Promote Live Events and Local Activations by Layering Precise Location Audiences Onto Programmatic Campaigns
Filling a venue, whether for a trade show, concert, or grand opening, hinges on reaching the right people at the right time. In a crowded digital landscape, traditional promotion can feel like shouting into the void. This is where the precision of location-based advertising transforms event marketing from a game of chance into a science, ensuring your message connects with individuals most likely to attend. By integrating this technology into a unified programmatic advertising strategy, you can turn physical presence and proximity into your most powerful assets.
Understanding Location-Based Advertising for Events
Location-based advertising (LBA) is a strategy that uses mobile device data to serve ads to audiences based on their physical-world location. For event marketers, this isn’t just about targeting a zip code; it’s about engaging potential attendees with unprecedented relevance. This approach moves beyond broad demographics to focus on real-time behavior and intent. The most powerful tool in the LBA arsenal for event promotion is geo-fencing.
Geo-fencing allows you to draw a virtual perimeter around a specific geographical area. When a person with a smartphone enters, stays within, or leaves this “fence,” they can be served your event ad. Imagine the possibilities: targeting attendees at a related conference, customers at a partner business, or even people near a competitor’s venue. This level of precision is made possible through location-based advertising platforms that leverage GPS, Wi-Fi, and cellular data to identify devices within these custom-drawn zones.
The Full Event Lifecycle: A Geo-Fencing Strategy
A successful event promotion strategy doesn’t just happen on the day of the event. It’s a carefully orchestrated campaign that spans the pre-event, live-event, and post-event phases. Location-based ads are uniquely suited to add value at every stage.
1. Pre-Event: Building Buzz and Driving Registration
The buildup is crucial. Weeks or even months before your event, you can use geo-fencing to target strategic locations where your ideal audience gathers. This could include:
- Complementary Venues: Fencing local universities for a career fair or theaters for a film festival.
- Related Industry Events: Targeting attendees at similar tradeshows or conferences across the country.
- High-Traffic Hubs: Setting fences around airports, convention centers, and popular business districts to catch professionals on the move.
By delivering ads promoting early-bird registration and highlighting key speakers or attractions, you capture an audience with demonstrated interest and intent.
2. During the Event: Enhancing the Attendee Experience
Once your event is live, geo-fencing becomes a tool for real-time engagement. By fencing your own venue, you can send timely notifications to attendees who have opted in. These can include schedule reminders, directions to a specific stage, or exclusive offers from sponsors. This not only improves the attendee experience but also provides added value to your partners. For multi-day festivals or large conferences, this tactic is invaluable for keeping attendees informed and engaged.
3. Post-Event: Driving Future Action with Retargeting
The conversation shouldn’t end when the event does. You can retarget everyone who entered your event’s geo-fence with follow-up messaging. Thank them for attending, send out surveys for feedback, or offer a special discount for next year’s event. This audience is highly qualified. By pairing location data with on-site retargeting for those who visited your event website, you create a powerful strategy for building a loyal community and ensuring future attendance.
Layering Data for Smarter Event Promotion
The true power of programmatic advertising lies in its ability to layer multiple data sets for hyper-targeted campaigns. Geo-fencing is your foundation, but combining it with other targeting methods creates an even more effective strategy. Consider layering your location data with:
- Behavioral Targeting: Reach users who have shown interest in topics related to your event through their online browsing and search history. This is where behavioral targeting solutions add significant value.
- Contextual Targeting: Place ads on websites and apps with content that is contextually relevant to your event, such as industry news sites or blogs.
- OTT/CTV Advertising: Expand your reach to the big screen. By integrating OTT and CTV advertising, you can target households within specific geographic areas, delivering high-impact video ads to engaged viewers.
By combining these strategies, you ensure your event promotion is not only seen in the right places but by the right people, dramatically increasing the efficiency of your ad spend.
Measuring Success and Optimizing for the Future
One of the primary benefits of programmatic advertising is the ability to measure campaign performance in real-time. Key metrics for event promotion include click-through rates, conversion rates on registration pages, and foot traffic attribution—measuring how many ad viewers physically attended the event.
Utilizing a consolidated reporting platform allows you to see what’s working and adjust your strategy accordingly. Did fencing a specific location yield a high number of ticket sales? Double down on that area for your next event. Did a certain ad creative underperform? Test a new message. This data-driven approach is key to improving ROI and making every event more successful than the last.
Ready to Fill Every Seat?
Stop guessing and start targeting. ConsulTV provides the programmatic tools and expertise to build highly effective, location-based advertising campaigns for your events. Let’s work together to reach your ideal audience and exceed your attendance goals.
Frequently Asked Questions
How is geo-fencing different from geo-targeting?
Geo-targeting delivers ads to users within a broader, pre-defined area like a city or zip code. Geo-fencing is much more precise, creating a virtual boundary around a specific location, like a single building, a park, or a city block, allowing for real-time targeting when a user crosses that boundary.
How soon before an event should I start a geo-fencing campaign?
It’s best to start 4-6 weeks before the event to generate awareness and drive early registrations. This provides enough time to test different locations and messages and build a sizable audience for retargeting.
Can I target attendees of a competitor’s event?
Yes. This is a strategy known as “geo-conquesting.” By setting a geo-fence around a competitor’s conference, trade show, or retail location, you can serve your ads to their audience, promoting your event or brand as a superior alternative.
What kind of data privacy regulations should I be aware of?
It’s crucial to respect user privacy. Location-based advertising relies on users opting in to share their location data through apps. Reputable programmatic platforms adhere to data privacy laws like GDPR and CCPA, ensuring that targeting is performed ethically and transparently.
Glossary of Terms
Programmatic Advertising: The automated buying and selling of digital advertising space in real-time, using software and algorithms to target specific users.
Geo-Fencing: The use of GPS or other location-based technologies to create a virtual boundary around a specific geographic area. When a device enters or exits this boundary, it triggers a pre-programmed action, such as a targeted advertisement.
Geo-Retargeting: The practice of serving ads to people based on their previous locations. For example, targeting event attendees after they have left the venue.
Foot Traffic Attribution: A measurement technique that connects digital ad exposure to a physical visit to a specified location, helping to determine the offline impact of an online campaign.
OTT/CTV (Over-the-Top/Connected TV): OTT refers to streaming content delivered via the internet, bypassing traditional cable or satellite. CTV is the device used to watch it, such as a smart TV or streaming stick. Advertising on these platforms allows for TV-like ads with digital targeting capabilities.