How Does Geofencing Work?
Geofencing is what we call direct-to-mobile location based advertising, allowing companies to serve ads to people based on the physical activities and the places they go. It's not simply zip code, radius, or citywide targeting, but rather the ability to serve ads to people that walk inside of individual buildings, event locations, convention centers, conferences, or your physical competitor locations. This form of advertising gives brands more focus on their ad spend and limits the waste they'd typically experience with billboards, radio and TV in which you're reaching people you never intended to advertise to, but are still paying for that reach.
Advertisers are able to place a digital geofence directly around the building or location you want to target. and begin capturing the mobile device ID's of people who walk inside that geofence. You then have the ability to serve ads to those individuals while they are there at the location and also for up to 30 days after they leave the geofence.
To reiterate this point. a user does not need to be looking at a mobile app in order for us to capture their mobile device ID. They just need to have their phone turned on and their location services turned on to be able to capture their mobile device ID.
where are ads seen with geofence advertising?
We have access to well over 600,000 apps, including Angry Birds, Words with Friends, Weather.com, ESPN, etc.. ..
Then also it's in browser. There are websites that have advertising space and we have the ability to serve ads on those channels as well. But those are essentially the ways in which geofencing works and that's how it can make a huge difference for any company.
Benefits of geofencing
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Target Individual Buildings...Not Just Zip Codes
Consider how much more efficient you can get when you are targeting specific buildings and areas for a company versus a 1-mile or 2-mile radius of the Location you want to target. With geofencing, you can build individual virtual fences around particular Locations where you know your ideal clients frequent.
- You are truly getting your message in front of the audience that matters the most to your brand based on their physical activities and the places they go.
Advertisers Can Target Users While They're At The Geofenced Location
With geofencing, you can target users while they are there at the target location. They can be on their smartphone device or tablet/laptop playing on apps or browsing websites and then potentially see your ads. So, you are able to target and speak to them while they are there.
Advertisers CanTarget Users After They Leave The Geofenced Location
With geofencing, you can also serve ads to them after they leave the geofence. Our platform places a cap of 30 days that the person can see your ads, but once they click on your ad and they visit your website, that individual can be retargeted to for longer periods of time (up to 1 year in some cases).
You Get More Reach & Efficiencies In Advertising Spend
We like to say that with geofencing, can you get at least 97% more reach in your budget than simple targeting methods like zip code targeting. Even if you decided to target a 1-mile radius of your location compared to 10 buildings you could geofence, you will achieve atleast 99% more reach in your ad spend.
Get Analytics In Real Time
Compared to other offline advertising channels, geofencing provides you with analytics realtime. You will start getting data the same day the campaign has been launched Having the data will allow you to make decisions realtime and pivot based on what is and is not working within your advertising.
TRACK ONLINE ADVERTISING TO OFFLINE FOOT TRAFFIC
Can you successfully measure foot traffic from TV, Billboard, Radio or direct mail Ads? Maybe if you place only special offers through those mediums you can, but then you deal with the people who forget about the actual offer and stillcome to your restaurant or store front.
With geofencing and conversion zone tracking, as long as the person's mobile device ID has been captured inside the geofence AND served an Ad via that same mobile device, advertisers can track them all the way back to your store front.
Conversion zone tracking are a powerful means to track your online advertising to offline storefront traffic and conversions (meaning those people who physically went to a particular location as a result of seeing your Ads). Here is the standard process we use to develop conversion zones.
A virtual geo-fence is traced around an area where the advertiser wants to target customers visiting another location (i.e a competitor's store, a venue, or a specific part of town, etc.)
Next. a virtual conversion zone is traced around one or more of the advertiser's '-' locations.
When the customer enters the geo-fenced location, they will then be targeted with the advertiser's ads on the user's mobile device.
When the customer enters the Conversion Zone with their mobile device and has previously been served the advertiser's ad, the Conversion Zone recognizes the user and attributes their visit as an offline conversion for the geofencing campaign. Now you can truly determine the impact your advertising is having on people who have seen your ads and walk to your designated conversion zone.