Geotargeting is a tool that improves the performance of advertising campaigns. An affiliate sets up the display of promos, pre-landing and landing pages for the target audience in a specific location (GEO). This helps filter out users from unsuitable areas, so the budget won’t be wasted on them.
Let’s take a closer look at what geotargeting is, what types exist, and why it’s not the same as geofencing. We will also find out why this tool is essential for setting up ad campaigns and what its advantages are.
How Does Geotargeting Work?
Geotargeting in marketing is a technology that helps increase reach and conversions based on the client’s GEO. It’s built into most ad networks. Geotargeting tools are available in Google Ads, Facebook Ads, PropellerAds, and other platforms. If properly configured, ads will be shown only to users from a specific country, city, or region.
How geotargeting works:
Football and betting fans live in Brazil.
The affiliate has a suitable offer for Brazil, so they create a GEO-specific promo material and set the display region in the ad campaign settings — in this case, Brazil. Then they specify approximate time and frequency for displaying the promo so that as many potential clients as possible see the ad.
Users see the targeted ad, click on it, go to the offer, register, and make a deposit to place bets.
The affiliate and the advertiser (affiliate program/network) earn a profit.
Then it’s possible to analyze which regions of Brazil generated the most clicks on the promo and apply more granular geotargeting settings. If you’re driving traffic from Brazil, you might see that residents of São Paulo and Salvador respond better to the promos. You can narrow the targeting to those cities and then focus on the regions with the best conversion results.
The simplest example of geotargeted advertising: you type “Buy flowers Dubai” into the Google search bar. A list of the nearest flower shops appears.
Geotargeting “understands” exactly where the potential target audience is located. How this works:
Determining the user’s location by the IP address of a desktop computer or smartphone. The data is imprecise, but it gives a general idea of the location.
Mobile operator billing: the information is not accurate, but it helps to roughly track the user’s location.
GPS and other satellite navigation systems. They can pinpoint the user’s location with up to 2 meters of accuracy, if there’s no signal interference. However, the user can disable location tracking on their smartphone.
Search queries. Users often reveal their location themselves when they type something like “order pizza São Paulo” into a search engine.
Social networks. Similar to search queries, people often disclose their place of residence when filling out their profile. Today, it's also common to tag locations in photo posts.
That said, effective geotargeted advertising is only possible through a comprehensive approach. For example, if a user disables geolocation on their phone, they can still be tracked using the other four methods. Or, if a Brazilian user enables a VPN and their IP address is changed, other location detection methods will be needed.
Territorial Geotargeting
Geotargeting is conventionally divided into general and mobile. With general targeting of a specific territory, ads are shown to users on both mobile devices and desktop computers.
Mobile targeting means that specific video ads or static images of products will be shown only on devices running Android or iOS.
Launching ad campaigns specifically for smartphones is justified: according to statistics, more than 56% of the global population used mobile devices over the past year. You can run a separate campaign for Android or for iOS.
Geotargeted advertising can be divided by localization:
Extended — allows ads to be shown to users from different regions. For example, residents of Manaus may travel to São Paulo and vice versa. If you set targeting for both cities, the audience reach will be broader.
Hyper-geotargeting — ads are shown to a limited number of people in a specific area or city street, usually within a 500-meter radius.
Local — ads are shown to an audience within one region.
In addition to geotargeting (displaying ads to users in a specific location), there is also targeting based on other criteria.
Audience Targeting
Audience targeting is a technology that helps filter out irrelevant audience segments not only by GEO but also by interests, age, gender, and other parameters. For example, residents of Argentina prefer betting on football more than basketball. They usually place bets from smartphones and are interested in betting.
How does the system know this? From users’ cookie files.
Did someone visit an online casino? The platform immediately asks for permission to use cookies. The user accepts — the cookies store this information, and the site begins tracking their actions. The user will then see ads for bonuses, free spins, free bets, and gambling games — not only from the platform they visited but also from other brands.
The same happens when working with smartphone apps: upon the first launch, they ask whether the user wants to allow or deny activity tracking. If someone downloads a weight-tracking app and allows location and behavior tracking, after some time they will start seeing video ads or static banners related to weight loss — in games, on websites, and on social media.
