Table of Contents
More than 4.5 billion people in the world own a cell phone. That's way more than half of the whole world's population.
We practically live on our mobile devices aka cell phones, tablets, laptops etc.
From waking up until the moment we go to sleep, we are constantly using our mobile devices for one thing or the other.
Ordering lunch? Use Uber Eats.
Buying a dress? Use Thredup..
Watching your favorite series? Use Netflix.
Going for a vacation? Use TripAdvisor.
Looking for a room to rent? Use Airbnb.
Want to shop accessories? Use LoadBasket.
With so much use of mobile devices, user experience has been enhanced beyond what we ever imagined (and it's improving day-by-day).
We turn to our devices for all our needs and businesses are taking full advantage of this. Gone are the days of one-for-all, generic ads. Today, each ad is carefully targeted for each person keeping in mind his age, location, activities, hobbies, tastes, and preferences.
Out of all these things, the only thing we can find out without the user engaging with us is his location. And marketers are using it to their benefit full-force.
Exact location requires permission, but IP Geolocation is a non-invasive way of finding out where your visitor is coming from.
What is IP Geolocation?
IP Geolocation is a technique used to find out the geographical location of the user using his IP address. Wherever in the world, you use the internet, you will be assigned an IP address. This IP address contains your network identity and your location information. This information is used by online businesses to recognize their visitors.
This method of geolocation may not be accurate to-the-tee, but it sure is useful as heck.
Benefits of using IP Geolocation:
- It's non-invasive. Unlike other methods (which are albeit more accurate), this doesn't involve giving up your exact location. There are hundreds of websites and apps which use GPS to track your exact location. This increases the probability of data breach. Many companies sell this data to bigger companies which further use it to ad target a wider audience. (Remember Cambridge Analytica Scandal? )
Whereas, IP geolocation returns data such as your country, city, latitude, longitude, time zone, postal code, calling code, language etc.
Nothing that gives out your exact location and personal information. - It's easy to implement. The only effort required from you is to install an API on your website and you'll obtain all the info you need which can be further used for your ad targeting and retarget.
- You can do so much with so little. You don't need to know the exact location of your visitors to know what content needs to be shown.
Food chains like Starbucks and McDonalds locate which region their visitors are coming from and they're shown the website content (menu and store locations) for that country.
Apart from this, this is the most economical way to geolocate your visitors. IP geolocation doesn't cost you an arm and a leg but gives the value you need to optimize your business.
Let's take a look at some examples of e-commerce stores which are using geoIP for better customer experience:
If someone is doing IP address geolocation right, I have to say, it's Bloomingdales. From currency to language, everything is locally optimized for the best user experience. As soon as you enter the website, you can see a pop-up that shows their international shipping and prices policy. These are the 2 versions of the pop-up in Sweden and Pakistan.