Why brands that use hyperlocal ads see much higher ctrs

Over the years, we’ve talked about the advantages of hyperlocal ads for multi-location businesses, but now it’s time to hone in on why they work and how to make them work for your brand. It’s also not just multi-location brands that can benefit! Essentially, connecting fully with your local audience is a great way to drive more foot traffic and digital conversions. So, let’s explore why hyperlocal ads are so impactful and why they’re trending.

The advantages of hyperlocal ads

Hyperlocal ads, or ads that reach a very select, often smaller audience close to your business, are used by mostly brick-and-mortar stores. Online stores or professional services organizations can also use them if they hope to break into a new location or town, but it doesn’t always make sense for them to limit their audience geographically. There are numerous benefits to hyperlocal ads.

Drive more physical (and digital) traffic – When you target people geographically close to your store, it makes it much easier for them to pop over to your location, driving more foot traffic. In the age of online shopping, more foot traffic is always welcome!
Hone in on what your audience responds to, driving deeper connections – Hyperlocal ads can give you instant feedback about what your audience wants and what they respond to. If you do A/B testing, you can work out what resonates and respond to them, making fast changes. This does not always work well on larger advertising campaigns as you’ll need a lot of data before making a change. When your audience recognizes that you are attuned to them, you can form a deeper connection, which will most likely result in brand loyalty and conversions.
Are more cost-effective – Investing in hyperlocal ads is more cost-effective than national campaigns. You can focus in on the channels that drive the most engagement and keep other spending to a minimum, or invest in other initiatives.
Measuring performance is easier – Shifting through mountains of data is never fun. The smaller nature of hyperlocal audiences makes it easier to shift through the digital results. Additionally, with hyperlocal ads, you know right away if your ads are successful when people start coming into the shop referencing the ad. You can make it easy to track results with special discount words on the ads or have them mention the ad directly. Just make sure to tag everything that happens in the physical store in a digital database so your results don’t get lost, and you can tie them back to the particular ad.

The medium for your hyperlocal ads matters

Don’t just stick to the tried and true social ads. There are so many ways to get in front of a local audience, including sports arena advertising, local events, local teams and clubs, and more. Additionally, some arenas will invite sponsors to set up a booth or exhibit at a game, allowing you to connect with you audience face-to-face. And, while slightly different, this is some of the most effective hyperlocal advertising (even if you can’t measure CTRs)..
Try mico and nano influencers – Micro and nano influencers are influencers with a smaller, more targeted reach than your celebrity influencer. If you can find one or two genuine and well-respected local influencers in your community, test an engagement with them and plan on working together long-term if it’s successful. They have the ear of your local community already, and a strong endorsement from them can drive lots of traffic, both physical and digital.
Try radio spots and local magazines – Who doesn’t like picking up their neighborhood magazine on a saturday morning at the coffee shop? For businesses, it’s a great place to advertise! Additionally, radio offers the ability to get in front of the right audience, sometimes for less than running digital campaigns.

Ideally, you know your audience well enough that you can select the places and mediums that work best for them. Take into account generational demographics as this will help outline where to invest your social media dollars.

How to measure success with hyperlocal ads

It can feel like a constant battle getting the metrics right for every campaign. Luckily, for hyperlocal ads, once you have clear KPIs or OKRs, you can generally pivot quite easily if a metric is not working. We’ve seen success with the following metrics for measuring success in hyperlocal ads:

KPIs or OKRs – Set up the campaign for success by outline the objectives you hope to meet. It doesn’t always have to be driving foot traffic. Get creative with how you want to connect with your audience, that way they don’t get bored, and neither do you.
CTR – The main reason for writing this article… Click through rates are high on the list of success metrics because it indicates engagement through action and marks a user as an interested party. This can very clearly tell you if your audience is resonating with your ad or not, allowing you to make adjustments to improve their response.
Foot traffic – One of the big reasons for hyperlocal ads is to drive foot traffic, so make sure it’s on your list of metrics and you have a clear system for tracking people that come to the location from digital channels. It might require having front desk staff create tallies or having each customer fill out a survey before they leave.
Engagement – Measuring engagement allows you to view more actions than just clicks on the ad. With engagement, you can see how many people have liked, shared, commented, or spent time on the ad. This is helpful for further refining your messaging.

Ways to get people engaged with hyperlocal ads

Creating engaging ads is the best part of the whole process! This is where your marketing team should excel because they get to be creative and find ways to captivate a local audience, including people they probably know. Here are a few ideas from our side:

Offer local deals – Offering discounts or promotions to your local audience only is sure to win you a few followers and brand loyalists. You can start a discount or loyalty program or use funny or endearing terms on the ads that people have to repeat in the store in order to get the discount. It will make their experience more entertaining and unforgettable.
Sponsor local sports or leagues – In the summer, local sports teams and leagues are everywhere! Getting your logo on a shirt or offering a deal for players is a great way to drive traffic.
Host a contest for locals – Try to create a contest theme particular to your community or location to make it even more memorable.
Try user-generated content – Building a connection to the community through the experiences of actual community members is a great way to make your hyperlocal ads unique.

If you’re interested in hyperlocal marketing and would like more guidance, reach out to the MDG team today.