Hyperlocal Mobile Advertising Inspires New Marketing Ideas

Hyperlocal mobile advertising is opening up a new world for marketers to explore, making it one of the biggest trends in 2014.

“Hyperlocal” is a term used to describe advertising that is placed in and speaks to a specific audience within a small geographic region, and by using a smartphone’s GPS, marketers are able to deliver extremely relevant ads in a way that they were never able to do in the past. Combining this with the ability to purchase ad impressions individually through programmatic ad platforms that are powered by real-time bidding, marketers have a cost-effective method for engaging their audiences based on their current physical location.

Hyperlocal mobile advertising offers something much more specific than other geo-targeting methods. Instead of targeting users within a geographical area such as a zip code, hyperlocal provides the ability for advertisers to zone in on a much tighter scale, such as targeting users who are within two blocks of a particular retail location, as an example.

Many apps on smartphones now ask users for permission to access the location data of their phone, and if an app user accepts this location-sharing request, that app will be aware of their GPS coordinates at all times. For apps that are also supported by ads, these coordinates can be shared with the ad network or ad exchange that sells the ad space to advertisers, thereby allowing for hyperlocal advertising. It is estimated that approximately 44% of mobile inventory in programmatic ad exchanges is location-aware, amounting to more than 7 billion impressions per day, which provides a massive amount of ad inventory with which to reach audiences in a hyperlocal manner.

There are various targeting options available when using hyperlocal advertising. At the most basic level, hyperlocal refers to the creation of a zone or “geo-fence” around a GPS coordinate, and targeting all users that pass through that zone. Basic radius hyperlocal is used to target a location where an advertiser believes that a specific audience congregates, and this method has been proven to be highly effective. Additionally, some businesses may use hyperlocal advertising to target users who are close to their establishment as a method for increasing foot traffic.

While cookies don’t work well on most mobile devices, retargeting is still possible by utilizing a mobile device’s unique UDID (Universal Device ID) or IDFA (ID for Advertisers). Just like websites that use cookies on a desktop machine, hyperlocal mobile advertisers can identify a user based on their behavior and choose to serve them a retargeted ad.

Hyperlocal mobile advertisers can also use contextual targeting, choosing to serve specific ads to users based on characteristics of their physical location, such as a the type of location, the demographics of the area, specific census data, or a variety of other data.

Hyperlocal is hot right now, and the expectation is that it will only grow in popularity over the coming months. Advertisers will surely take the current concepts to new heights, and with the ever-increasing usage of “smart” devices, entirely fresh initiatives in hyperlocal mobile advertising are expected to appear throughout the industry very soon.