As location-based targeting becomes more attractive to brands, the travel sector is perhaps best-suited to leveraging specific geofencing tactics to snatch up consumers in nearby vicinities looking for last-minute activities or accommodations.
City-specific targeting is a strategy that is becoming paramount for travel marketers to tap, especially as different United States locations lend themselves better to certain types of messaging and offers. Consumer desires and behaviors vary from coast to coast, suggesting that more brands should use A/B targeting to discover the most effective mobile-optimized message to send to residents in cities to bolster return on investment.
“People are looking at how to target direct users, and they are going for age and gender,” said Sigal Bareket, general U.S. manager and co-founder of Taptica, San Francisco. “The location where the person is living was kind of overlooked.
“When marketers are taking this into account, it’s mostly global. It’s nothing relevant specifically to New York or San Francisco, so they usually overlook the goal or need to address people specifically in New York.”
Significant ROI
Taptica has found that when marketers or brands leverage city-specific targeting, it generally offers 30 percent better return on investment than a general message does. Consumers who receive messages relevant directly to their area of residence are much more likely to follow through with the call-to-action and book the flight, hotel or activity that is being advertised.
“At Taptica, we always measure effectiveness by measuring engagement,” Ms. Bareket said. “Same thing goes with dining and entertainment categories and sending people things in their own city.
“It’s usually around the 30 percent increase. There are cities where people are responding better to messages that have to do with rate or price.”
If brands opt to keep their push messages generalized, geofencing is still a smart option for conducting profiling and gathering data on their customer bases.
