Geography has always played a crucial role in marketing to consumers in the offline "real" world.
It shapes the way companies reach out to target audiences. It affects the way products are promoted and priced. It helps analyse consumers within a particular area, and it places restrictions on the way business is conducted due to laws and regulations in a given area.
The same holds true of course in the online world. Understanding user location can be a critical factor?and competitive differentiator?in customer outreach today.
And yet, many businesses continue to present online consumers with a single "one size fits all" approach in their online initiatives and thereby miss out on the opportunity to create instant connections with local audiences.
There is an alternative.
IP geolocation is simple, cost-effective and privacy-sensitive
IP geolocation technology allows any type of online business, from publisher networks, e-commerce websites and streaming media portals, to social networks and local businesses, to deliver more relevant content in a simple, cost-effective and privacy-sensitive manner?tailored to users' locations at the moment when it's most relevant.
At its most granular, IP geolocation technology is accurate down to a 5-8 km radius, or about 1,000 to 2,000 households.Since the technology is based purely on analysing network infrastructure and ISP internet access nodes (not individual households or devices), no cookies are ever installed and no personally identifiable information is collected or stored.
As such, this technology enables companies to offer a richer, safer, more personalised user experience, while preserving complete user privacy.
IP geolocation offers cross-functional applications
Armed with new information about the way in which individuals interact with the online channel, organisations from startups to the world's most sophisticated Internet players have the ability to create more meaningful and impactful interactions with online users.
Sample IP geolocation applications include:
- Targeted online advertising. Enabling advertisers and marketers to geotarget down to a postal code-level worldwide, increasing advertising reach, relevance and response. Incorporating other IP parameters, such as connection speed, domain, or identifying the connection as home or business allows for even more pinpointed targeting and flexibility.
- Content localisation. Providing online entities with the tools to move away from "one-size-fits-all" messaging and information and instead deliver locally relevant content, language, currency, products and promotions—creating an instant connection with website visitors. This helps reduce website and transaction abandonment, resulting in increased sales and revenue.
- Enhanced analytics. Offering companies a new way to view, parse and analyse online data to increase performance for online initiatives. It also provides a real-time mechanism that allows marketers to take immediate action to tactically refine local and international marketing campaigns with clarity and control.
- Geographic rights management. Allowing online content distributors to adhere to licensing and copyright agreements surrounding usage of online audio and video content. Additionally, IP geolocation can be used to restrict downloads in certain geographic locations for encryption software or in other online uses where content needs to be legally restricted.
Use IP geolocation to build a local strategy
A universal, all-things-to-all-people approach to online content is outdated and unnecessary.
For small companies, IP geolocation can help build a solid, local footprint to compete with bigger brands. For large national and international brands, IP geolocation can help tailor the traditional "blanket" messages to local customers from city to city, region to region, or to specific countries.
Moreover, IP geolocation enables precisely targeted, cost-effective and privacy-sensitive online campaigns that create instant connections with the online audience and help to establish meaningful customer relationships.
Kate Owen is Managing Director, Europe at Digital Element and a guest blogger on Econsultancy.
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