The D2Z Podcast

Geofencing Advertising - 136

• Brandon Amoroso

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In this episode of The D2Z Podcast, Brandon Amoroso speaks with Ernesto Cullari and Barbara Wardell, co-founders of a geofencing ad agency. They discuss the innovative technology of geofencing, its applications in marketing, and how it can benefit both small and large businesses. The conversation covers the importance of educating clients about geofencing, the ethical considerations surrounding privacy, and the integration of AI in advertising. The episode concludes with insights into the future of geofencing and its potential growth in the advertising industry.

Here's what you'll learn:
❗Geofencing uses satellites to create virtual boundaries for targeted advertising.
❗Education is key in selling geofencing to clients unfamiliar with the technology.
❗A $1,000 ad spend can effectively cover a local area for geofencing campaigns.
❗Geofencing allows small businesses to compete with larger corporations.
❗Privacy is maintained through anonymization of user data in geofencing.
❗AI is being integrated into ad creation and targeting processes.
❗Geofencing can be used for both physical locations and online services.
❗The technology allows for precise targeting based on consumer intent and location.
❗Geofencing is projected to grow significantly in the coming years.
❗Agencies should embrace geofencing to enhance their advertising strategies.

Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction to Geofencing and Its Founders
05:59 Educating Clients on Geofencing
12:08 Targeting and Retargeting with Geofencing
18:05 The Future of Geofencing and AI Integration
24:02 Conclusion and Resources

Cullari & Wardell
Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ernestocullari/
Website - https://cwadagency.com/

Brandon Amoroso:
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/brandonamoroso/
Web - https://brandonamoroso.com/
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/bamoroso11/
X - https://twitter.com/AmorosoBrandon
Scalis.ai - https://scalis.ai/

Speaker 1:

Hey everyone, thanks for tuning in to D2Z, a podcast about using the Gen Z mindset to grow your business. I'm Gen Z entrepreneur Brandon Amoroso, the former founder of Electric and now the co-founder of Scaless, and today I'm talking with Ernesto Cullari and Barbara Wardell, who are the co-founders of Cullari and Wardell, which is a geofencing ad agency. Thanks for coming on. Thanks for having us, brandon.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, we're excited.

Speaker 1:

So before we dive into everything here, can you give everybody just a quick background on yourselves and sort of the business and how you got to this point?

Speaker 3:

Sure, I come from a medical background specialty medicines, insurance industry, as well as marketing, so that's kind of, uh, the basis of where I come up.

Speaker 2:

I'm a mom of two and I co-founded with ernesto on the clarion wardell geofencing uh, a bunch of years ago, when I graduated college, I started off uh by day I was a med rep and uh by night I moonlit as a songwriter.

Speaker 3:

Moonlighter as a moonlighter.

Speaker 2:

Had songs on Disney Radio. Actually, I had a number one song on Disney Radio. I'm late for school again. Had songs on country radio and got involved with both politics and then photography and then shot for a ton of different hotels the indigo hotel and um the soup nazi from seinfeld and a bunch of indie beauty companies. And then covid came around ruined everything. So, uh, barbara and I were talking through covid and we decided to focus on geofencing so I guess it didn't ruin everything.

Speaker 2:

yeah, just ruin my bank account for a while, and here we are, using 21st century technology to restore brick and mortar businesses.

Speaker 1:

So what exactly is geofencing?

Speaker 2:

Geofencing is the use of satellites to draw virtual fences around areas of interest. So say, we had a client who owned a Mercedes dealership. We would then draw virtual fences around competing dealerships and then businesses where we knew where we would find lookalike customers. We would capture every device in that location. We would then anonymize it. Every device in that location, we would then anonymize it and then we would have the right to bid for ad space across their phones as they're reading the news or shopping. But the great part about it is when they do show up at one of our locations, say our Mercedes location, the satellite pings us alerting us that a new visit is taking place. We do thousands of month visits across the US, Canada and Australia, and we like it from a competitive standpoint because it's hardly understood. It can be very data intensive and complicated, so therefore most agencies won't mess with it. And is it your?

Speaker 1:

own.

Speaker 3:

Or do it well.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's another thing, because it's just like Facebook ads. There's a million Facebook advertising agencies or consultants or whatever it may be, but there's a difference between just doing it and doing it well.

