Share
Broadband providers and an increasing number of utilities have had strong success harnessing the power of digital advertising to send custom messages straight to the location of a people they want to reach. Starting in January, a shift in data privacy rules in Oregon and Maryland hints at challenges for this reliable and impactful advertising option.
In those two states, companies can no longer use GPS signals for location-specific ads, known as geotargeting and programmatic advertising, within 1,750 feet.
For perspective, that means advertisers cannot target an area, or the people within, any smaller than about five football fields. This means companies can no longer use:
- Geofencing: A method of drawing a virtual fence or around an area and sending ads to anyone with a device inside.
- Conversion Zones: Virtual fences around physical locations, like shops or restaurants, sending ads to people when they enter or leave an area. Also called “foot traffic” reporting.
- Addressable Geofencing: Turns a list of home or business addresses into targets for ad delivery reaching mobile, desktop and other devices.
- Event Targeting: Popular for sending messages to people at fairs, trade shows, concerts or other community meetings, event targeting creates a temporary audience of people who attended a specific physical event, sending them messages afterwards.
“On the bright side, this does not hinder us from targeting people based on searches, demographics or site visits, just precise geo targeting,” notes Rachel Kelley, an account executive at PunchDrunk Digital working with Pioneer to navigate the changes. “We can still target by city and ZIP code within these two states.”
In many cases, a combination of ZIP code-level targeting and retargeting ads to people who have visited a website or webpage before can achieve some of the same results as geotargeting. However, with hyperlocal geographies like in a fiber build, the new laws almost guarantee there will be some waste in advertising to a few addresses that aren’t eligible for service.
Both states also ban companies from sending advertising messages to teens. In Maryland ads cannot geotarget anyone under 18 years old. The ban ends at 16 years old in Oregon.
While this only impacts Oregon and Maryland for now, similar privacy measures are being discussed in California, Maine, Massachusetts and Vermont, too.
Bear in mind, we are not attorneys.
We’re storytellers.
We’ve pulled together information from Oregon House Bill 2008, the Maryland Online Data Privacy Act of 2024 and from our parters at PunchDrunk to give you a heads-up on the change. Always seek guidance of your legal counsel if you have specific questions.
Learn more about Pioneer’s digital advertising solutions and take our digital advertising assessment to see how targeted stories can help you!