4 Ways to Make Your Display Ads Geo-aware

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4 Ways to Geo-personalize Your Display Ads
dynamicad PLAYBOOK

dynamicad PLAYBOOKOverview
Did you know that dynamic display ads can be geo-aware? In other words, it's possible for an ad
to determine where the viewer is and update the ad content accordingly.
For certain campaigns, geo-awareness can substantially improve ad relevance, which in turn
helps lift clickthroughs and conversions.
Industries where geo-aware ads can add value
• Automotive (car dealerships)
• Supermarkets and pharmacies
• Retail/chain stores
• Daily deals (or any advertiser that's aggregating local merchants)
• Travel (detecting a traveler's departure location)
• Event and concert tickets

dynamicad PLAYBOOK4 ways to implement geo-aware dynamic ads
We'll look at the following four approaches to implementing geo-aware dynamic ad creative. This isn’t
intended to be an exhaustive list; there are other approaches and variations not covered here.
Please contact us at info@cannedbanners.com with any questions.
1. Use location features native to the ad server / DSP
2. Use the ad itself to do an IP lookup
3. Identify visitor location contextually
4. Capture visitor location via signup forms

dynamicad PLAYBOOKUsing location features native to the ad server / DSP
Many ad servers and DSPs (e.g., AppNexus) have the
native ability to pass viewer location data into the ad
creative. This is usually accomplished using ad
macros that are inserted into the dynamic ad tag.
Examples of location data:
• City
• State
• Postal Code
• Latitude + Longitude
In many cases, locations are inferred from the
viewer's IP address. For mobile ad inventory,
latitude & longitude may be available.
This approach works for both RETARGETING and NEW CUSTOMER ACQUISITION

dynamicad PLAYBOOKUse the ad itself to do an IP lookup
When location data isn't available from the ad server
or DSP, a dynamic display ad can, in a fraction of a
second, detect the IP address of the viewer and
determine the viewer's physical location using any
number of lookup services or datasets.
In terms of functionality, performance, and outward
appearance, this approach is no diﬀerent than using
the ad server or DSP’s native location detection
features. It's only when you peek under the hood that
things look a little diﬀerent.
This approach works for both RETARGETING and NEW CUSTOMER ACQUISITION

dynamicad PLAYBOOKDon’t scrape IP addresses
Using an IP address once within the context of a single ad impression
is ﬁne, but using dynamic ad creative to "scrape" and stockpile viewer
IP addresses violates many ad industry privacy, publisher, and ad
exchange rules.
Play it safe: use native features
Consider relying on an ad server or DSP’s native features wherever
possible, since location detection is more likely to be implemented in
accordance with applicable ad serving and privacy policies.
Here’s what the Network Advertising Initiative (NAI) has to say on the
topic (networkadvertising.org/2013_Principles.pdf):
!

dynamicad PLAYBOOKIdentify visitor location contextually
Let's say a hypothetical retail chain has 1,000 U.S. locations and wants
to retarget website visitors with location-personalized ads, perhaps
containing the address of the nearest store.
When visitors drill down to a location-specific page of the website
(e.g., the store hours page for a specific store), the retailer can fire a
dynamic ads tracking pixel and pass a store location code into the
pixel, thereby associating that viewer with a specific store.
Later, when visitors see retargeting ads, the ads will be able to
reference the location(s) the visitor looked at, and that information
can be used to personalize the ad.
HOMEPAGE
 Not location-specific
Retailer website
SHOP ONLINE
IN-STORE PICKUP
 Location-specific
CONTACT US
STORE LOCATOR
 Location-specific
This approach works for RETARGETING. It does NOT work for NEW CUSTOMER ACQUISITION.

