Geotargetting - how in depth should I go?!

[baldidiot]

Geotargetting has been something I've been looking into for a while, and I'm now planning on geotargetting the banners on my site (and have an appropriate solution).

So my question is... how much detail should I go into? It could be a simple US / Canada / Europe / Australasia / UK split.

Or I could cherry pick the best brands for each country (eg: Sweden, France, Germany, UK, USA etc etc...) - it would be a lot of work but could be worth it.

Or, do I target a few key countries with highly specific banners and then less specific for the rest, and if so - what countries would you target?

Lastly, what about languages. Should this be based on both browser language *and* geolocation, or just one?

This already sounds like a headache in the making!

[TheGooner]

It can be COMPLICATED or EASY - it really depends on your abilities and whether you can to do it all at once.

Personally, I'd take your logs, identify your top FIVE countries, and geo-route for them.
Then wait, capture data, and measure the impacts. If you see benefit - then take the next five etc.

A second stream could be to target non-english speakers with specific language banners.
So target your top five FOREIGN LANGUAGE countries - and again capture data and evaluate.

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Whether you should use browser language or country is a good question - one that I had not really considered.
I've always routed on Country.

[baldidiot]

That's not a bad idea, thanks. I'm embarrassed to say using my own stats to identify the countries to target didn't occur to me!

[Simmo!]

Personally, I'd take your logs, identify your top FIVE countries, and geo-route for them.
Then wait, capture data, and measure the impacts. If you see benefit - then take the next five etc.

Good advice. That's exactly how I work. And it does have benefits for sure.

One thing I would also consider: when you send a referal, if you use a redirect script you can also use geo-targetting in this to identify whether or not that property accepts players from that country and where not, intercept the redirection with an appropriate message or options.

I read an article in the IGB Affiliate magazine last year that basically said it is X times easier to sell to an existing customer than to get a new customer. I took this to mean, spend proportionately more time ensuring that the traffic you already have gets exactly what they came for rather than a disproportionate amount of time trying to get more traffic. Geo-targetting then became a major focus for me.

It made me totally re-evaluate the phrase "content is king" which (in Search Engine terms) I was starting to have some doubts about. Until then I had thought more about quantity than quality.

In financial terms, that's probably the best bit of advice I have ever had since joining the industry.

[baldidiot]

Good advice. That's exactly how I work. And it does have benefits for sure.

One thing I would also consider: when you send a referal, if you use a redirect script you can also use geo-targetting in this to identify whether or not that property accepts players from that country and where not, intercept the redirection with an appropriate message or options.

I read an article in the IGB Affiliate magazine last year that basically said it is X times easier to sell to an existing customer than to get a new customer. I took this to mean, spend proportionately more time ensuring that the traffic you already have gets exactly what they came for rather than a disproportionate amount of time trying to get more traffic. Geo-targetting then became a major focus for me.

It made me totally re-evaluate the phrase "content is king" which (in Search Engine terms) I was starting to have some doubts about. Until then I had thought more about quantity than quality.

In financial terms, that's probably the best bit of advice I have ever had since joining the industry.

Great point - it's probably easier to increase conversions by 100% than traffic by that same amount.

Thanks guys!

[LiveCasinoPartners]

I ran across this very question myself about 6 months ago. How does an affiliate server more relevant results to their potential? For example, if your from the US, and visit a site on "Bingo" and all of your add space is orientated towards UK facing programs you are doing a disservice to your potential player. I think that serving geotargetted banners to your readers will give them and your self more value. The technology is easy. It can be done in many ways. I purchased a database from www.maxmind.com that relates IP address of your internet user to a country (two letter designator). Once I store the internet browsers cookie with country of origin I make sure the banners on that page are for programs that are accepted in that country, OR add a specific section for that country and say something like "Bingo Available in Finland" etc..

For me triage fo the country level readers was the first step. I'll have to see more of the top SEO's like Gary (resident SEO expert) to egt an idea of how to provide better content for the internet readers, which includes geotargeting.