Old Saybrook Geofencing

CT’s Small Towns Go High Tech

How Old Saybrook is using geofencing advertising to help its Main Street

These days, there are two things probably everyone can agree on – one, the pandemic has hit small downtown businesses hard, and two, mobile technology is here to stay. So what does one have to do with the other?

The answer was shared during Connecticut Main Street Center’s recent Recovery & Resiliency series webinar, Covid-19 Check-In: Do my businesses have what they need as we move into 2021?. The webinar featured speakers Sadie Colcord of AdvanceCT; Mary Dickerson, Portland Development Planner; and Susie Beckman, Old Saybrook Economic Development Director who together discussed how the pandemic has impacted local businesses. Each speaker offered practical, innovative information on how their towns and the state are supporting local merchants with online marketing and sales, implementing Covid safety protocols, and supporting local arts and entertainment venues. Yet, one novel approach being used in Old Saybrook stood out among the rest: geofencing advertising.

Geofencing advertising creates a virtual boundary around a location, then targets ads to people who enter that location via their mobile device based on certain characteristics such as demographics or shopping behavior. Local marketing consultant Scierka Lang Media Solutions helped Old Saybrook set up geofencing about three years ago, and they’ve been using it since to target ads to people who visited nearby outlets and other shopping locations as they approach Main Street.

While Ms. Beckman says it’s been a very effective part of the town’s marketing strategy due to its highly focused advertising, “small businesses would have a hard time doing it without a partner.” So Old Saybrook decided to offer a unique proposition to its Main Street businesses who may not otherwise be able to invest in the new technology: for $200 local merchants can buy into the geofencing for a four-week campaign utilizing the business’s own ads.

The campaigns are offered two to three times per year and usually incorporate a theme, such as holiday season shopping. Last fall, four Old Saybrook businesses signed up for the geofencing campaign, which allows for easy tracking of potential customers. The return for the four businesses was impressive: the combined ads resulted in over 416,000 impressions (the number of times the advertisement was picked up by a mobile device), 439 ad clicks (the number of times someone clicked on the ad and was sent to the corresponding business website or landing page), and 495 visits to Main Street (the number of times a mobile device was tracked to Main Street after receiving an impression).

While they couldn’t necessarily determine the actual conversion rate on the ad clicks, having an additional 500 visits to Main Street during the holiday season would clearly be welcomed by any downtown. Overall, Ms. Beckman views geofencing as a benefit for both the town and the businesses and would recommend it to other towns as part of their overall marketing strategy. She believes the geofencing has been at least as effective as print advertising, if not more so because of the ability to reach more targeted markets, and says the cost is about half the industry average per impression when compared to a small business using a vendor such as a newspaper for the service. It’s also relatively quick to set up as well as versatile – businesses can stop the campaign and switch their ads if they find they aren’t working.

While it’s not a panacea, geofencing advertising harnesses technology almost every customer has in their pocket. And if that gets them to move their feet to Main Street, that’s a win for all our communities. For more information about Old Saybrook’s geofencing advertising, contact Susie Beckman, Economic Development Director, at Susan. Beckman@oldsaybrookct.gov.