Are your ads reaching their targeted audience?

Ever wonder how ads reach people surfing or searching the web?  If you are an online advertiser, a typical option is to post by language, country and even down to the city or zip code level (“geo targeting”).  Once a location is targeted, then it is most commonly determined relative to the IP location of the web surfer’s server.

That’s simple enough.  As each server has a unique IP address, that information can be translated to a geographic location and the ad is served.  So the issue becomes, how accurate are our IP addresses?

I regularly use a couple different free IP search programs to check locations of my own visitors.  For example, to see where you are located by your IP address, check out “what is my IP address“.  This nifty little program will provide your IP address and then, if you click “Lookup IP Address” it will provide your location. 

This time, the program correctly determined my location.  Other times and with other applications, my locations have been determined to be in any of the contiguous cities to my own.  And that’s without my desktop moving a single inch for its current location. 

If you were targeting the city next door to mine, there is a chance that you might get a bit of a spill effect if my IP address was showing as that city.  Depending on your business type or value of your product, a consumer may or may not be compelled to travel across a couple cities to get your product.  Online advertising certainly has its limitations. 

Historically, advertisers have been using offline (print) geo targeting approaches very effectively.  And most of the coupon mailers provide very precise targeting capabilities to reach local customers.  But print has its own limitations. 

One of its major (and obvious) limitations is that it can only show static ads and not a video ad.  So, besides website advertising, how do you geo target consumers with a video ad?  In addition to our online options of websites and email campaigns, at Vzual.com we offer the ability to show your video ad in local waiting room digital screens and gas station pump top TVs. 

Like print mailer campaigns, each of these options provides an excellent source for reaching consumers living, and in this case working or visiting a waiting room, near your physical you location.  In addition, at these locations you will find a captive audience not capable of surfing to a new website.