Weather Targeting
Weather targeting is a technology that displays products and services to users based on the air temperature, precipitation, and season in the location where they are currently located.
Weather targeting is especially useful in e-commerce offers. It's raining in the suburbs of Mendoza — show ads for stylish umbrellas or raincoats. Heavy snowfall? Promote snow shovels or compact snow removal equipment.
Advantages of Geotargeting in Affiliate Marketing
Geotargeting in affiliate marketing primarily helps save money: you don’t waste your planned budget on GEOs that aren’t relevant to the offer. You filter out unnecessary audiences, and only potential buyers and clients see your ads.
Let’s look at other advantages of geotargeting for an affiliate:
Bid Optimization for Ad Display
If users in a particular region show more interest in a product, it makes sense to direct the entire budget to that region. The bid will be lower than when running a campaign across broad areas.
Higher Conversion Rates
The affiliate targets a specific GEO, meaning the promo is adapted to its language and cultural traits. Adapted promos always perform better.
Personalization
If you're running betting offers and the Swedish Bandy Championship is coming up, it makes sense to focus your entire ad budget on the citizens of that country. Sports betting is legal in Sweden, even with international bookmakers. Moreover, most citizens there actively follow sporting events.
Another example — in 2025, news continues to emerge about contaminated water in India containing dangerous microorganisms and microplastics. In Africa, there are even more severe issues with water supply. A promo material can highlight the dangers and offer water purification solutions, targeting those countries with such messaging.
Residents of certain countries respond better to push notifications, while others react more to pop-ups or other traffic sources. In this case, geotargeting also helps: separate the ad campaigns, run push traffic to one GEO and pop-ups to another. Push notifications specifically allow for more refined geotargeting settings. You can explore the best sources of push traffic in our article.
Increasing Brand Awareness, Loyalty, and Authority
Even if the ad is seen by users not interested in online casinos, weight loss products, or dating apps, they’ll remember the brand and logo. Later, they might share the information with friends or acquaintances.
Preliminary Study of Audience Interests in a Specific GEO
Through browser history or cookies, you can determine what appeals most to potential customers — for example, which promos perform better or which products draw more interest. This data can then be used in future ad campaigns.
Extended and Targeted Reach
An affiliate can apply extended geotargeting settings to attract the maximum relevant audience. It will cost more, but the new male enhancement product will gain exposure not only in Brazil but also in Argentina or Chile.
If geotargeting settings are too narrow or configured incorrectly, most of the target audience might be excluded. That’s why many experienced affiliates start with broader geotargeting settings and later narrow them down.
The Difference Between Geotargeting and Geofencing
Geofencing is a technology that uses GPS or Wi-Fi points to virtually divide territories based on user movement. It can also be used to show ads at the right moment. Geofencing is similar to geotargeting, but there are significant differences between the two.
Geofencing vs. Geotargeting:
Conclusion
We’ve explained what geotargeting is and what its advantages are. This convenient and effective tool increases conversions and helps save advertising campaign budgets. The technology is used by all affiliates who drive traffic from various GEOs. Most (if not all) ad networks use this tool for campaign setup. The only difference lies in the configuration parameters.
FAQ
What are the best tools for geotargeting?
Popular ad networks that offer advanced geotargeting settings include Google Ads and Facebook Ads. In addition, there are tools for launching promos targeted at specific audiences in platforms like PropellerAds, EpicAds.Net, ROIAds, and others.
What are the advantages of geotargeting?
Geotargeting allows you to save ad campaign budgets by narrowing the audience reach — or, on the contrary, to expand audience reach with extended settings. Showing ads to users in a specific location increases conversion rates, brand loyalty, and brand awareness.
What are the best examples of geotargeting?
You’re promoting a male enhancement product in Chile. Your offer can be purchased at a 50% discount or ordered as a free trial. In the first ad campaign, you set up geotargeting by selecting regions with a financially capable audience. In the second campaign, you target the entire territory of Chile. Behavioral factors, interests, gender, age, and other audience parameters will remain the same.
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