Speaker 3:

That's right.

Speaker 2:

So we have our own systems and we use demand-side platforms to utilize our own proprietary systems. So we have our own targeting systems, our own data processing systems, our own reporting systems. We have our own front end for that. We're rolling out for clients, say in the laundry industry. But we use mainstream demand side platforms, which are places where you can buy ad space. You know if you want to be an ad buyer, you can use a demand side platform, and so we use multiple platforms. But a lot of the technology is our own.

Speaker 1:

And how do you handle you know the sort of the ability for you to go into a space like this, like geofencing as an example, that it's maybe not as you know, people aren't as familiar with it as they might just be with, like Facebook ads or whatever it may be. So when you're doing your sales process and bringing on clients, how do you balance, you know, selling yourself versus also selling the value or the concept of geofencing, or is your ICP typically, like, already familiar with with geofencing? That makes sense I've.

Speaker 2:

You know, we we do spend a lot of time um educating the public on geofencing and um in certain industries. You know we're very well known as the authorities in geofencing. The laundry industry is one of the industries that we have really upended the entire industry. Most people that own a brick and mortar laundry business are not really. They don't have a lot of ad experience at all and, as you can imagine, maybe they've tried their own Facebook ads, maybe worked on their Google business profile, maybe worked on their Google business profile. So in that genre, in that particular genre, we do have a very good name recognition. But for the rest, yeah, people are very dependent on Facebook. Business owners are very dependent on Facebook and social media and then Google. So we spend a lot of time educating people.

Speaker 3:

But with Facebook and Instagram and Google, you're in a walled garden. You're only fighting against everyone in that system, whether or not they're competition or not, and you're spending a ton of money.

Speaker 2:

So by the time they hear about geofencing, it's sort of like a breath of fresh air. They're like, oh, this is something completely different. And what we appreciated about it is that if you're looking to drive foot traffic, you can see how much foot traffic you gained as a result of your campaigns, and then, if you know the cost or the value per customer, the value per visit, you can immediately see what your profits are going to be like, whereas with other methods it's not quite as cut and dry.

Speaker 1:

Is there a rough budget or type of business that you need to be before you can move into something like geofencing or even single store independent owner operators? They can start to take advantage of this Because I know, for example, with Facebook ads or some of these other platforms, it is a little bit more advantageous if you have more spend, just because of the way that you can iterate through creative and testing the different audiences and stuff like that. So it can be a little bit cost-prohibitive for some of the early startups. Is that the case with this, or is it sort of a one size fits all and you can scale with it?

Speaker 3:

So Ernesto and I did a lot of research and took a lot of technologies to get to a point where we understood what really works in the three mile radius that we would target, and it's a thousand dollar ad spend. And the reason for this is because, one, we have so many customers that we can do this because of our dollar ad spend. And the reason for this is because, one, we have so many customers that we can do this because of our big ad spend. But the corporations that did this, like Chipotle, starbucks, all those, they have tens and thousands of ad spends, you know, monthly, and we figured out a thousand dollar ad spend for a local area really covers it well.

Speaker 2:

and, I'm sorry, take over for a minute, sorry she others, I guess she, instead of kissing the frog she swallowed. So um, a thousand dollar ad spend for three miles should be quite sufficient, as she was saying. You know there are companies out there that are spending $100,000 a month in a given region. But what's great about geofencing is you can carve up a niche for yourself. So I'll give you an example.

Speaker 2:

During COVID, chipotle was able to increase their pickup business, their curbside business, and how they did that was they were targeting other places that were doing the same thing and they were able to conquest their business.

Speaker 2:

However, you could compete with a Chipotle if you were a local business by targeting every single Chipotle or every other restaurant in your three-mile radius that does does say curbside or or pickup, and you can send them an ad to come to your location. When they do, this satellite will alert us and let us know that a new visit has taken place. But geofencing on a thousand dollar budget per month will allow you to get enough data and return on your investment to look at different parts of the sales funnel and then grow your business in different directions. So, for example, if you do well with geofencing to start and you're looking to drive, say, a curbside pickup or you're looking for more in-store visits. You can then in your say, after 90 days you can consider doing connected TV with geofencing, and because we could do it on a zip code-based level, it's going to be much more affordable than a larger kind of ad buy. So we've learned how to scale this down to small businesses and because of that it's easier to work with larger companies.

