Proximity Marketing On A Limited Budget
Recently a client requested our help advertising to specific vendors at an expo. We researched platforms and quickly discovered the cost to be prohibitive except for one platform – GroundTruth.
While the whole expo was industry-related, about 15 vendors sold the same product our client holds a specific advantage over. Our goal was to map the vendors down to the booth level and then serve ads telling them to talk to our client at a specific booth.
Micro-Geofencing, Beacons, and Wi-Fi Fingerprinting Can Be Cost Prohibitive
Process for Choosing GroundTruth
Normally we advertise for our clients on Meta and Google. Meta’s minimum radius is 1 mile, and Google’s smallest radius is .6 miles. When you are looking for specific attendees within an event, those platforms aren’t granular enough.
Using AI to tell us minimum campaign costs for micro-proximity and Geofencing platforms, we learned that most are $5000 – $10,000 and up. GroundTruth offers mobile/desktop campaign budgets as low as $500, and $1000 for OTT/CTV campaigns. Our client didn’t want to spend more than $1500 for targeting competitors at this expo, so GroundTruth was our first choice.
Mapping Vendors at the Expo
GroundTruth offers “blueprint mapping” of indoor spaces without the use of a proprietary app, the venue’s wi-fi, or hardware beacons. Placing hardware beacons (BLE) at competitor booths could prove to be challenging, although with enough creativity, I’m sure it can be done.
Once we started building our first campaign using GroundTruth, we couldn’t find any way to target a location closer to one-tenth of a mile, or 528 feet. Through some research, we learned that a map could be submitted by email and could be mapped by GroundTruth in three days or so.
Finding answers that AI provides as simple can be considerably more complicated inside a platform and sometimes AI’s instructions are completely fictitious. This ended up being the case for how close we could map vendors inside an expo.
By scheduling a free onboarding Zoom meeting with GroundTruth, we had the ear of a very knowledgeable platform expert for 30 minutes. While talking during the Zoom meeting, we learned that GroundTruth blueprint mapping only applies to long-term venues such as retail stores and not short-term events like expos and fairs.
Maximizing Small Banner Ad Messaging
To maximize the messaging in a small space, we created GIFs with the limit of 30 seconds and a maximum of 3 repeats. We also created a landing page on our client’s website, marked it not to be indexed by search engines, and hid it from the site menu.
Although everything necessary to talk to our client at their booth was contained in the GIF ads, the landing page provided additional information and a connection to all the services our client offers.
GroundTruth Location Better Than Meta or Google
Although for this campaign we had to broaden our targeting to 528 feet instead of the 5 to 10 feet we wanted, it still allowed us to serve ads within a much smaller area than Meta or Google Ads.
At $15/CPM our three-day expo campaign delivered to over 4,000 participants in the target industry and cost well under $500.
GroundTruth Retargeting
Before the Expo started, we also set up a campaign to retarget expo attendees with new ads as soon as the Expo ended with a new landing page on our client’s website.
In niche markets where an annual event includes most of the industry players, advertising with GroundTruth can be extremely valuable on a reasonably small budget in the $500 to $1500 range.
Located near Forest City, North Carolina, SB Marketing & Consulting can meet with you locally or online to meet your next event marketing goals.
Schedule a free consultation to share your vision. We will provide recommendations, and if it seems like we would be a good fit for your best interests, we will provide a proposal for executing your marketing project.
Get Started
Contact David Today
To start moving forward request a call or meeting to talk about what you need.
