I was looking up the contact information for an international advertising and marketing firm this morning (that shall go unnamed), and after drilling down through the various region, country, and city options of their “Contact Us” web application, it occurred to me that not enough companies are using geographical IP databases to help their visitors find locally relevant information. Sure, their little geographical office-finder map looked great, but wouldn’t it be much more effective to figure out where I am based on my IP address, and present me with the coordinates of the closest local office, and then present me with the cool office locator in case I was looking for an office elsewhere? It would certainly be more impressive from a marketing perspective.
Geographical IP databases are very powerful tools for any web marketing or e-commerce initiative, and extremely cost effective given the flexibility and breadth of the services they provide. Beyond website customization, they can be used to help avoid credit card fraud by identifying high risk countries, to distribute regionally-relevant ads and marketing material, and even (more controversially) disallow network connections from specific geographic regions.
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