AGF VS Traditional Geofencing: What’s Best For My Business?

Geofencing and addressable geofencing are both forms of targeting, but which one will benefit your business as much as possible? The answer isn’t necessarily black and white; the impact you see with the strategy you use is all about what you’re trying to achieve. 

Geofencing: Explained

Before we dive into which one is better, let’s take a closer look at these two strategies on a granular level. 

Typically, when an advertising campaign targets display ads, OTT, and streaming, we target based on factors such as what keywords people are searching for, their job titles, and their geographic location. In fact, there are hundreds of ways to target people!

Geofencing is simply another way to target – and it uses real-life, physical activity to do so. It works by placing a virtual geofence around a business, and anyone who walks into that geofence within the next 30 days is served an ad from that business.

Let’s use a window company as an example. This business might place a geofence around a mortgage broker or a title agency, because people buying homes might be interested in installing new windows. 

Another way to geofence is by creating a conversion zone. You still place a geofence to determine who you’re serving ads to, but you’ll also set up a conversion zone at the brick-and-mortar store. It’s considered a conversion when people targeted with that ad enter your location.

Even if your business doesn’t have a brick-and-mortar location (for example, an HVAC business might not have one), you can still geofence; you just wouldn’t create a conversion zone.  

Geofencing is great for plenty of businesses. You can geofence competitors, events, and businesses that your target audience may frequent.

Addressable Geofencing: Explained

Addressable geofencing (AGF) is when you create a target audience based on an address. Think of the mailers you get advertising businesses in your mailbox; AGF is the digital version of that. You are delivering ads to devices based on the address of the person receiving the ad.

There are a few ways to implement this:

• Using a Client’s First-Party Data

  • Since most businesses collect first-party data, it only makes sense to use it for an addressable geofencing campaign. 
  • We use that list to target a business’s list of customers – this happens frequently with donors for nonprofits. 
  • First-party data tells you much more than a customer’s name and address. It also tells you their purchase behaviors, preferences, and much more, helping to paint a detailed picture of them and segment your audience accordingly. 
  • From there, you can deliver effective AGF campaigns. 

• Using a Curated List

  • A curated list is a list of third-party data that we can pull based on our parameters.
  • This type of curated list contains specific content that has been hand-picked to provide the most value to the customers it is being served to. 

• Using a Combination of Both

  • The third option is using a client’s first-party data paired with a curated list to get the most specific experience possible for customers who you’re targeting with addressable geofencing. 

Which Should I Use, AGF or Traditional Geofencing?

The main difference between AGF and traditional geofencing is that traditional geofencing allows you to place a virtual barrier around a physical location, so that when a mobile device enters or leaves that location, you can target it with your ads. AGF targets ads towards consumers based on their location – barrier excluded – instead, it focuses on a mailing list. 

Which tactic you use depends on the result you’re looking for and the tools you have at hand. If you have a mailing list, a client’s first-party data, or a curated list of third-party data, then AGF makes sense to target your desired customers. If that’s not something you have at your disposal, then traditional geofencing is the way to go. 

Another reason you might use geofencing is if you’re running a short-term campaign. For example, a baseball stadium might run a geofencing campaign around a T-shirt shop two blocks away from its location on the day of a big game and end the campaign immediately after game day ends. In that case, AGF wouldn’t benefit you as much as geofencing would. 

Remember this: AGF is about targeting specific households/businesses for a personalized campaign. Traditional geofencing is typically broader and widespread, while still targeting an interested audience.

It’s all about the situation and your desired results. If you need help discerning which strategy is right for your business’s needs and current campaigns, our experts can help. Just reach out to Federated Digital Solutions, and we’ll get you started!