Facebook has more than 3 billion monthly active users worldwide, making it the most popular and patronized social media platform. With such a colossal number of active users, Facebook is a goldmine for marketing products and services and generating leads.
It’s not by chance that 86% of marketers worldwide use Facebook for marketing purposes, ahead of other social media platforms, like Instagram and LinkedIn.
However, you must get Facebook marketing right to engage your target audience. Facebook geofencing is a reliable marketing technique that you can implement to display your ads to users in specific locations. Geofencing involves setting a virtual boundary within certain geographic locations so that your Facebook ads target users living in or visiting those locations.
Facebook geofencing elevates location-based marketing by giving you the technology to apply more detailed targeting techniques. This guide explains how to successfully geofence on Facebook, its advantages, the relevant KPIs you should track to monitor your progress, and how you can use AUDIENCEX to implement Facebook geofencing.
Understanding Geofencing Marketing
Geofencing marketing campaigns allow you to target customers based on their geographic locations. But instead of targeting users based only on their location settings, you use geofences. You set these geofences by drawing a virtual polygon around locations your target customers are likely to visit. When your users step within the boundary of the virtual polygon, they’re shown ads for your products or services.
Typically, marketers draw their virtual boundaries starting from their business’s location, but they also target relevant events, conferences, and competitors’ locations. You can also geofence social areas that prospective customers frequent. Such areas may include shopping malls, public parks, bars, and restaurants.
Running geofencing ad campaigns is a proven technique for implementing location-based targeting on any social media platform. However, geofencing marketing is most beneficial on Facebook, given the sheer number of users the platform boasts. Even when you geofence a small area, you can still reach a substantial number of users, more than you would with other social platforms.
Although Facebook has long supported location targeting, it had been limited to broad areas, like a country, city, or state. But with geofencing, you can reach customers within a one-mile circumference.
How to Geofence on Facebook
Even though other social platforms, like LinkedIn, X, Instagram, and Snapchat, support geofencing, Facebook is still king. On average, Facebook users spend 20 minutes daily on the platform and log in multiple times.
Additionally, Facebook’s demographics are multigenerational, with 51% of users between 13 and 17 years old and 41% above 65. These are some of the many reasons why marketers advertise on Facebook.
Fortunately, the process of geofencing is doable with three simple steps on Facebook.
1. Setting Up the Facebook Pixel
The Facebook Pixel, now called the Meta Pixel, is a code that tracks users’ activity on your website and the types of devices they use to browse. Pixels monitor how web visitors interact with your ads, allowing you to evaluate whether your target audience is converting and completing the actions you desire. For instance, you can see the users who subscribed to your newsletter, submitted their contact information, or made a purchase.
The Facebook Pixel gives you essential data to leverage in your geofencing ad campaign. But to get this valuable user data, you first need to set up the Facebook Pixel by following these steps:
- Go to the Facebook Business Manager/Meta Business Suite and click the All Tools icon.
- Choose the Events Manager option in the dropdown menu and select Connect Data Sources.
- In the Connect a New Data Source dropdown, select Web and click Connect.
- Name your Pixel and click the Create Pixel button (prioritize a business-aligned keyword instead of a campaign-themed name).
- Type in your website’s URL and click Next.
- Select Meta Pixel and Conversions API and click Next to connect your website.
- Select the partner integrations you’ll use. These include Shopify, Wix, WordPress, Zapia, Squarespace, and many others.
Setting up the Facebook Pixel helps you gather critical metrics for your geofencing marketing campaign. It also serves as a critical bridge for integrating your sales funnel with your website and Facebook profile. This way, you can identify and evaluate web visitors who are a perfect fit for your Facebook geofencing marketing campaigns.
2. Defining Your Geofencing Parameters
This step is where the nitty-gritty details make the geofencing magic happen. The parameters of your geofencing ad campaign directly influence the results and dictate the geographic location of your Facebook ads. Thus, you must accurately define your geofencing parameters to reflect your target location and get your desired results.
Here’s the step-by-step process you should follow:
- Create a new ad campaign with the Facebook Business Manager and choose the ad’s objective. The six options are awareness, traffic, sales, engagement, leads, and app promotion. Your campaign’s objective summarizes the goal you seek to achieve.
- Select a campaign name, click next, go to the audience controls option, and create a new audience. Beneath the audience controls section, you’ll find a subsection named “Location.”
