Geofencing
Geofencing is an advertising tactic that draws a virtual fence around a location. Geofencing ads can be seen by all individuals within this barrier. This is useful for targeting people who are at an event, who are in a building or who come and go from a location. We can also use this to track individuals who visit a certain location so that later we can serve digital advertising to them.
Geotargeting
Geotargeting is a more sophisticated and granular way to target advertising to individuals within a geographical area. Adding a layer of “targeting” on top of a geofencing campaign is considered Geotargeting. This is useful when you want to target specific individuals rather than the masses in a specific area. The additional targeting may include online data, demographics, or behaviors.
Geofencing Example
An example of a Geofencing campaign is targeting individuals who are attending a political convention. If we wanted to target and/or capture all the individuals attending the political convention, regardless of their individual interests or behaviors, we would geofence the entire convention center and blanketly serve digital advertising within the barrier.
Geotargeting Example
The best example of Geotargeting would be the campaigns we run that target Congress or a state capitol building. Running a Geofencing campaign to the state capitol building would mean that budget was being spent targeting visitors or tourists. If you add a behavioral layer of targeting, you could eliminate people who are visiting the Capitol infrequently, which would eliminate visitors and tourists. Some ad networks allow you to add interest targeting, by laying on “Government” interests you could eliminate some of the non-legislative staff working within the geofenced area.