geo-target - search global find local

GEO-TARGETSEARCH GLOBALFIND LOCAL

Geo-Target eBook

AGENDAWhat is Geo-Targeting?

Why Geo-Target?

Geo-Targeting in Action

A How-To Guide on Geo Targeting

WHAT IS GEO-TARGETING?Geo-targeting is the process of focusing the

visibility of your business in order to target certain

segments based on their location. Geo-targeting can

have different applications, for example in Google

AdWords, Facebook, or mobile advertising. On the

web, the user’s zip code, city, country, etc.

Have you ever realised that the ads you see on

Google vary depending on the location you’re in?

Or have you ever wondered why global brands on

Facebook seem to have an awful lot of Australian

specific posts, as if they know you’re not interested in

content that’s only relevant to other countries?

This is geo-targeting at work, and it has a number of benefits that can produce a positive impact on your business.

DID YOU KNOWof all searches on

the internet are

for local products

and services.60%

WHY GEO-TARGET?The biggest advantage of geo-targeting is its ability to

be relevant. By having a specific target market, you

can tailor the message that you want your

business to deliver and make it as relevant

as possible to them.

In today’s extremely competitive and saturated market,

consumers are exposed to thousands of brand messages

each day. Irrelevant ads are seen as spam. This is why

mass media such as television advertising has become

less effective, and mediums such as online advertising are

booming. Despite its smaller reach, online advertising, like

mobile and geo-targeted advertising, have the advantage

of being contextually relevant. Specifically, geo-targeting

has the advantage of being locally relevant.

There are a number of benefits to this. As mentioned

above, being locally relevant allows you to deliver

more personalised messages, which, for customers,

means less spam. They’ll also be more likely to

engage in the conversation you’re trying to

start with them if they feel that what you’re

talking about is applicable to them.

Furthermore, geo-targeting allows you to save

costs. By identifying specific segments that

you want to target, you can stop spending

resources marketing to those you don’t want

to target. For example, if you are an Australian

business that has no operations overseas,

advertising globally on Google would just be a

waste of time and money.

However, on the other end of spectrum, if you’re a

large international corporation, geo-targeting allows

you tailor the message you send out to each

country, demonstrating your business’

credibility as being highly

professional, far-reaching, and

globally aware.

Ultimately, geo-targeting is all about engaging the

right customers, at the right place, with the right

message. If you can show your customer that you

are relevant to them, they will respond to your

message, increasing not only traffic to your website,

but higher quality traffic, which results in higher

conversion rates. Remember, non-specific

targeting leads to lower conversion rates, also

known as a waste of money!

DID YOU KNOWof advertising

professionals say

that geo-targeted

ads deliver

stronger ROI

than other buys. 60%

GEO-TARGETING IN ACTIONTo illustrate just how effective and creative campaigns

using geo-targeting can be, here are some examples

we think are fantastic.

NPR’s Facebook PageIn October 2011, NPR, a non-profit media organisation

in the U.S, conducted a little experiment to test out the

power of localisation. Their Facebook page had 2.3

million fans from cities all over the world. The aim was

to try out for themselves the geo-targeting function

on Facebook, using it to promote the KPLU website,

which was a member station of NPR.

To do this, NPR posted content that was only visible

to Seattle residents, KPLU’s target market. The posts

all had to pass their “coffee shop test” - the content

had to be controversational - style with a local

flavour, discussing things that would typically be

talked about at a local Seattle coffee shop.

The results? The experiment achieved three

milestones for the KPLU website: record traffic for a

single day, second-highest traffic for a single month

(October 2011) and the highest traffic for a single

month (January 2012). Through Facebook Insights,

NPR also found that customer engagement rates

(percentage of customers who liked, shared, and

commented on a Facebook page) were much higher

for their Seattle posts compared to their global ones.

The Coke Machine FairyIn 2010, Coke teamed up with Foursquare, a location-

based mobile application that allows users to “check

in” at different venues. The way in which the campaign

worked was the users could befriend the Coke

Machine Fairy on Foursquare, and they would be

notified when the Fairy checks in at a vending machine

that has been loaded with a special bottle of coke.

The first person to get to the machine and obtain

the special bottle had to announce their success on

Foursquare, and then the Coke Machine Fairy will

arrive and reward them with a prize. There were 10

prizes in total, which included flight vouchers, private

movie screenings, and gift certificates to clothing

stores.

The campaign was successful in that it

communicated Coke’s brand message of “hapiness”

and engagaged their customers. Simple and well-

executed, the campaign also leveraged social media

by posting hints about the next Coke Machine Fairy

location through Twitter and Foursquare.

DID YOU KNOWof smartphone users

frequently use apps

that require them to

give their location.60%

A HOW-TO GUIDE ON GEO TARGETINGGetting started with geo-targeting is as

complicated as you think. Below are two

simple how-to guides to incorporate

geo-targeting into your Facebook and

AdWords campaign.

Geo-Targeting on Facebook

Geo-Targeting on Facebook is a matter of

limiting the visibility of your posts, either by

langugage or by region. Follow the steps below

to use the geo-targeting function on Facebook.

Step 1Sign in to your company’s Facebook Page.

Step 2Go to your Newsfeed page. At the top of the page,

enter what you want to post into the Status Update

box.

Note: the geo-target function is not available if you try to

update your status from your company’s Profile Page, so make

sure you’re updating your status from your Newsfeed.

Step 3At the bottom left-hand corner of the Status

Update box, click on the drop down box that

says Public (this means that currently, your post

will be visible to everyone), and select Location/

Language instead.

Step 4A pop up box should appear, where you can enter

a location (either by country, sate, city, etc).

Alternatively, you can specify a language,

so that only users that have

identified as speakers of that

language on Facebook would be

able to see it.

Step 5When you’re done, click POST.

GEO-TARGETING IN ADWORDSGeo-targeting enhances the advertiser’s ability to

target ads more effectively by using location. In

AdWords, this is done by telling Google to show (or

not to show) your ads based on two factors:

1. Where the searcher is (where are your prospects located?)

2. What location keyword they type in (what are your prospects looking for?)

As such, there are basically two campaigns that

you can run in AdWords using geo-targeting:

1. Locally targeted ads using general keywords.

2. Universally targeted ads using local keywords.

Here’s an example of the first scenario. You own a

takeaway pizza shop in the suburb of Camberwell,

Melbourne. You can use geo-targeted ads on Google

so that when someone who is in Camberwell

searches “takeaway pizza”, they will see your ad.

But if someone in Sydney enters the exact same

keywords, your ad won’t come up. By using the

general “takeaway pizza”, you can target local

relevant customers based on where they are.

In the second scenario, someone might live in

Balwyn, but works in Camberwell. They want to

get some takeaway pizza for dinner on the way

home after work. So they’ll google “takeaway

pizza”.