The rise of mobile has brought about lots of unprecedented opportunities for marketers, and hyperlocal advertising is arguably one of the greatest. Add in the ability to deliver ads to consumers based on their exact location at a precise time, and you have a new reality, something advertisers could only dream about a decade ago.

But, here’s the interesting thing about hyperlocal: according to a Search Optics study released earlier this year in partnership with ClickZ, most digital marketers aren’t actually using it. In fact, there isn’t a particular hyperlocal tactic in use by a majority of the marketers surveyed, and only 22 percent of marketers believe they are exploiting hyperlocal to its full potential.

Remarkably, that isn’t because these marketers doubt the usefulness of hyperlocal. In fact, the vast majority of them believe hyperlocal advertising has great value, with more than 90 percent reporting that hyperlocal tactics, including retargeting, competitor businesses, and name of business, have “excellent” or “good” effectiveness.

So, why is it that many marketers aren’t using tactics they believe to be so effective? One explanation may be that, because hyperlocal has only developed alongside the expansion of mobile, it’s still fairly new to most marketers. Another challenge is that, what we call “hyperlocal advertising” is really a group of many different tactics that leverage location data. Figuring out which one to choose, what to use it for, and how best to deploy it can seem daunting.

Because of the versatility of hyperlocal, there’s a good chance there’s one or more hyperlocal tactics that could help your business meet its marketing and communications goals. For example, if you’re looking to drive leads and conversion, you might consider leveraging paid search, a hyperlocal tactic that becomes more local as a customer gets closer to making a purchase. In other words, once the customer starts searching for store locations—rather than just brands or product information—marketers can capitalize on those signals with the help of hyperlocal tactics.

You can help these bottom-funnel customers find what they’re looking for (and get them through the door of your store) by writing ads that include location-based keywords to help them find a store location near them. The next step is determining where to show your ads, and paid search gives you a variety of targeting options, including geographical coordinates, zip codes, cities, states, and countries.

Paid search is one of many ways digital marketers can reach their customers at different touch points throughout the purchase funnel, providing exactly the right information at the right time. Our customers who leverage paid search and other hyperlocal tactics for their digital marketing campaigns experience benefits throughout the shopping journey—from improved brand awareness at the top of the purchase funnel to increased leads and better conversion rates among bottom-funnel shoppers.

Research shows that there’s a good chance your competition hasn’t begun using hyperlocal yet, so now is a perfect time to gain an edge by deploying these tactics for your own marketing campaigns.

But hyperlocal solutions don’t end at Paid Search, new technologies are enabling marketers to steal market share from competitors by reaching shoppers at the store level. Stay posted for our blog on Hyperlocal Marketing Strategies using Programmatic Media.

And to learn more about building effective digital marketing campaigns, check out our solutions.