Are You Making the Most of Geotargeting?

What is Geotargeting?

Geotargeting is a way to reach audiences based on their geographical location rather than wiith a personal identifier. Advertisers can deliver locally-relevant information to users in a specific area.

Best Uses for Geotargeting:

Political campaigns
Local event support
Regional holidays, events
State-specific advertising

What is Geofencing?

Geofencing is a subcategory of geotargeting, and a specific radius around a latitudinal/longitudinal point. That way, rather than targeting by zip code or city or state, advertisers and DSPs can reach people around a point of interest.

Best Uses for Geofencing:

Near college/university campuses
Sporting arenas
Music venues
Restaurants
Shopping malls & retail locations

Why Does Geotargeting Matter?

When addressability by ID is limited by changing consent requirements, ID phaseout and 3rd party cookies, and in the absence of opt-in/consent-sharing, geotargeting and geofencing can successfully target campaigns without tricky taxonomies or keywords.

“Because marketers are reaching audiences based on where they are, not who they are, geotargeting offers a straightforward and privacy-compliant targeting option, while delivering hyper-relevant (and timely) ad creative.”

How Can DSPs and Marketers Leverage Geotargeting?

Geotargeting can be done on a macro or a micro level. For example, on a macro level, Marketers can use geo- targeting to include (or, to exclude) specific continents, regions, or countries.

Or, marketers can develop campaigns around local events, like sporting events or concerts, to offer fun, relevant advertising content to attendees. (For example, coupons for nearby eateries or codes to access a certain sale.)

By selecting relevant zip codes, DMAs, or a geofence (creating a radius around a street address or latitude/longitude) for these events, marketers gain the ability to hyper-target with topical relevance.

Key Opportunities for Marketers/DSPs:

Drive traffic to physical stores or locations
Reach nearby audiences with hyper-relevant creative
Connect with local voters by narrowing down campaigns by zip code
Offer promotions, sales, or deals
Develop creative around impactful events, concerts, or even season/ weather pattern to deliver engaging UX

By targeting users based on their physical location, brands can deliver relevant promotions and appropriate content, which results in better engagement and a better UX.

Getting Started with Geotargeting at Smaato

At Smaato, we’ve made it easier than ever to take advantage of geotargeting capabilities.

When creating a new Line Item or PMP deal, you can simply navigate to the Targeting and look for Geotargeting and Geo Fencing in the Targeting menu.

Paris, France, or Paris, Texas? Setting Exact Parameters for Geotargeting

Under Geotargeting, you’ll see submenus for Country > State > City targeting, Zipcode and DMA. We have our Country > State > City targeting in a hierarchy so that you navigate from a country down to that country’s states, then cities within that state to help ensure Paris, TX isn’t selected instead of Paris, France.

For Country > State > City targeting,

Start by selecting a Country or Countries first. Having no Countries selected signals Global targeting.
You can either Allow or Block a Country, or if you have more granular targeting, you can click on the country name to drill down to see States within that country.
At the State level, you can Allow or Block specific states or if you have City level Targeting, you can click on the state Name to get to Cities within that State.
At the City level, you can also Allow or Block to target only that city or to exclude that city from the targeting.

You can include different targeting levels within the same Line Item or Deal, for example:

Target all of Canada (Country)
Target the State of California (within the Country of United States)
Target the City of Chicago (within the State of Illinois, within the Country of United States)

For DMA Targeting or Zip Code targeting, you can choose to enter individual DMAs or Zip codes, or use a bulk sheet to upload a list of DMAs or Zip codes.

As a best practice, you can optionally include the Country when using DMAs or Zip codes, but don’t include States or Cities.

For Geofence targeting, select Geo Fencing from the Targeting menu. There are multiple ways to create a fence:

Manually drop a flag on the map
Upload a bulk sheet with either Street Addresses or a Lat Longs of the locations you want to target with the radius of your fence.
For all of these options, you can select to Allow or Block. You can edit the radius at any point to optimize the line Item.

On a single Line Item or Deal, you can include State and Cities, OR DMAs OR Zip codes OR a Geo Fence.

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4 Minute Read | November 4th, 2022

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