What You Need to Know About Geofencing: Our Guide

Over the past years, geofencing technology has been proven effective in reaching the right audience in the right location in the perfect moment. Its capabilities have grown even better, and now it deserves a closer look. But make no mistake, as it’s not a new technology. Geofencing has actually been around for a while and has been regarded as one of the most effective digital marketing solutions. 

To help you understand how geofencing works and see if it’s suitable to your needs as a brand, here is everything you need to know about it: 

How Geofencing Works

Typically, geofencing is used for location-based instant advertising. The way it works is that when a prospective customer gets in a geofenced competitor’s location, it triggers an action from your brand. For instance, if you own a café, you could place a geofence around the competitor’s property so that your ad will appear when the potential customer is within the geofence you set around your competitor’s business. 

The following are the steps done in geofencing:

• Identifying the geographical radius surrounding an actual location
• Setting up a geofence around that location
• Setting an event that will be triggered when a device enters or exits that geofence

This is especially beneficial if you’re offering lower prices for your products or services and you want to attract customers!

How It Works on Mobile

There are various ways geofencing is used on mobile. Usually, the device will communicate through GPS. Then, phones communicate with other gadgets to trigger an action when it enters or leaves a specific area. This communication form is often used in apps for such items as tracking devices and even thermostats. 

How It Works Without an App

The location may be from Bluetooth, WI-FI, or a cell tower. Usually, for advertising, you can use the area from someone else’s app to advertise your brand through mobile ad exchanges. In this case, you will make a geofence to communicate with a request regarding where you want the ads to appear. You can also use it to capture mobile IDs that are within the set geofence.

Types of Business That Benefit from Geofencing

Most businesses from any industry can enjoy the benefits of a properly executed geofencing strategy. Whether you own a restaurant, dental clinic, or an auto repair shop, a geofencing campaign can dramatically improve your lead generation and customer retention. 

How Geofencing Is Different from Geotargeting

Both tools use physical location as the foundation for determining where you place your ads. However, geofencing is merely a tool that creates a virtual perimeter to trigger an action within that area with the use of location-based services. While geotargeting also uses location, it does so in a broader sense and may factor in things like user behavior (showing the user frequents the area or is interested in that area). Furthermore, geotargeting strategies use state segmentation, as well as designated market areas and zip codes.

Geofencing targets consumers within a specific target location (often of the competitor’s property), while geotargeting targets anyone who could belong to one particular demographic, which may be within a broad area like a town or a city. 

How Geofencing Can Work for You

Using geofencing, a mobile ad campaign can target a more specific audience for various purposes aside from brand awareness. You can use it to sell services or even hire employees. 

Conclusion

In digital marketing, tools like geofencing can undoubtedly be helpful when you are looking to launch more precise location-based campaigns. By geofencing, you can also measure the results of your location-based marketing. For instance, the same technology can be applied to see if the devices visit a specific retail location after receiving advertising. Because of improved accuracy, you can confirm if it was an actual venue visit and not just someone passing by. 

The use of accurate POI geofences can go beyond the actual geofencing campaign and even include your digital advertising and more. 

If you want to learn more about geofencing or other ads and marketing strategies, Nick the Marketer can answer all your questions. We are a digital advertising agency in Birmingham, AL, that can provide you with complete digital marketing services for your business. Get in touch with us today to learn more about our services!