What is addressable geofencing and how is it different from regular geofencing?

Addressable geofencing targets a list of specific mailing addresses, while standard geofencing targets whoever was physically inside a boundary you drew. One starts from a list of households you already want. The other starts from behavior.

How an address list becomes an ad audience

You supply a list of street addresses. The platform plots each one to its property boundary, then matches the devices consistently observed at that plot to build a household level audience. Those devices are then served display, video, or streaming ads. In most implementations the household stays in the audience for a set period, and the whole household is reachable rather than one named person.

Worth being clear about what this is not. You are not buying names, and you are not sending ads to a person you can identify by name inside the platform. You are buying impressions against devices associated with a physical location.

Where it earns its cost

• Real estate. Farming a neighborhood, promoting a listing to surrounding homes, or reaching a list of expired listings.
• Roofing, solar, and home services. A storm path, a permit list, or the streets surrounding a job you just completed.
• B2B. A target account list plotted to office buildings, though this gets unreliable in multi tenant towers.
• Any business with a customer file. Reaching existing customers for renewal or a second purchase at the household level.

Practical limits

Match rates are never 100 percent, apartment buildings and dense multi unit properties degrade accuracy badly, and a small list will not produce enough impressions to matter. LevelUp's geofencing minimum of $5,000 per month in ad spend applies to addressable campaigns too. If your list is a few hundred homes, direct mail is probably the better tool, and we will say so.

Related: What is geofencing advertising?, Geofencing vs geotargeting vs geofarming, Do you work with real estate agents?, real estate marketing.