- Optimize this subsection to capture the city, region, or country you want to reach. Meta allows you to target up to 50,000 postal codes, 250 cities, and 25 countries. You can add individual locations or add them in bulk, or you can drop a pin to designate a precise location on the map.
- Once you’ve pinpointed your target location, establish a radius using the slider, or zoom in on the map to adjust it manually. You can set the radius to a minimum of one mile.
- Use the location exclusion feature to omit certain areas you don’t want to market to.
- Scroll to the “Advantage+ Audience” section to adjust demographic settings such as language, age, and gender to define your ideal audience. Set minimum and maximum ages, specific languages you want your ad to target, and genders — women, men, or all.
3. Launching Your Geofencing Campaign
After defining your geofencing parameters, you’re ready to launch your geofencing ad campaign. Create compelling ad copy that epitomizes your ad’s objective and resonates with your target audience.
The ad should reflect your brand’s corporate colors to make it vivid and memorable. It should also include a compelling call to action (CTA) that tells your audience what to do or what it stands to gain by clicking through. Also, set the ideal time of day for your ad campaign to be live so you don’t waste time and money showing ads during irrelevant hours when your target audience is either beyond your geofence or completely inactive.
Measuring Success: Performance Metrics
Facebook geofencing is not a one-off, set-it-and-forget-it marketing strategy. To achieve and sustain optimal results, you must track and continuously optimize your geofencing ad campaign. Measuring your campaign’s performance directs you to where to fine-tune or redefine your parameters. Here are the top KPIs you should keep on your radar.
Key Performance Indicators to Track
- Conversion rate: how many users view your ads and act by completing a desired action, such as purchasing or subscribing to your newsletter
- Click-through rate (CTR): how many users see and click on your ads
- Cost per acquisition (CPA): how much it costs to acquire a new customer through your geofencing ad campaign
- Ad impressions or views: the number of times users have viewed your ads
- Cost per 1,000 impressions (CPM): how much you pay to get 1,000 impressions
- Cost per action (phone call, walk-in, sale): how much you spend on your geofencing marketing campaign before generating a positive conversion
- Foot traffic increase: how many more people visit your business’s premises from your geofenced locations
- Engagement metrics: stats such as page views and total time spent on the site after users click an ad
- Return on ad spend (ROAS): the revenue generated for every dollar you spend on your geofencing ad campaign
Tools for Performance Analysis
Popular tools for analyzing the performance of your geofencing ad campaigns include:
- Facebook Ads Manager
- Google Ads
- Adsquare
- Foursquare
- PlaceIQ
- Adjust
- GroundTruth
- Simpli.fi
Advantages of Geofencing With Facebook
Businesses using Facebook geofencing enjoy the following perks.
Increased Relevance and Precision
When you define your geofencing parameters, you can create relevant ads that capture customers’ attention. For instance, if your target customers are between 14 and 18 years old, you could craft short and amusing ad copy with multiple emojis.
Facebook users appreciate the precision of geofenced ads thanks to well-timed location targeting using technology like the Global Positioning System (GPS) and radio-frequency identification (RFID). Targeting customers close to your business doesn’t feel intrusive because they’re already in those locations willingly.
Enhanced User Experience
Ill-timed and irrelevant pop-up ads are intrusive and irritating, especially for Facebook users who are enjoying their browsing time. Fortunately, with geofencing ads, you can set parameters for the demographics and schedule the ads to display at the ideal time for the target audience.
Perhaps you notice many customers first stop for a cup of coffee before entering your business’s premises. You can then geofence the nearby coffee shop and schedule ads for when the coffee shop has peak traffic. Customers will enjoy the smooth user experience as they can browse products as they sip their coffee.
Cost-Effective Advertising Solutions
Generally, geotargeting and geofencing in advertising campaigns are more affordable because you focus on a smaller audience. You bid for ad space and pay Facebook only when a user clicks your ad. This means you get a good return on your ad spend since most users who click your geofenced ad have a higher chance of converting.
Because you define the parameters of your geofencing marketing campaign, you can optimize it to get the most from your budget. The cost-effectiveness of Facebook geofencing is particularly beneficial when you’re running your first geofencing campaign on a limited budget.
Industries That Benefit From Geofencing
These sectors include:
- Retail and e-commerce
- Hospitality and travel
- Events and entertainment
These sectors attract many people in one location, either digital or physical, making them major beneficiaries of Facebook geofencing and geotargeting.
