but after that you’re on your own. If you don’t have time to learn and manage a software, properly track conversions and more, you might want to get started with an agency.
Here at Amplus Agency, we have experience with geofencing and know the best way to use it to better expand your business and drive in new business. Marketing your small business can be hard, but that’s our expertise, so you’ll never have to worry about new areas you’re missing out on or ways to stretch your marketing budget through different areas. Interested in geofencing? Contact us today at info@amplusagency.com or call us at 817-226-8427!
We look forward to hearing from you!
About Amplus Agency
Amplus Agency is a full-service digital marketing agency focused on making your business the best in its industry. We believe that each business has individual needs that should be based on specific goals. Since being established in 2011, Amplus has worked with over 200 businesses. Amplus Agency is located in The Near South Side in Fort Worth, Texas.