Speaker 1:

Can you talk a little bit more about that last part that you just mentioned? You know, the working with the larger companies how does it? Vary and you know more from like a business owner standpoint as you've started the business and grown. How do you deal with balancing different types of clients, because obviously a large corporation comes with its own unique challenges that don't exist when you're working with smaller teams.

Speaker 2:

Sure, One of the benefits to geofencing for a larger company is that let's take a political race, because you can use geofencing for political races and you're targeting entire legislative and congressional districts. You can look at different neighborhoods that are broken up by. So, for example, we live on the Jersey Shore, so you can target parts of a congressional district that are more focused on, say, agriculture and voting. You can then look at Western New Jersey and you can start targeting voters block by block who are more concerned about the Second Amendment. You can then look at areas like Red Bank, New Jersey that work on Wall Street, and you can start to send bespoke messages to these different areas and say you're a hospital system and you know that there are clusters of, say, developmental issues with children in one region of the state.

Speaker 2:

You can send ads to families in those locations that are quite different than, say, your cancer population in another area. So rather than blanketing and doing a blanket ad buy, you're able to break it down block by block, neighborhood by neighborhood. You're able to segregate ad spend into different demographics so you can break it down to parents, single parents. There's just much more targeted campaigning that you can do, whereas you wouldn't be able to do that with a normal ad buy. With geofencing, you literally can identify people based on their location and based on their banking history. There's just a lot more data to be used with geofencing. So a larger company or entity, or even a political campaign, can start whittling away. Instead of shotgun blasting with an ad spend, they're able to whittle away their marketplace.

Speaker 3:

Franchises as well. Yes, it works well for franchises, events, big events like conferences, the Super Bowl, and not paying those high rates can attack everybody in there that has a cell phone.

Speaker 2:

It does work really well for events sure.

Speaker 2:

We did a tasting, we've done mezcal and tequila tastings where we're able to, in, like, say, parts of brooklyn, new york, we're able to. Where we know we're going to do a tasting for, say, one of our clients, like electrical mezcal, we can target not only um where, where in particular we're doing that tasting, but we can target neighborhood venues that have similar spirits to ours and then we can send them ads to come to our tasting and then over time, even after the initial tasting campaign, we can measure how many visits were brought in because people saw the ads and then asked for that uh, particular mezcal at the location where we did the tasting do?

Speaker 1:

do you have to? Does it have to be your own event, or can you, almost like, hijack an event in in the sense of oh, maybe the super bowl is coming to your area and then?

Speaker 2:

yeah, definitely hijack it geofencing can absolutely be used to hijack an event. So, um, a buddy of ours also has an advertising agency, uh, within, uh, the laundromat industry and uh, he was just curious how many devices were going to end up being at this event. So he's a friend of ours and works in the same industry, so you know, we were able to determine, uh, how many devices were there and if he had wanted to turn around and then retarget them, he could have done so. He could have targeted all the people that were at that event with ads for his agency.

Speaker 3:

It's definitely fun.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's cool. That's even more exciting, I think, than doing it for your own event.

Speaker 3:

Right, you definitely can hijack. You definitely can hijack an event even the a section of that event. You know how they're broken up, um to sections like say, the business section or just a part of that business section.

Speaker 2:

We can geo-fence that section of a conference and then later on target them, if you want, after the event the polygons could be hand-drawn so you could be very specific, down to just a few feet of what you're looking of, whom you're looking to target. So that's why it's very effective. You can draw certain inferences based on people's location as to what they're interested in, because location is highly indicative of true consumer intent. So if you're in a Mercedes dealership, you're most likely there to get your car serviced or to buy another one. So therefore, if we're advertising for a competing kind of dealership, say BMW or Tesla, we're able to do so and we're able to entice people that are at those locations to consider our product, because location is more Ind your search habits. You know, just because you're online searching for certain products doesn't mean you'll purchase those products, but if you're in a location looking at them, then it's more likely that if we give you a better offer, a better enticement to come to say, consider our product, you're more likely to do so how, how does it work?

