Take Dumb Choices Way From Your Users And Go With Geo-IP Content Targeting
Posted on 15 April 2009 by Patrick FlanaganNo Comments
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Loading ...Customers in regional geographies speak the same language, have similar buying patterns, and similar cultures. However these site visitors are often impatient with web sites that force them to identify those particulars over and over. Geo-IP targeting (eg the process of matching a user’s IP address to a physical location) enables retailers using SmartCircular to realize the full benefits of personalized content for every end user—enabling you to maximize the value of each visitor. Customers are presented immediately with regionally specific products, versioned pricing and marketing messages locally tailored specifically for them—rather than having to explicitly enter their ZIP code or City|State pair. Overall it speeds up the time and energy required to access a SmartCircular site by removing the initial ZIP code entry stopping point which is a classic site abandonment point.
Geo-IP targeting is the automated, real-time process of relating a user's virtual address (e.g., their IP address) back to a real physical address
Knowing where and how users access the Internet can provide companies with the information required to make split-second e-business decisions—and gain the competitive advantage. They can customize content to provide more relevant information or protect their goods and information from unauthorized users. Geo-IP targeting for SmartCircular is a reality by accurately identifying a visiting user’s geographic location and actual connection speed in real time.
Here are some live examples of how ShopLocal uses this powerful feature today:
NOTE: In all of these examples, this feature of geo-IP targeting is essentially not able to be directly seen (i.e., it’s not like a button). By the simple fact that the site just loads up with no input on the user’s part, this silent feature is doing its job well.
By enabling a SmartCircular site to take advantage of the advanced geo-IP targeting solution, a retailer can expect the following:
- Simplification in the process required…
- To access a SmartCircular site as a new user (eg non-cookied)
- To deep-link into specific areas of content within the SmartCircular site
- Increasing the overall number of visitors that actually successfully gain entry to a SmartCircular site. Typically between 7% – 16% of all visitors that attempt to enter a SmartCircular site abandon upon being asked to enter their location information (either a ZIP code or City|State pair). This is a large loss of potential valuable interactions and exposure to the retailer’s in-store promotional content. With geo-IP targeting, 100% of all users will be able to directly access the SmartCircular site, with no initial abandonment occurring.
The following types of information will be able to be determined for each SmartCircular visitor. The most important one to note is ZIP code.
- Geographic Origin
- Country
- Region (State or Province as it works in both the US and Canada)
- City
- Market area
- MSA (Metropolitan Statistical Area)
- PMSA (Primary Metropolitan Statistical Area)
- Area code
- Latitude and Longitude
- Time zone
- County
- ZIP or Postal code
- Network
- Connection type (e.g., dial-up, DSL, ISDN, or cable)
- Network name (e.g., AOL)
- Actual connection speed*
Here is where the fun begins. Just imagine all of the types of content targeting and/or site personalizations that could be triggered by this geo data! Not only could the core circular based content change based upon a user’s location, but all of the related messaging, graphics, etc could be geo-specific.
To be fair, there are certain known product limitations to be aware of when using geo-ip targeting:
- Only available to SmartCircular customers that are already being powered by the Akamai content distribution network (CDN). ShopLocal can always, at its sole discretion, choose to enable a SmartCircular site to be CDN supported. Talk to your client service representative to find out more.
- Accuracy rates vary among the different levels of geo-information. The general rule of thumb is the more granular, the less accurate. This is all due to the fact that this is not an exact science. Targeting down to the
- Akamai (the underlying provider of this geo-IP targeting data) only collects information from every routable IP address on the Internet. If a user’s IP address is not found or recognized, the SmartCircular site will gracefully failover to prompting the user to enter their ZIP code or City|State pair as a backup method of entering the site. For example, all AOL users (that reply upon AOL for their internet connection) currently come back as “unknown location”. So for these users, the ShopLocal team has configured the sites/systems to engage the gracefully failover process described above.
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