By Claire Schoen

As lawmakers and the advertising industry debate the issues of consumer privacy, behavioral targeting, and the use of third-party cookies for tracking, a new way of understanding and targeting the web audience has emerged. It’s called IP intelligence, and it’s a cookie-free way to learn more about your web visitors.

Using IP intelligence to determine geolocation has been possible for more than a decade, and marketers have used this data for a variety of purposes.

But the ability to acquire impressions and target display advertising across the web is very new, made possible with the development and rapid growth of Real-Time Bidding (RTB.) Marketers can learn even more about their online audience, through IP intelligence data that provides geographic and technographic targeting, as well as the ability to categorize a customer by location down to zip+4, business/organization type or even the type of internet connection they have.

IP intelligence also offers tremendous opportunities for targeting ads without using third-party cookies — a major plus when it comes to privacy issues.

Consumers Crave Location-based Advertising

According to JIWIRE’s Mobile Audience Insights Report, in Q4, 57 percent of respondents were more likely to respond to an ad that was relevant to their location, up 10 percent from Q1. As the emphasis on location-based advertising grows, and as marketers obtain more granular data about their visitors, the more relevant and targeted advertising becomes. Marketers crave the granular data as much as consumers love the ads.

Using Geolocation Data to Target Users, Content, and More

Internet marketers have been using IP geolocation for many years and for many purposes, including:

Targeting advertising based on a user’s location — by continent, country, state, city, down to the zip+4. With this information, marketers can:

• Create geotargeted dynamic landing pages. Based on the visitors location the ad graphic or product offer might change, while the rest of the copy remains static.
• Tailor web content, ad copy and landing pages to the visitor by including local currencies and pricing.
• Restrict visitors from other countries from seeing certain promotions – no angry customers.
• Offer the visitor a printable coupon or notify them of special offers based on their location.

Locally relevant content — in the user’s language, local currency on e-commerce pages or order forms, location-specific text or images, customization of web search results that have a local component, automating store locator pages for retailers, etc.

• Tailor your web content, ad copy and landing pages to the visitor by including local currencies and pricing.
• Use the same template to create different versions of your landing pages. For example, for visitors from Mexico you could automatically redirect them to a page translated into Spanish, with the product prices shown in pesos and advertising your store locations in Mexico.
• Automatically provide locations nearest to them, without having them input their address.

Content restriction– Where there are legal or trade restrictions on what can be sold or shown where, geolocation can be used to restrict access. A classic example is online gaming: IP geolocation can be used to adhere to international laws on compliance. For instance, European gaming operators must not allow those located in the U.S. to access their services. By simply blocking all IP addresses from the U.S., the operators can quickly deal with this issue and sleep better at night knowing they are on the right side of the law

Fraud detection – IP intelligence can be used to block compromised cards or bank accounts and avoid financial fraud. Online shoppers generally log on within close proximity of their billing or shipping addresses. By examining a combination of IP data — is the user logging in from the same IP address that they usually log into? Same country as the credit card is registered? Same type of IP connection?– operators can identify credit card fraud as well as money laundering. IP intelligence uses similar signals for logins to protect user identities and help deter identity theft.

ClickFraud protection — Using geolocation, marketers can filter out invalid or fraudulent clicks. For example, if products/services are only available in one country, but Pay-Per-Click advertising clicks are coming from another, these are fraudulent clicks.

IP Intelligences Adds Additional Layers of Information

Now, with additional IP Intelligence, marketers can go beyond geolocation data to learn more about their users and therefore target even more granularly.

Additional IP Intelligence can now categorize the type of user into four distinct data fields:

• Home vs. Work — IP connection indicates where the connection has been made from a residence or business, thus allowing marketers to target the message accordingly.
• Organization Type — More than 40 classifications of organization type are now available, including Insurance, Banking, Lodging, Dining, Travel Services, Advertising and Telecommunication, and more. Knowing which organization type someone is logging in from provides additional actionable information, whether to help an advertiser serve up finely targeted ads, or help a merchant detect potential fraud.
• ISIC Code: This applies the associated International Standard Industry Classification (SIC) Code to further identify the organization type.
• NAICS Code: This applies the associated North American Industry Classification System code of the organization type.

IP Intelligence Protects Users Privacy

Using IP intelligence instead of cookies maintains a person’s privacy because what is being assessed is the location of a computer within a 20-50 mile area – not a person, not an email, not a street address.

Quova, leading provider of IP intelligence, draws on a database of 3 million publicly available IP addresses, mostly in North America and Europe. Quova’s IP geolocation method assesses the infrastructure of the Internet, not the individual.

Quova has built proprietary technology to effectively purchase advertising impressions based on an IP address instead of cookies. This process now allows Quova to help marketers more intelligently build digital display campaigns based on scalable and unique IP data.

Given the wealth of data that can be gleaned from IP Intelligence, it’s a smart way for internet marketers and advertisers to build out a targeted and successful campaign. It enables brands to target ad creative by audience segment, reaching customers online the way direct mail and billboard ads used to work offline.

Claire Schoen is Director of Search Marketing Now.

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