With the average user's time spent visiting websites clocked in seconds, companies need a cross-functional technology that allows them to make immediate and direct connections with visitors. This article explains how geolocation can be used in a number of ways, including targeted online advertising, content localization, and analytics.
When it comes to online marketing, recent figures show incredible resiliency and growth. A recent report by the IAB (see link below) revealed that overall online ad spend increased by 10 per cent in the first half of 2010 to £1.98bn - accounting for 24.3 per cent of all advertising.
With growing confidence in online marketing, what has followed is a surplus of technologies available to support online marketing initiatives. It is absolutely crucial that digital marketers do not get lost in managing complex online campaigns with multiple technologies that work in silos, instead of in tandem. All these solutions promise to deliver better audience segmentation and targeting capabilities. But do they?
When you strip away the window dressing, online marketing comes down to one thing: relevance. Therefore, what marketers need is a cross-functional technology that allows effective management of online campaigns.
Marketers need not look any further than geotargeting or geolocation technology, also known as IP intelligence - the method of automatically determining the location of website visitors down to postcode level, without invading user privacy. Based on user IP addresses, it also allows businesses to improve audience targeting based on further parameters including: connection speed; phone code, internet service provider (ISP), domain name, and time zone.
Geotargeting technology therefore provides an all-in-one tool to drive online interactions toward a closer relationship with online audiences, encompassing the essential aspects of any marketing campaign.
First impressions count
Etailers have an estimated eight seconds to make a direct connection with visitors. Regardless of where they live, consumers expect to be at the centre of the shopping stage, increasingly demanding more personalisation, tailoring and customisation. With geotargeting, companies can move away from the one-size-fits-all approach to web content, and make the first online interaction a meaningful one.
What's more, geotargeting allows companies to immediately and automatically deliver relevant adverts, products, promotions, content, language and currency - creating an instant connection with visitors. This drastically reduces website and transaction abandonment, resulting in increased sales and revenue.
New IP parameters also allow for more pinpointed targeting and flexibility. As more retailers undertake globalisation, factors that enable online success will become more pronounced, leading companies to deploy the necessary technology, such as IP intelligence, to facilitate their sales efforts.
For example, an outdoor outfitter may present promotions on goose-down parkas to visitors from Norway (in the middle of winter), instead of top-of-the line swimwear to those from Majorca. That same retailer may also automatically show the nearest retail location instead of asking users to 'select a store.' And, as retailers continue the trend of building social networks within their websites, they will need a mechanism to deliver customised content (information, products, coupons, promotions, etc) which resonates within these socialised communities as well as regionally-based buyer groups.
Analysis, compliance and satisfied customers
Geotargeting technology further offers companies a new way to view and analyse online data to improve web performance and site effectiveness. It also provides a real-time mechanism that allows customers to analyse data and to take immediate action.
Many companies also use geolocation technology to control regulatory differences between countries and regions, such as geographic rights management issues. Online content distributors in particular can automatically adhere to licensing and copyright agreements surrounding usage of online audio and video content.
With increasingly hard-to-please consumers, it is no surprise that the business world is continually clamoring for new and better ways to expand reach and become more relevant online. By automatically incorporating IP intelligence into an e-commerce platform, retailers can overcome these challenges and gain an advantage when building solid, global relationships, through connecting with consumers within the parameters of when, where and how they want to be reached as well as providing relevant, personalised information that resonates with their culture and lifestyle.
Frank Bobo, Vice President, Digital Element
Twitter: @DigitalElement
IAB online adspend study - H1 2010