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Every Internet IP address can be traced back via servers, routers, Internet Service Providers (ISP) and the like
– enabling advertisers and marketers to know where consumers are originating from. Geolocation is
the process of pinpointing a browser’s physical location via their IP address; this can be very specific down to the
latitude and longitude of a consumer's home. Geolocation coupled with
offline demographics can be combined to enrich the behavioral data marketers and enterprises may have – all in an effort
to make real time segmentation and the positioning of specific product and services based on similar features of consumers.
As was mentioned in the earlier section NebuAd.com is partnering with several large ISP to track users across all their Web activities. The objective –
as with ad networks is to create consumer clusters – in order to target relevant offers to consumers.
Geolocation is
determined by a user's IP address, and this information can be culled over for behavioral analytics along with other consumer
information. Each Internet user, no matter how they connect to the Internet, is given an IP address by their Internet service
provider. This identifies them as they surf the Web, check their e-mail or talk on any number of instant messenger programs,
this is how local ads get placed. Every move online can be traced back to that particular
IP address broken down into a specific geographical location. Geolocation can assist marketers and enterprises in knowing
where revenue producing consumers are coming from, which may impact how and what ads and offers to make. Some of geolocation
service providers include the following firms: Quova.com offers its GeoPoint service, which
provides geographic information for IP addresses including continent, country, region (US only), time zone, state, city, postal
code, longitude/latitude and phone prefix (US and Canada only). Quova also provide demographic identifiers
for IP addresses within the United States including DMA codes (Nielsen Designated Market Areas) these Designated Market Area
(DMA) are a group of counties in the United States that are covered by a specific group of television stations. Finally, Quova
provides network connection information for IP addresses, including connection type and speed. Digital Envoy and their Digital
Element service delivers IP intelligence and geotargeting which is used by most of the world’s largest ad networks and
publishers for non-invasive IP intelligence for targeted advertising,
content localization, geographic rights management, behavioral analytics and local search. Digital Envoy argues that their IP Intelligence service guarantees consumer privacy since it was designed to respect the privacy of the individual and contains information collected
solely from a user’s IP address, and that privacy-invasive techniques such as alien probes, cookies and intrusive scripts
are never used in their data collection methodology. Smaller geolocation providers include GeoBytes.com and MaxMind.com enabling marketers to leverage this technology to clients not requiring large investments for this type of service.
Other methods by which consumers can be clustered is along keywords used in arriving at a website,
these keywords are readily available from log analyzer tools, such as WebTrends or Google Analytics. One
valuable technique is to match existing visitor behaviors to the search terms they've used to gain an understanding of
where they are in the shopping and comparison cycle. Then, the marketer and enterprise can apply that knowledge going forward
by providing content that is particularly useful in moving consumers along the sales continuum.
Still another method of grouping consumers is by frequency and interval behavior, often sales are not made by first
time visitors, especially for high price services and products. Often the second and third time visitors are the most profitable.
Knowing how many visits it takes to convert and conclude a sale is something metrics can tell the marketer and enterprise.
Surveys are yet another mechanism by which to group consumers for example, asking if they found a product or service
somewhat technical, by doing so the marketer and enterprise can gauge the skill levels of consumers and the appropriate dialogue.
All of these
consumer clustering techniques should be tested and validated continuously, the metrics should not only provide number of
visitors but more importantly conversion rates to actual sales – that is the bottom line to behavioral analytics. There are commercial lifestyle data providers
that can provide real-time demographic streams to enterprises. These lifestyle demographics products can
be used by enterprises to increase their customer growth, loyalty and satisfaction.
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