For local marketers, finding your audience has always been a challenge. Incorporating geofencing into your campaigns can help solve this problem by honing in consumers already in your area.

To begin, Geofencing  is a form of Location Based Marketing (LBM) that will trigger a response on mobile devices when they are within a targeted area. More simply put, businesses will alert your mobile devices when you are near their location. For example, when you are in an Uber or Lyft, businesses on the map during your ride appear and disappear as you near them, spreading awareness of services you possibly passed by every day without ever being aware of their presence.

For another example, imagine leaving a restaurant after just finishing a nice dinner, and an ice cream parlor two blocks down the street sends a notification to your phone that they are having a 2 for 1 scoop special. Geofencing can become even narrower, such as alerting shoppers in a department store of a sale on aisle 6, or sending digital coupons that can be redeemed in store.

This form of LBM can be accomplished through a variety of platforms, specifically geared towards mobile ad placements.

The benefits of Geofencing include:

• Fine tuned specified ad delivery areas
• Creating a sense of urgency
• Strengthen local brand awareness

Geofencing and LBM are effective tools to utilize alongside larger scale campaigns to drive in store sales and shop visits. Many Google Ads campaigns use location bid adjustments to help drive impressions to particular areas, or limit the impressions delivered to regions that aren’t profitable or excluded completely. To best utilize LBM, the advertiser can set up a smaller campaign targeting a specific region, and adjust the placement to only mobile devices and increase the bids. Using a mobile specific messaging strategy, alongside specific time of day scheduling, you can tailor your ads to suit almost any business need. Using these strategies, a local restaurant or bar can deliver ads notifying nearby shoppers of their happy hour specials, hotels near major transit stations can advertise their rates, or a retail store can let last minute gift shoppers know about their featured items in a mall.

LBM is a great asset to utilize alongside larger scale campaigns to deliver a detailed mobile strategy, or works well as a stand alone campaign for local businesses.

For more information about Geofencing and LBM Contact Anvil!