Column: Cashing in on IP Intelligence

Source: Technology Digital

Date :7/30/2007 11:43:50 AM

With traffic - and competition - increasing on the Internet, companies are learning to better target and localize their marketing message

By Rob Friedman

It’s no secret that businesses need to stay flexible and agile in order to adapt to the market on the fly, stay in tune with customers, and deliver products, website content and advertising campaigns that resonate with their audiences.

But when it comes to online marketing campaigns, the one-size-fits-all mentality simply doesn’t work for today’s geographically dispersed audiences. Businesses need to cut through the vast clutter of the Internet to increase the reach and relevance of — as well as response to — online content.

By harnessing the tons of data contained in an IP (Internet protocol) address — and available about every web user — businesses can target ads and content in a simple, yet cost-effective manner, delivering the right messages at the right time.

Every business needs to know how to leverage IP Intelligence within its online marketing efforts to deliver measurable results and improve success.

IP Intelligence determines information about an online user such as geographic location (country, region, state, city and zip code); connection speed; area code; Internet Service Provider (ISP); North American Industry Classification System (NAICS); domain name; demographics; company name; proxies; Designated Market Area (DMA)/Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA); language; time zone; and longitude/latitude.

Today’s online world is a crowded place - and one in which people want quick access to relevant information. Whether it’s optimizing search, delivering geographically targeted online ads or offering localized content on corporate/ecommerce sites, marketers using IP Intelligence quickly realize the value and results of “going local” far surpass those of generalized campaigns.

More specifically, tapping into IP Intelligence helps companies:

Increase AD Effectiveness

Companies often struggle with ways to deliver relevant online ads, increase campaign effectiveness and increase return on investment for online advertising budgets. Whether the goal is to increase sales and revenue (What company doesn’t have that goal?), build brand awareness, or even drive targeted traffic into a retail store (increasing offline sales) — using IP Intelligence to geo-target ads and content can give companies the tools to do all this and more.

Customize Online Content

Using IP Intelligence gives companies the ability to accurately and non-invasively identify a website user’s location down to the city level worldwide so they know where visitors are coming from — literally. This enables businesses to instantly route users to location-relevant content (including language, products, currency, etc.) instead of treating an online customer as “Anyperson in Anytown, U.S.A.”

Optimize Local Search

Most businesses don’t take the local search market into consideration when planning their marketing budgets.

Take a restaurant in the New York City area — does it really want to target customers in New Hampshire? Ad dollars would have a larger return on investment if businesses were optimizing local search results and ad serving — by marketing to those potential customers in the geographic region where their business is located.

Examples of how companies can utilize IP Intelligence to localize their marketing efforts are:

Build Brand Awareness

By delivering localized content, companies can provide consistent and relevant communications and messaging to prospects, customers and employees on a global basis. Whether someone visits a Website from the United Kingdom or China, they are met with the same consistent brand and messaging from the company — except that the U.K. visitor is greeted in English and the other in Chinese. This function is performed instantly.

Increase Sales and Revenue

Companies can increase conversions for both online and offline sales by targeting promotions based on customer location.

For example, for a family-owned outdoor gear company with locations in both the Northeast and Southeast, IP Intelligence can help promote relevant seasonal merchandise.

In addition, an in-store coupon can be offered for a 30 percent discount, helping to drive offline business as well as online.

Increase Click-Throughs

By delivering relevant ads to an online audience, companies can increase their click-through rates (while increasing ROI of online ads). For example, if a company sells sports team merchandise, it would be more effective to presents ads to visitors from Los Angeles with gear for the Lakers or Dodgers.

Serve media-rich online ads

The hot ad medium right now is streaming audio and video. Using IP Intelligence enables companies to customize delivery of an ad based on the end user’s connection speed. Companies can now serve media-rich online ads to only those users with high-speed connections.

Attract Local Customers

For those businesses that do not have global distribution of their products and services, IP Intelligence can ensure they attract only customers in their own region or town. In turn, companies can potentially refer users from outside their target market to other vendors or partners who are geographically better suited to serve them.

The Internet can be a vast, global medium, but IP Intelligence now allows businesses to customize and localize this channel on their terms.

Rob Friedman is a co-founder of Digital Envoy and oversees the business and corporate development for Digital Element.