dynamicad PLAYBOOKIdentify visitor location contextually (cont’d)
Contextual location information, such as a Store ID, will need to be
passed to the dynamic ad platform. This is relatively simple, as long as
the retargeting pixel/tag can accept custom parameters.
Here’s a hypothetical retargeting pixel that captures a {STORE_ID}
parameter that’s dynamically populated when the page loads:
When paired with a lookup table or XML ﬁle organized by Store ID, the
dynamic ads can draw upon a wealth of store-related data such as:
• Address, phone number, and store hours
• Speciﬁc store web page(s)
• In-store product availability

dynamicad PLAYBOOKIdentify visitor location contextually | ADVANTAGES
Two potential advantages of this kind of active approach versus a
passive location-detection approach:
The ad isn't relying on approximate locations inferred from IP
addresses. The ad is using locations that the viewer actively
expressed interest in.
This kind of ﬁrst-party site data can be stored and later used by
the advertiser for any number of marketing purposes. And if the
advertiser synchronizes customer ID codes with the dynamic ad
platform, then the dynamic ads will be able to leverage
additional ﬁrst party data that wouldn't otherwise be known to
the ad.



dynamicad PLAYBOOKIdentify visitor location contextually | DISADVANTAGES
Two potential disadvantages of this approach are:
Only those visitors who drill down to a location-speciﬁc page are
captured. This is likely to be a small subset of overall visitors, but
on the upside, these are highly engaged visitors, so they're
probably "worth" more in terms of retargeting budget.
This approach can't be applied to anyone who hasn't yet visited
the advertiser's website, so it can't be used for new customer
acquisition campaigns, whereas the ﬁrst two approaches can
be used for new customer acquisition.



dynamicad PLAYBOOKBonus retargeting segmentation tactic
Now that you've implemented a dynamic ads tracking pixel that only
fires for visitors who reach location-specific pages in your site, you
should probably create a new retargeting audience segment in
your DSP. You can do this by loading a separate segment pixel at the
same time the dynamic ad tracking pixel loads.
For a mid-level web developer, this kind of conditional firing of
retargeting pixels shouldn’t pose a challenge.

dynamicad PLAYBOOKBonus retargeting segmentation tactic (cont’d)
There are three reasons to consider using this approach:
1. These visitors are actively looking for store locations, and are therefore
in-market for your goods and services. It follows that they have a
significantly higher Expected Value than visitors who, say, spent 10 seconds
on your homepage and bounced. It will be extremely useful to be able to
report on these groups separately in your DSP.
2. If you believe that different visitor behaviors have different Expected Values,
you'll want to optimize your retargeting budgets and frequency caps
accordingly. Perhaps people who visited location-specific pages are worth
$6.00 CPM and convert best when retargeting impressions are front-loaded
in the few days after they leave, whereas people who only look at one or two
pages are only worth $3.00 CPM and can be retargeted more evenly over 30
days or so.
3. In your DSP, you'll be able to give each segment its own ad creative. For
homepage-bouncers, you can run non-dynamic brand-building ads, and for
location-specific visitors, you can run location-personalized dynamic ads.

dynamicad PLAYBOOKCapture visitor location via sign-up forms
This approach is similar to identifying visitor locations contextually.
If an advertiser has a sign-up page with a location ﬁeld (e.g., city + state, ZIP
code, phone with area code), then visitor location can be captured at sign-up
and later used in retargeting ads.
One advantage of this approach is the higher granularity of data potentially
available for ad personalization. With multiple location factors available (e.g.,
city + state, ZIP code, area code), a dynamic ad can make more informed
choices about which message is best suited to the viewer.
This approach works for RETARGETING. It does NOT work for NEW CUSTOMER ACQUISITION.

dynamicad PLAYBOOK
!
Don’t track P.I.I.
You don't want to track Personally Identiﬁable Information (PII) for use in
dynamic display ads. PII would include things like email addresses, phone num-
bers, postal addresses, names, etc.
There's usually not much use for PII in ads anyway, but make sure you imple-
ment the dynamic ad tracking tag so that it's only receiving non-PII data such
as area code, postal code, city + state, etc.

dynamicad PLAYBOOKYou’ve read this far, now let’s chat
Contact us at info@cannedbanners.com and let’s
talk about programmatic ad creative.
Or read more on our website at
www.cannedbanners.com.

4 Ways to Make Your Display Ads Geo-aware

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