Geofencing technology gives businesses the ability to target their most qualified audience via boundaries. When a potential customer steps into pre-set boundaries, they activate ads or notifications for the business. This entices the audience within that boundary to visit a brick and mortar location. Geofencing technology can be used with PPC ads, Facebook and more! But, how does geofencing marketing and advertising work? In this post, we’ll look at the world of geofencing technology and explain how you can use it for your business.
How Does Geofencing Work?
To make use of geofencing, a user must first establish a virtual boundary around a specified location using GPS coordinates or RFID-enabled software. This could be as simple as a circle drawn in a 1 mile or a 1-kilometer radius around a specific location on Google Maps.
This virtual geofence would then be able to trigger a response when an authorized device enters or exits that area, as specified by the targeting settings of an online marketing campaign or location service.Some modern software applications using geofencing technology even allow development using modern on-screen graphical interfaces (GUIs), so that more precise boundaries can be established by less sophisticated users.
Geofences are most commonly defined within the code of a mobile application, mainly because users would need to first opt-in to app-specific location services for the geofence to work. A retailer might draw a geofence around its outlets to trigger mobile push alerts for customers who have downloaded the retailer’s mobile app and also opted-in to location services
Is Geofencing Accurate?
Geofencing is an extremely granular marketing approach that allows businesses to target customers based on their location, in relation to that business. Typically, stores set up geofences around their particular business, events or even conferences. This will vary depending on which audience the business wants to target.
Geofencing is a very powerful way to engage consumers based on “hyper-local” location. You can do a lot to trigger immediate sales if set up correctly. Also, you can collect data to understand the mindset of different shoppers. Geofencing should be included in your marketing plan. Geofencing campaigns can be set up across many types of online advertising campaigns. This includes search engine advertising, display advertising, remarketing, online video advertising, and all social media campaigns.
How Does Geofencing Help?
Geofencing is a perfect fit for those who may have a cause and effect situation that applies to their business.
For example, criminal defense attorneys often geofence local prisons, while personal injury attorneys will geofence local hospitals.
These are pretty generic examples, but what about those business owners who run regular businesses? Easy. With a little thought, our PPC experts can usually help you come up with fantastic areas to target.
Here are a few examples:
- Those looking for orthopedic advertising services can target local sports fields, trampoline parks, chiropractor’s offices.
- Our orthodontic marketing and dental marketing agency team oftentimes targets local elementary schools.
- Those looking for hospital promotion will often geofence around busy intersections where wrecks are known to occur. (Hey, if you can’t stop it, might as well be there to help, right?)
The list goes on. There are almost always ways to incorporate geofencing marketing into your digital advertising strategy.
How Does Geofencing Target a Specific Audience?
Geofencing targets your most qualified audience by using location services and only displaying ads once he or she steps into the predetermined barrier. These advertisements can take on many forms, including:
- push notifications,
- text messages, or
- PPC management ads.
If someone downloads your app, they’re more than likely already a customer or strongly considering becoming one. If you have a geofencing campaign, you can send these people ads when they’re close to your store. These ads can be anything from sale notifications to price checkers. Not every conversion has to be a monetary transaction. For some, having the ability to help themselves while in store, makes your store more appealing to them.
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