Geotargeting: targeted online marketing

The purpose of geotargeting - and other targeting strategies - is to place advertising according to target group and minimize wastage. Thanks to a personalized approach, a campaign should be particularly efficient and easy on the budget. Here is an overview of the types of targeting.

Successful geotargeting and targeted advertising is based on a clearly defined target group. Advertising success can be measured either by the click-through rate (number of clicks on a web banner in relation to impressions) or by the conversion rate (number of conversions - such as a purchase or download - in relation to website visitors).

We consider the following six forms of targeting to be particularly effective:

1. Contextual targeting
   Advertising is placed within a suitable environment. The advertiser defines the relevant keywords beforehand. The advertising message is placed where these words appear in the scrolling text.
   
   For example, a kitchen appliance manufacturer defines the keyword "mixer". The kitchen appliance manufacturer's advertisement is displayed to the user as soon as they visit an online recipe text that contains the word "blender".
2. Semantic targeting
   Semantic targeting records the topic of a website by analyzing the words that occur there. The ad is displayed if the analysis matches a topic previously defined by the advertiser. In contrast to contextual targeting, this form of targeting does not display ads based on individual words.
   
   If a user reads a travel blog, for example, they will see an ad for an airline.
3. Geotargeting
   The use of geotargeting offers the opportunity to advertise to the target group based on location. Only those people who are at the specified location are addressed. This is done geographically via the IP address, databases and GPS data. An algorithm then carries out the evaluation.
   
   In addition to entire regions or districts, individual buildings or exhibition grounds can also be defined for advertising. For example, a car brand can advertise specifically for visitors to the Geneva Motor Show.
4. Behavioral targeting
   Behavioraltargeting uses cookies to take into account the user's browsing behavior in order to draw conclusions about the advertising that is relevant to them.
   
   If the user is increasingly on websites that deal with the topic of "fitness", they can be shown advertisements from fitness centers, for example.
5. Retargeting
   Retargeting involves the display of an advertisement that is linked to an action previously carried out by the Internet user.
   
   Retargeting is aimed, for example, at a customer who has previously abandoned a purchase in an online shoe store: His attention is drawn once again to the shoe offer.
6. Social media targeting
   Thanks to social media targeting, advertisements can be displayed to specific social media users. The target group is defined on the basis of profile data. This includes their personal interests as well as socio-demographic information.
   
   A well-known company that uses and also offers global geotargeting and targeting is the social media platform Facebook. Interactions, such as Facebook likes, are used to determine personal interests and information such as age, gender and education. During target group definition, Facebook immediately displays the size of the target group.

Rocket uses targeted advertising and geotargeting for a wide variety of customers and also benefits from it itself. For example, we used geotargeting to advertise to visitors to the "Marketing Day 2019" at the KKL (see image) and were thus able to generate potential leads.