4 Ways to Make Your Display Ads Geo-aware

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4 Ways to Geo-personalize Your Display Ads

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dynamic ad PLAYBOOKOverview

Did you know that dynamic display ads can be geo-aware? In other words, it's possible for an ad to determine where the viewer is and update the ad content accordingly.

For certain campaigns, geo-awareness can substantially improve ad relevance, which in turn helps lift clickthroughs and conversions.

Industries where geo-aware ads can add value• Automotive (car dealerships)

• Supermarkets and pharmacies

• Retail/chain stores

• Daily deals (or any advertiser that's aggregating local merchants)

• Travel (detecting a traveler's departure location)

• Event and concert tickets


dynamic ad PLAYBOOK4 ways to implement geo-aware dynamic ads

We'll look at the following four approaches to implementing geo-aware dynamic ad creative. This isn’t intended to be an exhaustive list; there are other approaches and variations not covered here.

Please contact us at [email protected] with any questions.

1. Use location features native to the ad server / DSP

2. Use the ad itself to do an IP lookup

3. Identify visitor location contextually

4. Capture visitor location via signup forms


dynamic ad PLAYBOOKUsing location features native to the ad server / DSP

Many ad servers and DSPs (e.g., AppNexus) have the native ability to pass viewer location data into the ad creative. This is usually accomplished using ad macros that are inserted into the dynamic ad tag.

Examples of location data:

• City

• State

• Postal Code

• Latitude + Longitude

In many cases, locations are inferred from the viewer's IP address. For mobile ad inventory, latitude & longitude may be available.

This approach works for both RETARGETING and NEW CUSTOMER ACQUISITION


dynamic ad PLAYBOOKUse the ad itself to do an IP lookup

When location data isn't available from the ad server or DSP, a dynamic display ad can, in a fraction of a second, detect the IP address of the viewer and determine the viewer's physical location using any number of lookup services or datasets.

In terms of functionality, performance, and outward appearance, this approach is no different than using the ad server or DSP’s native location detection features. It's only when you peek under the hood that things look a little different.

This approach works for both RETARGETING and NEW CUSTOMER ACQUISITION


dynamic ad PLAYBOOKDon’t scrape IP addresses

Using an IP address once within the context of a single ad impression is fine, but using dynamic ad creative to "scrape" and stockpile viewer IP addresses violates many ad industry privacy, publisher, and ad exchange rules.

Play it safe: use native featuresConsider relying on an ad server or DSP’s native features wherever possible, since location detection is more likely to be implemented in accordance with applicable ad serving and privacy policies.

Here’s what the Network Advertising Initiative (NAI) has to say on the topic (networkadvertising.org/2013_Principles.pdf): !


dynamic ad PLAYBOOKIdentify visitor location contextually

Let's say a hypothetical retail chain has 1,000 U.S. locations and wants to retarget website visitors with location-personalized ads, perhaps containing the address of the nearest store.

When visitors drill down to a location-specific page of the website (e.g., the store hours page for a specific store), the retailer can fire a dynamic ads tracking pixel and pass a store location code into the pixel, thereby associating that viewer with a specific store.

Later, when visitors see retargeting ads, the ads will be able to reference the location(s) the visitor looked at, and that information can be used to personalize the ad.

HOMEPAGE

Not location-specific

Retailer website

SHOP ONLINE


IN-STORE PICKUP

Location-specific

CONTACT US


STORE LOCATOR

Location-specific

This approach works for RETARGETING. It does NOT work for NEW CUSTOMER ACQUISITION.


dynamic ad PLAYBOOKIdentify visitor location contextually (cont’d)

Contextual location information, such as a Store ID, will need to be passed to the dynamic ad platform. This is relatively simple, as long as the retargeting pixel/tag can accept custom parameters.

Here’s a hypothetical retargeting pixel that captures a {STORE_ID} parameter that’s dynamically populated when the page loads:

When paired with a lookup table or XML file organized by Store ID, the dynamic ads can draw upon a wealth of store-related data such as:

• Address, phone number, and store hours

• Specific store web page(s)

• In-store product availability


dynamic ad PLAYBOOKIdentify visitor location contextually | ADVANTAGES

Two potential advantages of this kind of active approach versus a passive location-detection approach:

The ad isn't relying on approximate locations inferred from IP addresses. The ad is using locations that the viewer actively expressed interest in.

This kind of first-party site data can be stored and later used by the advertiser for any number of marketing purposes. And if the advertiser synchronizes customer ID codes with the dynamic ad platform, then the dynamic ads will be able to leverage additional first party data that wouldn't otherwise be known to the ad.


dynamic ad PLAYBOOKIdentify visitor location contextually | DISADVANTAGES

Two potential disadvantages of this approach are:

Only those visitors who drill down to a location-specific page are captured. This is likely to be a small subset of overall visitors, but on the upside, these are highly engaged visitors, so they're probably "worth" more in terms of retargeting budget.

This approach can't be applied to anyone who hasn't yet visited the advertiser's website, so it can't be used for new customer acquisition campaigns, whereas the first two approaches can be used for new customer acquisition.


dynamic ad PLAYBOOKBonus retargeting segmentation tactic

Now that you've implemented a dynamic ads tracking pixel that only fires for visitors who reach location-specific pages in your site, you should probably create a new retargeting audience segment in your DSP. You can do this by loading a separate segment pixel at the same time the dynamic ad tracking pixel loads.

For a mid-level web developer, this kind of conditional firing of retargeting pixels shouldn’t pose a challenge.


dynamic ad PLAYBOOKBonus retargeting segmentation tactic (cont’d)

There are three reasons to consider using this approach:

1. These visitors are actively looking for store locations, and are therefore in-market for your goods and services. It follows that they have a significantly higher Expected Value than visitors who, say, spent 10 seconds on your homepage and bounced. It will be extremely useful to be able to report on these groups separately in your DSP.

2. If you believe that different visitor behaviors have different Expected Values, you'll want to optimize your retargeting budgets and frequency caps accordingly. Perhaps people who visited location-specific pages are worth $6.00 CPM and convert best when retargeting impressions are front-loaded in the few days after they leave, whereas people who only look at one or two pages are only worth $3.00 CPM and can be retargeted more evenly over 30 days or so.

3. In your DSP, you'll be able to give each segment its own ad creative. For homepage-bouncers, you can run non-dynamic brand-building ads, and for location-specific visitors, you can run location-personalized dynamic ads.


dynamic ad PLAYBOOKCapture visitor location via sign-up forms

This approach is similar to identifying visitor locations contextually.

If an advertiser has a sign-up page with a location field (e.g., city + state, ZIP code, phone with area code), then visitor location can be captured at sign-up and later used in retargeting ads.

One advantage of this approach is the higher granularity of data potentially available for ad personalization. With multiple location factors available (e.g., city + state, ZIP code, area code), a dynamic ad can make more informed choices about which message is best suited to the viewer.

This approach works for RETARGETING. It does NOT work for NEW CUSTOMER ACQUISITION.


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!

Don’t track P.I.I.

You don't want to track Personally Identifiable Information (PII) for use in dynamic display ads. PII would include things like email addresses, phone num-bers, postal addresses, names, etc.

There's usually not much use for PII in ads anyway, but make sure you imple-ment the dynamic ad tracking tag so that it's only receiving non-PII data such as area code, postal code, city + state, etc.


dynamic ad PLAYBOOKYou’ve read this far, now let’s chat

Contact us at [email protected] and let’s talk about programmatic ad creative.

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4 Ways to Make Your Display Ads Geo-aware