Using the geotargeting feature in TUNE, you can set offers to only appear for users in certain countries, states, or even cities. Enjoy improved offer performance by routing traffic!
This article is part of our Popular Features series.
How Geotargeting Works
For any offer to target geographical regions, our external service provider determines a user's location based on their IP address. Then, our ad tracking servers use that information to determine if the user is inside the target regions for the offer.
When Enforce Geotargeting is set to “Enabled” for an offer, only users in the target regions are served the offer. If the offer is in an offer group, users may be directed to another offer in the offer group instead:
| Enforcing Disabled | Enforcing Enabled | |
|---|---|---|
| Not in Offer Group | Users see the offer regardless of their location. | Users in the target region see the offer.
Users outside the target region see a blank page. |
| In Offer Group | Users see the offer unless another offer in the offer group targets the user’s location. | Users in the target region see the offer.
Users outside the target region are redirected to another offer in the group that targets the region. If no offer in the group targets the region, the user sees a blank page. |
For example, you have an offer that targets the United Kingdom and the United States. If visitors from Spain click on that offer, they’re directed to a blank page.
Keep in mind that because the geotargeting feature uses IP-based geolocation, it is subject to the limitations of that process.
Working with Advanced Targeting
Geotargeting rules are always applied before advanced targeting rules, regardless of the Enforce setting.
If you set an offer to target geographical regions, TUNE follows the above table for offer groups and enforcement.
Adding & Modifying Geotargeting Settings
To add or modify an offer’s geotargeting settings, go to that offer’s page, then in the Targeting panel, click the Edit button. On the next page, you can set up targeting rules in the Geotargeting panel to include or exclude specific countries, regions, and cities.
In the Included Locations field, enter the countries, regions, and cities you want the offer to target. Then, in the Excluded Locations field, enter the countries, regions, and cities you don’t want the offer to target.
As you fill out each field, you can select matching locations from the dropdown menu as they appear or remove selected entries using the X icon.
Important: You can either include or exclude locations at each of the city, region, and country levels—you cannot do both. This ensures that your inclusions and exclusions overlap without duplication and function as expected. If you provide an invalid set of inclusions and exclusions, you’ll receive an error letting you know which field needs to change.
Example 1: Exclusions
Let’s say we want our offer to target users worldwide, except for a few specific cities. To do that, we’d use the following geotargeting rules:
| Include | Exclude | |
|---|---|---|
| City | “Seattle, Washington, United States” “Toronto, Ontario, Canada” |
|
| Region | ||
| Country |
As a result, all users except those in the cities of Seattle and Toronto can access the offer. Note that there’s no need to include other regions or countries unless we want to exclude specific parts.
Example 2: Inclusions & Exclusions
Let’s say we only want our offer to target users in the United States and Canada, but we want to exclude a few specific cities and a single region. To do that, we’d use the following geotargeting rules:
| Include | Exclude | |
|---|---|---|
| City | “Seattle, Washington, United States” “Toronto, Ontario, Canada” |
|
| Region | “Texas, United States” | |
| Country | “United States” “Canada” |
As a result, users from countries other than the United States and Canada won’t be able to access the offer. Plus, users in all cities and regions of the United States and Canada can access the offer unless they’re in the cities of Seattle and Toronto or the region of Texas.
Example 3: Invalid Setup
Let’s say we want our offer to exclude users in Saudi Arabia but want to ensure that users in the state of California can still access the offer. To do that, you might try to use the following geotargeting rules…
| Include | Exclude | |
|---|---|---|
| City | ||
| Region | “California, United States” | |
| Country | “Saudi Arabia” |
Unfortunately, this is an invalid set of geotargeting rules! Here, we receive the error:
Cannot mix inclusion and exclusion targeting rules with unrelated locations: california (5) is not within the countries provided.
This is because California is already excluded when including Saudi Arabia and not the United States. To fix this setup, all we need to do is remove California as an excluded region.
Testing Geotargeting
Sometimes, admin employees or partners may need to test an offer from outside targeted regions. To do so, they can bypass geotargeting rules either by using cookies or by adding a test parameter to their tracking link.
Geotargeting is bypassed for employees of your TUNE platform who are logged in when they click a tracking link. The employee goes directly to the default offer URL.
When an employee triggers a conversion on the offer, the conversion appears as “Employee Test” in the conversion report status message.
To see the effects of geotargeting on your location, load the tracking link in a web browser where you aren’t logged in to TUNE. By doing so, you avoid having an admin employee session cookie in your browser.
Tracking Link Test Mode
Tracking links marked for testing bypass geotargeting rules. To mark a tracking link for testing, add a source parameter with a value of “testoffer” to the tracking link. For example:
http://demo.go2cloud.org/aff_c?offer_id=3&aff_id=1&source=testoffer