Vistar’s geographic enrichment service enables users to easily target digital out-of-home (DOOH) inventory based on regional locations or in proximity to a location. While onboarding media owners to our Supply Side Platform (SSP), we collect the exact location (latitude and longitude) of each venue* for an accurate mapping of inventory. This enables Vistar to provide the highest quality of venue location data for users to target. However, the latitude and longitude of a venue is not always particularly useful, especially if a user does not have this information readily available.
To make targeting relevant for users, Vistar enriches the venue data with useful geographic information. When a media owner makes an ad request to Vistar, our system augments the ad request with additional metadata about the location of the venue (such as the state, postal code, DMA, and so on). With this additional metadata, our system is able to detect which line items qualify for the venue based on the geographic targeting options applied in the platform.
View the following sections to learn more about each geographic targeting option and how they are currently defined in our platform.
Regional: geographic targeting
The available regional targeting options differ depending on countries and currencies associated with your account. We use the geographic definition provided by each respective government.
Targeting | Definition |
State/Territory | This represents a subdivision of Australia. |
Metro | This represents the Greater Capital City Statistical Areas, provided by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). |
Cities | This represents Significant Urban Areas, provided by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). |
Postal Area | The 4-digit postal codes used by Australia Post, provided by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). The maximum number of postal area codes you can target on a line item is 2500. |
Targeting | Definition |
Province | This represents a subdivision of Canada. |
Metro Area |
This is representative of densely populated regions in Canada and consists of multiple jurisdictions and principalities. This data is provided by the Canadian census. |
City |
This is representative of a large, urbanized area. This data is provided by the Canadian census. |
Neighbourhood |
This is representative of the smallest administrative division, municipality, or sub-city in an area. This data is provided by the Canadian census. |
Postal Code | Vistar uses FSA shapes from the Canadian census data to pull accurate 6-digit postal codes to be used for targeting. These geographical boundaries were updated in the 2016 Canadian census. The maximum number of postal codes you can target on a line item is 2500. |
Targeting | Definition |
Conurbation | This represents digital vector boundaries for built-up areas in England and Wales. See Built-up Areas (December 2011) Boundaries V2, provided by the Office of National Statistics, for details. |
Town | This represents large towns and boroughs in the UK. |
Postcode Sector |
This represents both the outward code, area, and district, along with the postcode sector and first digit of the inner code. For example: LN10 6 or EX32 2. See Postcodes in the United Kingdom for more examples. |
TV Area | This represents a region where the population can receive the same (or similar) television and radio station offerings. This data is aligned with Broadcasters' Audience Research Board. |
Targeting | Definition |
State | This represents a subdivision of the United States. |
DMA | Vistar uses Nielsen as the third-party data source to inform the DMA shapes in our platform. |
NYC Borough | Specific to New York City, the five boroughs consist of Brooklyn, the Bronx, Manhattan, Queens and Staten Island. |
Neighborhood | Specific to New York City, this is composed of hundreds of neighborhoods within the five boroughs. |
Zip | The 5-digit zip code is the system of postal codes used by the United States Postal Service (USPS). You can look up a zip code for more information. The maximum number of zip codes you can target on a line item is 2500. |
Proximity: geographic targeting
While regional targeting options are defined by each respective government, proximity targeting options (POI and Geofence) are defined by Vistar and relevant data partners. See each section to learn more.
Point of interest (POI) targeting enables you to see how many of your desired venues are within a given distance from a point of interest, such as a particular restaurant chain. This differs from geofence in that POI shapes are circle-radius based. There are two types of POI targeting available in the platform:
POI Type | Pricing | Description |
Foursquare | A flat fee, regardless of the number of POI sets used. |
Places by Foursquare provides users with one of the richest indexes of point of interest (POI) data for commercial venues around the world. By partnering with Foursquare, the following list highlights major improvements to POI targeting:
Foursquare POIs are available to accounts in Australia (AU), Canada (CA), the United Kingdom (UK), and the United States (US). |
Custom | Free |
You can upload your own set of POIs, which enables you to customize and target your own set of POIs based on your organization’s needs. After you upload your custom set, it is added and saved in the platform for your organization to use. |
Geofencing is a targeting tactic that is used to create custom boundaries, rather than a predefined area. A geofence carves out a zone that can form a variety of shapes, whereas other proximity options are not as flexible, such as POI shapes that are only circle-radius based.
The following are example use cases for Geofence targeting:
- Unique, custom shapes that you defined.
- A large amount of zip codes that exceeds our limit for Zip Code / Postal Code targeting.