The Right Audience at the Right Time: How AUDIENCEX Uses Facebook Geofencing
AUDIENCEX is your reliable, full-service, AI-enabled digital advertising partner that’s focused on driving campaign performance. At AUDIENCEX, everyone with a marketing need is welcome.
Whether you need help accessing and deploying geolocation data for political advertising or driving brand awareness, we can leverage our expertise in geotargeting and geofencing to deliver next-level solutions.
Here’s our proven approach for leveraging Facebook geofencing.
Targeting Competitors’ Locations for Strategic Ad Delivery
We perform an extensive competitor analysis to map out your competitors’ locations and target customers in those locations with compelling ads. We’ve mastered optimizing the “Detailed Targeting” option in the Facebook Ads Manager and segmenting the audience for specific geographic locations.
We count on our advanced data science, innovative technology, omnichannel programmatic access, tech-enabled creatives, and industry-leading strategic expertise to design geofencing campaigns with unique content. This way, AUDIENCEX doesn’t rely on simply poaching your competitors’ clients but instead on convincing them why your option is better based on accurate data.
Driving In-Store Visits With Location-Based Promotions
Offering location-based deals and promotions is an evergreen technique for driving foot traffic. Price discounts or in-store product promotions can boost foot traffic almost instantaneously, especially if you limit the promotions to a specific timeline.
AUDIENCEX studies your local market’s dynamics, including supply and demand forces and current prices, and advises you on the location-based promotion that would be ideal for your business. Even if most of your sales are online, getting more foot traffic in your store is a big plus, as it gives sales agents a good chance to cross-sell and upsell.
Enhancing Event Marketing With Real-Time Geofencing Ads
Geofencing ongoing events and displaying geofencing ads in real time is an effective way of engaging clients. At AUDIENCEX, we always look for relevant events and design befitting ads to target event goers.
Running real-time geofencing ads allows you to capitalize on the audience’s attention. Here, a short and amusing ad is often enough to divert people’s attention and market your products or services.
Optimizing Ad Spend by Focusing on High-Intent Zones
At AUDIENCEX, we evaluate and pinpoint high-intent zones, where many people have a chance to convert. After mapping out these zones, we encourage you to dedicate more of your ad budget to reach as many high-intent zones as possible.
Start Transforming Your Campaigns With AUDIENCEX
AUDIENCEX develops and deploys custom, holistic strategies that span the full digital marketing ecosystem, from social media marketing to programmatic advertising.
Our technology-first, AI-powered approach to data science provides predictive audience modeling and automated real-time optimization to ensure end-to-end campaign performance for your geofencing marketing campaigns.
Contact AUDIENCEX for customized Facebook geofencing strategies that will work perfectly for your business.
FAQs About Geofencing on Facebook
How Accurate Is Geofencing?
Geofencing accuracy varies depending on the robustness of the technology used and how precisely you define your parameters. The accuracy also varies with location.
In urban areas boasting extensive interconnectivity, you can achieve geofencing accuracy within 100 to 200 meters. In rural areas with less interconnectivity, geofencing is less accurate.
Additionally, geofencing accuracy depends on your target user turning on the location settings on their devices. If a user has turned off location permissions, it won’t matter how accurately you define your parameters, as they won’t see your ads.
What Is the Ideal Geofence Size?
There isn’t a set-in-stone geofence size. It depends on how large or small your target location is. However, Facebook sets the minimum radius of a geofence at one mile (1.6 kilometers) and the maximum at 100 miles (160 kilometers).
You can set the ideal size for your geofencing marketing campaign if you’re within the maximum and minimum geofence radius. The smaller the radius, the more relevant your target audience will be, as your ads will reach the people closest to your business.
How Do I Create a Geolocation on Facebook?
Meta gives you these four options for creating a geolocation:
- Everyone in this location: You target everyone present in a specific location, regardless of how long they stay.
- People who live in this location: You target people who reside within your business’s location. These are people who state in their profiles that they live in that location, or their location data ties them to that area.
- People recently in this location: You target people who frequent your business’s location but don’t live there. These people are highly likely to buy your products or services while in that location if you keep marketing to them.
People traveling in this location: You target people who’ve expressed interest in traveling to a location or have checked in at a hotel or conference in that location.