Tickets, please: geofencing can help brands reach real fans

Marketers have long advertised to event attendees through in-stadium signage and sometimes by even more sophisticated hyperlocal targeting via cell phones. As far back as 2010, presidential candidate Michele Bachman pushed out YouTube and mobile ads to potential primary voters attending the Minnesota State Fair. (The ads featured her opponent’s alleged support of taxes on beer and corn dogs. Bachman didn’t fare well in the campaign but props for the contextualized marketing).

Since then, this kind of geofencing technology, which employs data from mobile devices to determine when an individual is present at a specific location or event, has become even more popular. The market grew to close to $2bn last year according to Future Market Insights and is on track to increase exponentially in coming years.

Here’s how geofencing works: It’s as simple as thinking of building a virtual fence around a location: a store, a stadium, even a neighborhood. This is done by applying GPS or radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology around the ‘fence,’ which sends signals to serve an ad to the mobile device of the people who enter or exit the area.

‘Geoframing’ takes this precision targeting one step further by applying location data from mobile devices to build audiences assumed to be in a store or at an event. This historical data is used to target fans and consumers in the days after they’ve left a place.

Increasingly, advertisers are looking beyond place-specific promos to capture the attention of groups long after they’ve returned home. Place-based targeting enables just that, allowing marketers to be precise. If you’re targeting lovers of classical music, for instance, you’d want to find people attending an orchestra concert. (After all, who goes to hear an orchestra unless they like classical music?) It also obliges marketers to be privacy-first since trackable data is acquired through consumer opt-ins.

That means marketers are no longer limited to promoting t-shirts or snacks to Swifties while they’re attending concerts on her Eras Tour. A makeup marketer like Ulta Beauty might offer attendees a post-event freebie by text a few days later, or a credit card brand might show ticket-splurging moms and dads a mobile web ad in time for back-to-school shopping.

Offers like these scale, too: For example, Swift is playing 27 shows this summer, with many at arenas holding 50,000-plus people. And global pop stars aren’t the only ones attracting massive audiences. During college basketball’s March Madness tournament, geofencing can be used to engage students with basketball-themed social campaigns. Major League Baseball's audience is also enormous: Franchises reach millions of fans each season – and there are 30 teams. And let’s not forget the passionate young people who attend live e-sports competitions: they can be reached after events when they get back to gaming on their laptops.

Marketers are waking up to opportunities like these: movie studios can use geofencing to reach huge audiences for summer movies in short bursts on their phones. And purveyors of premium products, including car makers and wealth managers, can reach the well-heeled audiences who attend golf, polo and tennis tournaments at courses and courts – and when they’re back home.

The process is as efficient as the possibilities are endless. Soccer fans can serve as proxies to reach families, marathons as a vehicle to push get-out-the-vote efforts in competitive races and Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade as a way to promote a holiday deal. The key is getting past the constraints of location by using context and research – combined with a little creative common sense.

Of course, with this newfound access and proximity comes the responsibility to treat fans – and their valuable hard-fought-for time, attention, and privacy – with respect. Crossing the wrong line could inspire well-deserved backlash. So marketers need to offer experiences and services that are genuinely relevant, useful and effective. That’s what consumers want, after all. And they certainly deserve as much.

It may not be simple, but it’s a lot easier than getting Taylor Swift tickets.

Christa Carone is president of Infillion Media. To read more from The Drum’s latest Deep Dive, where we’ll be demystifying data & privacy for marketers in 2023, head over to our special hub.