Speaker 1:

um, from like a privacy standpoint for, uh, the people that are actually receiving the ads. And then also, what, what do the ad, what do the ads actually look like and like? Could you give an example of uh, you know somebody who's listening what they would see if they were the recipient of a geo sort of targeted ad? Is it coming through? You know somebody who's listening what they would see if they were the recipient of a geo sort of targeted ad? Is it coming through? You know Google. You know search listings when you're typing oh, I know I want an ice cream spot near me, or something like that, or what does it actually look like?

Speaker 3:

So, basically, for your first question, we anonymize your device so it goes through a clean room. We don't know your name. Like Facebook, google, instagram, they have your actual name, so they can't have all the data that we have. So we have more data because we don't know the actual person's name. We know, kind of, where they're going, but we don't know their actual name, so we can make inferences from their patterns of where their phone goes. So it's anonymized, so it's not that creepy. And let me tell you something, they have more data than you can ever even imagine. So we're on the least end of that one.

Speaker 2:

Clean rooms, keep it ethical. So you know we're not invading anyone's privacy. You know I don't want to get sued, but you know we're not invading anyone's privacy. You know I don't want to get sued, but you know anyone out there can tell you that certain platforms you know they'll talk about something and then the next thing you know, on that platform you'll end up seeing an ad for something you spoke about and that's quite untrue. This is completely different than that. You know, as we said before, location is indicative of true consumer intent and that's a fact. You know that if you're in a given location, that you're more interested in certain products. So, for example, if you're a parent with kids in karate and you happen to be, you know, in a karate school location two or three times a week, you know if we send you safety gear, headgear ads, you're more likely to be interested in keeping your kids brain safe and no concussions there right as you're watching them, get hit around it doesn't require spy, uh, spying, so um, but this, this technology is quite effective.

Speaker 2:

I I mean, wired Magazine just ran an ad, not an ad, but Wired Magazine right now has a YouTube episode out where they're using our technology one of our partners' technologies to track people who are at Epstein Island. They're able to see who was at Epstein Island a half hour before and a half hour after. I would say everyone listening and watching this podcast should go out and go to YouTube and check out that episode from Wired Magazine. I think you'll find it quite interesting. This technology is quite precise and the government can use it to be intrusive. We use it.

Speaker 3:

Like in Australia.

Speaker 2:

Australia used it during covid to make sure people weren't out on the um having fun on the beach. You know, because everyone knows covid comes from the.

Speaker 2:

They were like go home yeah, so they were using it to spy on people and to police them, uh, but we use it quite benevolently to uh send interest-based ads to people based on their location and um. We mix that with other technologies like foot traffic studies. So basically, you know, we're able to take our technologies, we're able to look at locations that people were in and then we're able to, you know, to determine is this a viable area to do, to say, advertise for company X, y and Z, and then we are able to look at data over the last two years, see what kind of um population, see what their um socioeconomic breakdown is, and that uh can be quite informative as to whether you should open a business there or whether you should augment your services there and um. So, and what the ads look like is I mean, there's any ad inventory that you can imagine for geofencing? They could be display ads, they could be native ads, they could be TV ads, they could be audio ads and actually, for the first time ever, we are now able to offer services locally online with Amazon.

Speaker 2:

So basically, as everyone knows, previously you were only able to if you were an Amazon seller you could sell products on Amazon, but we're probably one of the first companies in the country able to offer your services locally online on Amazon. So if you're a dentist, someone searches for teeth whitening products, you're able to offer cleaning services opportunities, up an appointment on Amazon. If you're an HVAC company and someone's searching for a generator because the winter's coming and power's bound to go out, so you're able to, then, as an HVAC company, offer services to install those generators, even though you won't be able to sell them on Amazon because that product is already being offered by approved Amazon sellers, you can at least offer your services to install that product now on Amazon, but you're able to do it locally.

Speaker 3:

And it's so exciting that we got this opportunity to do that. Another tool in our toolbox to make sure that our customers are getting the best technology to get their customers in the door.

Speaker 2:

The whole desire has been to keep it local, to enable brick and mortar businesses to compete locally against bigger companies.

