What Is Geotargeting and Why It’s an Important Advertising Strategy?

What is geotargeting?

Geotargeting is a type of advertising where you create ads that are based on your consumers' geographic locations. With advertising, it's crucial that you make content that appeals to your target audience.

In order to create this personalized content, you need to know your users demographics, such as their age, race, gender, etc., as well as their geographic location. When you know your consumer's geographic location, you can create content that is catered for them based on their specific locations.

For example, say you frequently order food from a food delivery app and that app has access to your location. On one particularly cold day, you get a notification from that app encouraging you to order food from a nearby restaurant. This is geotargeting advertising in its finest.

That restaurant targeted you, as a consumer who lives in the area and frequently uses this food delivery app, on a cold day when people are more likely to order food in. The goal of this advertisement is to plant the seed in the consumer's mind to order food from this specific restaurant because they know you live close by.

Geotargeting is used by restaurants, retail clothing stores, doctors' offices, car rentals... the list goes on. It's an effective tactic that every business should incorporate into their advertising strategy to reach more local prospects and increase sales.

What's the difference between geofencing and geotargeting?

So you know what geotargeting is, but what about geofencing? They are both examples of location-based marketing, but there are actually a few differences between geofencing and geotargeting.

With geofencing, you're reaching a large audience that is based solely on their location. With geotargeting, you're reaching a much smaller group of people based on their location, as well as their demographics, behaviors, and interests.

With geofencing, you're essentially creating a virtual barrier around a specific location that you want to advertise to. The only information you have to create these advertisements is the user's location. Local businesses often use geofencing to advertise their products or services to many people.

For instance, a local car rental business sends out a message advertising their services to everyone in your neighborhood without doing any research about the target audience and if they're even interested in rental cars. While geofencing reaches people on a much larger scale, it still can be very effective.

With geotargeting, you're also targeting consumers based on their location, but also other factors like behaviors, interests, and demographics. With geotargeting, you can reach a smaller, more specific group of people. Because of this, you can also create more personalized content that might be more effective.

What are the benefits of geotargeting in advertising?

Geotargeting ads are important for all businesses, from small businesses that are just starting off and want to expand their customer base to large enterprises that want to improve their advertising strategy. There are many benefits of geotargeting in advertising, such as:

Create personalized experiences for users

For an ad to be effective, it has to be catered for your target audience. Your users want to know that you're taking their wants and needs into account, and geotargeting can help you create more personalized experiences. This can improve the user experience and help you build better customer relationships.

Reach more customers

As a business owner, you're always trying to expand your target audience and reach more customers, and one of the best ways to do that is with geotargeting. Geotargeting is a great way to reach potential customers because you can create better experiences for them based on their geographic location and demographics.

Establish authority

People want to support a business that they can trust, but in order to build trust with your customers, you need to establish authority and let your customers know you're a legitimate business in their specific area. You can do this by working with other local businesses in the area or including relevant information about community events in your ads.

When people know they can trust you, they’re more likely to support your business and recommend you to their friends and family.

Make relevant content

No one wants to see an ad for a business that's in a different city. Customers want to see ads for products or services that are easily accessible to them, and you can do so with geotargeting.

With geotargeting, you can make relevant content that is based on your users’ specific regions, so you only create content that appeals to them. Showing an ad to someone who is one mile from your business will be a lot more effective than showing an ad to someone who lives in a different city.

How to geotarget

So now that you know what geotargeting is and why it's beneficial for businesses, you're probably wondering how to geotarget.

Fortunately, getting started with geotargeting is actually pretty simple. Many platforms already have geotargeting tools built into them, so you just need to follow a few simple steps to get started:

Figure out where you want to target

The whole point of geotargeting is to target specific location groups, but in order to do so, you need to figure out exactly where you want to target. For example, if you have multiple business locations, you'll have to create separate ads for each location.

Determine which location you want to focus on first, and then do your research to create relevant ads for that specific area. It’s important to create relevant content for your users based on the city that they live in so you can send the right message and encourage users to support your business.

Use tools built into social media platforms

Many social media platforms already have geotargeting tools built into them, which makes it very easy to create ads in different locations. Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook are all social media platforms with existing geotargeting features.

Google ads also have tools built in for geotargeting. Google ads location targeting allows you to create ads that will appear in different geographic locations of your choosing, such as an area within a country or a specific radius in a city.

Create the ads

Once you've determined the exact location that you want to target and figured out the tools you're going to use, then comes the important part: actually creating the ads.

Geotargeting is not a one-size-fits-all type of situation. You want to create personalized, relevant ads that will appeal to the specific group you're targeting. You can reach your customers through multiple platforms to optimize engagement.

Leverage geolocation to improve audience segmentation

If you want to reach more customers and increase sales for your business, geotargeting is a must. Geotargeting can help to improve the user experience by showing users relevant ads based on their locations. This will help your business focus on a specific market so you can create more personalized content and increase engagement.

But how do you get started with geotargeting for your business? Mailchimp can help.

Mailchimp is an all-in-one marketing automation platform that can help with everything from behavioral targeting and tags to customer acquisition. With Mailchimp, you can leverage geolocation to create effective advertisements and improve audience segmentation.

If you want to get started with segments but don't know where to begin, Mailchimp is your go-to. With Mailchimp, you can access our targeting 101 guide, which will walk you through segmentation for beginners and how it can improve your marketing efforts. Mailchimp has an extensive list of segmenting options, so you can always target the right contacts for every campaign.

With Mailchimp, you can transform your business with effective geotargeting that influences users to make purchases. Get started with Mailchimp today and create a comprehensive advertising strategy that helps you reach your business goals.