What Is Geofencing, Geofarming, Geo-framing, and Hyperlocal Advertising?

By John Davis

Friday, Aug. 18, 2024 at 9.19 a.m.

None of our advertising campaigns are targeted to just anyone. Typically, they are available to people near a certain location. Other times, the service we are advertising is only relevant to people in a certain industry. For these reasons, our ad campaigns are always targeted to specific states, metro areas, counties, cities, or zip codes. Additionally, we can get even more granular based on the goals of your advertising campaign.

Geo-fencing: If we want to reach people in a certain neighborhood, we can target advertising within a radius from a location or draw a fence around city blocks, through buildings, bridges, streets, etc.

Geo-farming and Geo-framing: Even if we didn’t deliver advertising to prospects during a visit to your geofence, we can still deliver advertising to their mobile devices, computers, and TVs in the days and weeks following their visit. (Thanks, cross-device targeting.) We can typically begin reaching devices from a given location for up to a year in the past.

 What is Geofencing and How Does It Work in Digital Advertising?

Imagine drawing an invisible fence around your favorite coffee shop or the bustling downtown district -- geofencing does just that, but digitally. By using technologies like GPS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, or even cellular data, we can set up these virtual boundaries (a.k.a. Geofences) anywhere on the map.

 So when someone with a smartphone strolls into this virtual zone -- let’s say within 100 meters of a bookstore -- geofencing kicks in. It recognizes the device’s location and then, like a polite digital usher, serves up relevant ads in real-time. The result? Advertisers can reach people at the right place and, more importantly, at the right moment.

In digital advertising, this approach is a game-changer. Geofencing enables brands to show tailored messages to users who are physically near a store, event, or any strategic spot. Whether you’re a coffee shop enticing passers-by with a midday caffeine fix, or a local gym offering free trial classes to people at the park next door, geofencing helps keep your message both timely and top-of-mind for precisely the audience you care about most.

Types of Geofencing Campaigns

When it comes to harnessing the power of geofencing, geoframing, and location retargeting, your campaign options are impressively diverse:

• Location-Based Ad Campaigns: Deliver ads to users when they enter specific geographic boundaries—think coffee shops, sporting venues, or neighborhood blocks.
• Location Retargeting Campaigns: Re-connect with users who have previously visited your store, serving them tailored ads as they browse  corners of the web or scroll through social feeds.
• Audience Lookalike Campaigns: Use data signals and behaviors to find brand-new audiences that resemble your store visitors—bringing in fresh prospects with a high likelihood to engage.
• Event and Historical Location Campaigns: Reach people who attended past events or visited relevant places, even if their visit was months ago. This approach is perfect for follow-up offers and conquesting competitor locations.

Each of these approaches opens up unique ways to reach, re-engage, and convert your audience using precise, data-driven targeting.

Planning a Geofencing Campaign: Key Factors

Before we start setting up digital perimeters, it pays to think through a few critical elements to make sure your efforts hit the mark rather than just the map.

Choosing the Right Location: Geofencing shines brightest when you target busy spots packed with potential customers, i.e., trade shows at the convention center, local events at a stadium, or bustling retail hubs. The magic lies in reaching anonymous but relevant folks who happen to be in the right place at the right time.

Setting Smart Boundaries: You can draw your virtual fence tightly around a single building or cast a wider net such as a coffee shop’s four-minute walking radius. Most campaigns work best when the area is neither too tiny to matter nor so large that the message becomes diluted.

Mobile Matters: Geofencing ads appear on mobile devices, so the choice of ad format is key. Display and native units work best. People are less likely to watch your online video while they are on the go or visiting a location. The right ad will pop up in the apps people are already using, whether they’re checking the weather, reading the news, or hunting for the nearest taco spot.

Timing Your Campaigns: While location is your main lever, don’t overlook timing. Coordinate your campaigns with events or peak hours to give your ads the best chance of getting noticed. Saturday afternoon crowd? Even better.

Our geofencing technology enables all of these tactics anonymously. So we’ll never know if Joe or Jane visited a particular location. But, if they did, we can be confident that we are targeting their devices with advertising. Additionally, we do not use these tactics with sensitive locations such as certain medical providers.

Pro Tip: When you buy advertising, ask whether you'll pay for advertising shown to  people outside of your market. Ex-pats and other researchers who are located far away but viewing a local website probably can’t take advantage of offers from local businesses.

Use the form below to start a conversation about how hyperlocal tactics might work for your next campaign.

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