Speaker 3:

Little cuts at a time. Right, that's right. And we also can drive foot traffic to a website.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you can drive. Instead of just simply trying to get people through the door, we're able to use the same technologies and methodologies to drive traffic to landing pages or to websites.

Speaker 1:

Got it Okay, so it can be applicable for those who even don't have that retail footprint, or maybe it's on the smaller side too? Sure, absolutely, and is there any? Like you know, every industry AI has impacted it in some way. Is there more or less impact within yours and anything that excites you moving forward with that as?

Speaker 2:

well, ai has definitely helped us out in terms of ad creatives. No-transcript. Driving down a country road with a blurred effect, mud up and mud being shot up in the air.

Speaker 2:

Uh, driver with sunglasses on caucasian 50 years old you've been working on this you're able to, you're able to generate that image, uh, like one, like perfectly, um, if, if you're really good at the commands and you really know, want to know, if you really know what you want to see in the image. Now, if I had to produce that as a photographer, I'd then have to coordinate with the dealership. I then have to coordinate with a model. I then have to pay that model x amount. I have to have insurance for the event and I just saved myself. Basically, ten thousand, minimum ten thousand dollars, and the customer, sure I just saved myself basically 10,000 minimum $10,000.

Speaker 2:

Sure, I just saved the the, the client as well, say $50,000. So we're able to do um, we're able to create content um, quite expensive looking content through AI Also. Uh, for our platforms, we're, you know, we're rolling out platforms where, um, where AI will be more involved with the self-service process of someone who maybe doesn't want to afford our agency fees. They might want to work in our self-serve platform which is rolling out in January. They would be able to save some money there.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, and help them get the clients in the door.

Speaker 2:

save some money there, yeah, and help them get the clients in the door. But AI is definitely for people out there that are looking to do their own ads. I actually wouldn't recommend that. But hey, if you think you're savvy enough and you're not part of an agency, there are certain platforms out there like Creatopy C-R-E-A-T-O-P-Y. Not only can you create your ads with AI assistance and translate them into multiple languages, but they're also a demand side platform, so you can buy ad space for your display ads. So it is exciting. I actually don't mind that. There are platforms out there for the consumer to try it themselves. I think really, once they try it themselves, they'll see like hey, you know what? It was all good, I just got a great education. I'm going to hire a professional.

Speaker 3:

Because then you understand it.

Speaker 2:

Sure absolutely.

Speaker 3:

And we did a lot of work for our dashboard and all the reporting systems. We put a lot of money into it to make sure that it is streamlined for the customer. They understand where their ad was seen and what customers it brought in, how many, and I think overall it's just we're incorporating all the stuff that is coming out in technology that's new into our systems as well so that our customers can grow faster, because when they're smaller mid-sized to small they don't always have the time or the money to put into that technology, so we have done it for them.

Speaker 2:

Actually, now that you mentioned that, we often take for granted just how much information we do have, so we're able to learn. If we sent you a yeah, you know agencies should also embrace it more, because, especially agencies that start off as creatives, like we did, you know you like creating content, you like creating high quality, you know images and TV commercials. Geofencing will allow you to surgically place it and save your client money in the end. So the future for this is enormous.

Speaker 2:

It's in the billions, it's actually in the tens of billions. It's projected to grow location-based advertising, geofencing in particular, so and there's technologies out there for consumers, or rather for business owners themselves, to start experimenting with. Ai is one of them, where you can start messing with your own ad creation, and I recommend they do that. It's a good education for why you actually need professionals to do it.

Speaker 3:

I agree.

Speaker 1:

Well, I appreciate you two coming on and sharing all of your insights. I'm excited to try and hijack my first event next year and see if we can take advantage ourselves of some of this geo-targeting. But before we hop, can you let everybody know who's listening and we'll include it in the show notes as well but where they can find and connect with you online?

Speaker 3:

So we're at clarymediacom C-U-L-L-A-R-I-M-E-D-I-Acom.

Speaker 1:

Awesome. Well, again, thanks for coming on For everybody listening. As always, this is Brandon Amoroso. You can find me at brandonamorosocom or scalessai. Thanks for listening and we'll see you next time.

Speaker 3:

Bye.