6 Ways To Use Hyperlocal Data To Rebuild in the Covid-19 Economy

Location is a prime indicator of our interests, purchase habits, and daily behaviors. Where we go defines who we are, and in the Covid-19 world, location continues to tell that story, even if the story has changed for many of us as we practice social distancing.

Marketers continue to command vast data sets for campaign targeting. Here are six data sets, powered by location behaviors, that marketers can use to build awareness, generate leads, and drive sales.

Look-Back Targeting: City and Destination Combinations

The old world of pre-Covid-19 holds a lot of valuable data about conference attendees, travel behaviors, and daily purchases. We’re using location look-back windows to identify people who went to high-value locations in the past in an effort to market to them as the U.S. opens up again.

If your business goal is to generate awareness—and ultimately bookings—to Austin, Texas, for example, then location data is primed for this campaign. Look-back windows are available in Foursquare, using the Factual login, to see people who were in Austin in the past year. This audience data set will capture people who are visiting Austin.

Push the data through to your favorite demand-side platform (DSP), such as The Trade Desk, MediaMath, and Xander. These platforms connect advertisers to hundreds of inventory sources, data providers, and hundreds of thousands of very specific audience data sets. Demand-side platforms enable data-driven ad buying on mobile, desktop, out-of-home screens (think billboards, bus shelters, and screens in the mall), connected TV (such as people watching Roku, Pluto TV, Tubi, and Amazon Firestick), and digital audio (such as the digital stream of your local radio station, Pandora, Spotify, and iHeart Radio). 

To add additional context, filter your audience, either within Foursquare or inside the DSP, to behaviors that are pertinent to the campaign. For example, your campaign may have three different consumer value propositions to sell, such as music, outdoor activities, and great food. Each of these audiences gets a different set of creative executions. Music fans get ads showing concerts. Outdoor fans get ads showing hiking and trails. Foodies get ads with pictures of BBQ ribs and queso. Simply layer on filters for music attendance, outdoor activity fans, and foodies to each segment, and then separate the campaign so each audience gets the creative catered to their interest 

Look-Back Targeting: Conferences

Let’s say you are a business-to-business advertiser and you want to reach people who are hard to reach: conference attendees. There are a slew of trade conferences all over the U.S., and they bring together people who are dispersed across the country and, in some cases, across the globe.

These people are super valuable because they are the decision-makers (as well as the influencers to the decision-makers) who will help you sell. Using look-back targeting, simply identify the date of the conference along with the location, and serve up ads to people who were at those locations.

Surround Out-of-Home Placements

As people start to come out, go to essential businesses, and resume a more normal cadence of activities, out-of-home advertising becomes relevant again. Hyperlocal advertising is a multiplier for this channel. 

Upload a list of latitude and longitude coordinates for where your out-of-home advertising will run. Ads will serve up to people who are anywhere from a tenth of a mile to a quarter mile around the out-of-home locations. This tactic gives a very small group of people an amplifier effect. They’re seeing your ads on multiple screens: out of home, mobile, and desktop.

Target Behaviors

This is a big moment for cannabis advertisers and CBD brands. We now have the stamp of approval in many states in the form of designating cannabis retail shops as essential businesses. People who visit cannabis shops are going to be open to a variety of cannabis products available in-store and online. Simply identify a list of cannabis stores in a city like Los Angeles by name, or by latitude and longitude, and you’ll have the ability to reach known cannabis consumers by targeting people who walk into these shops.

Filter on high-income or low-income segments, as well as other behaviors, to create ads that speak to the lifestyle of the consumer. For example, if a CBD brand is about surf-and-skate lifestyle attributes, the targeting can be filtered to anyone who walks into a CBD retailer and who also is interested in surfing and skating. 

Certainly, this targeting applies to a lot of businesses. If you are marketing an ice cream brand, targeting people who were seen at a Cold Stone Creamery gives you an indication of the consumer’s interests. Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream may target ads to Cold Stone Creamery visitors to promote Ben and Jerry’s locations, or grocery store ice cream pints.

Use Visitation Frequency to Reach Employees

Visitation frequency is a way to really home in on employees. By using this tool, you are picking a retail location and targeting people who are there a lot: the employees. This is applicable to any brand that wants to sell products to retail workers.

For example, Dickies may want to sell their work clothing to people who work at fast food establishments. If they want to sell to employees at Burger King, McDonald’s, Starbucks, and Wendy’s, they can choose these retail locations in the targeting map and set the frequency to high.

Nearby Locations

Finally, for most local businesses, serve up ads to people who are near your location. This trade area targeting is defined by your business. You can target half a mile up to 18 miles, though for most businesses, two to five miles is the right radius. Filter to the type of person you want to attract. GNC, for example, may want to target ads to people two miles around the address who are seeking a healthy lifestyle. To define the healthy folks among us, choose the lifestyle “health food shoppers.” 

Location is a fantastic signal that tells advertisers about the user, their interests, and their purchase habits. While Covid-19 has been creating massive change in the way we live, the data signals from before the interruption are still available for targeting purposes. Those signals, paired with current foot traffic flow, allow businesses large and small to precision target ads to build their business. 

Robert Brill is the CEO of BrillMedia.co and the host of the LA Business Podcast.