Geotargeting

What is geotargeting?

Geotargeting is the method of determining the geolocation of a website visitor and delivering different content to that visitor based on their location.

Location can be based on a number of attributes, country, region/state, city, metro code/zip code/postal code, organisation, ISP, IP address, longitude and latitude bounds.

How does geotargeting work?

Each user’s device has an IP address that indicates its specific location. The first three digits of the IP address correspond to the country code. The remaining digits usually refer to specific areas within that domain. With the visitors location established, it then becomes possible to decision alternative content.

Why use geotargeting?

The central idea behind Geotargeting is that by understanding a visitors real-time (or past) location helps marketers achieve the holy grail of delivering the ‘right message at the right time’ effective messaging.

Improve relevance and user experience

• A visitor in Liverpool is unlikely to be interested in a special deal for holidays that fly from London Gatwick airport. Using geotargeting and the location can establish a more relevant holiday deal with a flight departing from Liverpool John Lennon airport which can be presented.
• A mobile visitor is researching a website. Using geotargeting a banner can be displayed highlighting that a sale is on at his nearest store.
• An international visitor visiting an eCommerce site is informed that the site offers international delivery options. Prices are quoted in the local currency.

Supporting the attribution of Personas to visitors

• To create a common alignment across an organisation Marketing teams often develop customer personas to represent the key traits of an audience segment eg. gender, age, income level etc. Where location is also a defining attribute, for fixed devices, geotargeting can support personalisation.

What are the benefits of using geotargeting?

91% of consumers are more likely to shop with brands who provide relevant offers and product recommendations. Attending to this demand effectively, site owners can expect improvements in engagement and multi-channel conversion rates.

In the age of the smartphone, location unlocks the mobile and mobile app opportunity, allowing brands to personalise and add value to the visitors’ experience.

How can Webtrends Optimize support geotargeting?

Webtrends Optimize offers a global hyperlocal IP geolocation offering. As standard for all visitors are evaluated and the following attributes determined.

• Country
• Region/State
• City
• ZIP & Postal Codes
• Custom Regions
• Latitude & Longitude
• Phone area code

Visitor use of proxy servers and virtual private networks may give a false location. However this is limited and Webtrends Optimize’s geolocation functions are considered to be the most accurate in the industry.

Global accuracy is more than 99.9% at the country level. 97% accurate at the city level. In addition, Webtrends Optimize, uniquely scores for accuracy allowing edge cases to be filtered to the required threshold.