The ability to geotarget your traffic is becoming an increasingly valuable aspect of affiliate marketing and a key component to preparing for US regulation. But how do you actually do it? Here are some tips you need to know about geotargeting your affiliate traffic.
Email Segmentation
A powerful tool for your email marketing efforts is segmenting your list into smaller, targeted lists. There are a few variables you can consider segmenting email subscribers by:
- location
- conversions status
- duration as subscribers
- native language
- acquisition channel
- niche interests (poker, casino, etc)
Dividing your email list into smaller groups based on certain variables enables you to deliver more effective marketing campaigns. German readers don’t want to receive email marketing intended for English players. Similarly, U.S. readers probably aren’t interested in hearing about a promotion being ran by an iGaming site that doesn’t accept Americans.
Email segmentation isn’t complicated. Choosing the right email marketing software is half the work. Once you distinguish your subscribers from one another, you can get to work on dispatching targeted email campaigns with a higher likelihood of success.
Geotargeting Explained
As regionalized as the iGaming industry is, it is almost imperative to divert your traffic to different versions of your site based on visitor location. This process, known as geotargeting, is a bit complicated but well worth the work since it can vastly increase the value of traffic to your site.
Geotargeting works by referencing a script that identifies the IP address and location of a website visitor. MaxMind offers great services for routing Internet traffic. Their GeoIP services keep a detailed and regularly updated list of IP ranges and where they exist.
After adding a GeoIP script to your site, visitors can be diverted to different pages depending on their location. Geotargeting is most accurate on a country level but can be made to target specific cities as well.
The real challenge to geotargeting is making sure that IP information is accurate and up to date. IP ranges never change too drastically, but there is a slow and constant shift that requires one to keep their data updated.
Diverting Traffic
There are a few different ways to send visitors to a certain page depending on their location. The most efficient method is to use a server side programming language like PHP to redirect visitors without them noticing.
A PHP code can be programmed to automatically check for each visitor’s location. Once this is determined, you can direct exactly what appears in their browser.
The users at the PHP Freaks forums can provide more details on PHP coding to geotarget your traffic.
We want to know what affiliates are using geotargeting to increase conversions. Please share in our forums.