One of the great challenges destinations and attractions deal with is the balancing act of residents vs. visitors. While targeting locals is usually simple, reaching out-of-towners is often the biggest challenge. Rack cards and local guidebooks are still popular and widely used options for marketing to visitors after they’ve arrived at their vacation destination. However, there are effective ways to target mobile phone users based on their locations that attractions can use to target these on-the-go travelers.

It is important to understand the different ways geotargeting works to determine which method is best for your objectives. Here is a simplified overview of three of the most popular geotargeting options for attractions:

Subscriber-Provided Data. Pretty self-explanatory, this type of geotargeting takes location information given to a service provider or content source by the user upon signup.

Examples: Advertising directly on Comcast.net, a newspaper site with a paywall, or doing audio ads on streaming music provider, Pandora.

When to use it: This will target people where they live so use this to reach your local residents or potential visitors in your opportunity (geographic) markets.

Cautions: Registration data can become out-of-date if it’s not updated when people move.

IP Address. In case you don’t know, an IP address is a set of numbers that identify any device (computer, phone, tablet, etc.) that is connected to the internet. This number is assigned by the Internet Service Provider (ISP) and will change whenever your access the internet from a different location (home vs. office vs. Starbucks).

Examples: Most ad networks and publishers will generally rely on IP address information for any geotargeting. The better ones will have other third party data to help improve accuracy. Don’t be afraid to ask for the source of their information!

When to use it: While this is updated more often than registration data, it can be imprecise. This type of targeting is best when you’re trying to reach a regional audience, rather than if you’re looking for a finely tuned, zip code level campaign.

Cautions: It can often be inaccurate depending on the location of the ISP. For example, as I’m sitting in my office in New Haven, my IP Address’s geo location is being reported as Osterville, MA. You can check the accuracy of your own IP address location on websites like IPLocation.net.

Geofencing. A form of mobile targeting based on data from a cellular network. This gives you the ability to target potential customers in any radius, perimeter, or “bubble” that you establish.

Examples: Display advertising served in a mobile app like Twitter or Accuweather or on mobile websites. While I was in New Hampshire visiting my parents just before the primary election, I was served lots of political ads on my CT phone, like this one for Jeb’s (RIP) Super PAC.

When to use it: Great for campaigns with smaller footprints. If you are looking to reach locals, or if you’re an attraction located in a vacation destination (Cape Cod, Virginia Beach, Orlando) and want to reach visitors, you can establish a geofence around your location.

Cautions: As users become more ad aware, some users will not allow access to their geographic data by turning off their locations services.

There are many geotargeting options for attractions to choose from, even including variations of the ones above. When implementing location-based targeting, be sure to work in opportunities for experimentation and A/B testing to see what works for your attraction and its audiences. For more on opportunity markets for your media spend and mobile options for attractions, subscribe to our newsletter to receive our upcoming stories.