Proximity Targeting: Definition, Examples & Measurement

Your best customer passes a digital billboard on the way to work, drives by your store at lunch, and stands in front of a shelf of competing brands that evening. Each of those moments is a chance to win the sale. Proximity targeting is how you reach them.

In this article, you’ll see how proximity targeting works, how it differs from geofencing, how real brands use each of the three proximities, and how to prove it drives visits and sales.

What is Proximity Targeting in Advertising?

Proximity targeting is a location-based advertising method that serves ads to people based on how close they are to a defined reference point, such as a store, a competitor’s branch, or a digital screen. It uses signals like GPS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth beacons, and mobile network data to trigger or log an ad when someone is inside a set radius.

Three things make proximity targeting different from other location-based targeting:

• It is relative to a point, not an area. A city or ZIP code is an area. Proximity is measured from a specific spot.
• It is time-sensitive. Being near a store at 6 pm on a Friday says more than living in the same postcode.
• It can be measured. Because both the ad and the visit happen in the physical world, you can compare people who were near the ad with people who were not.

Types of Proximity Marketing

Proximity targeting has six main types. They differ in which signal detects the person and where the ad appears. Together they make up what is often called proximity marketing.

Type	How it Works	Typical Use
Mobile proximity targeting	In-app or mobile web ads served when a device is inside a radius	Driving visits to a nearby branch
Push notification targeting	An app the person already has sends a message near a location	Loyalty offers, store check-ins
Beacon (Bluetooth) targeting	Small in-store transmitters let an app detect which aisle or zone a phone is in	In-store wayfinding and offers
Wi-Fi targeting	Shoppers who join store Wi-Fi see a splash page or offer	Collecting first-party sign-ups
DOOH proximity targeting	A digital screen is the reference point; the ad plays to everyone near it	Reaching commuters and shoppers without personal data
In-store proximity targeting	Screens inside the store reach shoppers at the shelf	Influencing the final product choice

The first four depend on a phone and, usually, an app with location permission. The last two do not. That difference shapes everything else that follows.

How does Proximity Targeting Work?

Proximity targeting works in four steps: pick a reference point, draw a radius, detect who is inside it, then act.

1. Set the reference point. Choose the place that matters: your store, a competitor’s branch, a stadium, or a specific DOOH screen.
2. Define the radius. Size it to how people move and see. For example, Perion’s measurement guidance notes that exposure radius is typically calibrated to screen size, viewing angle, and environment, from around 300 meters for a highway billboard to about 15 meters for a mall kiosk. A radius that is too wide counts people who never saw anything. Too narrow, and you lose real viewers.
3. Detect presence. Use one or more location signals (table below) to know who is inside the radius, or how many people are.
4. Activate. Serve an ad on the person’s phone, play the right creative on a nearby DOOH or in-store screen, or log the exposure so you can retarget or measure later.

Signals proximity targeting uses:

Signal	Accuracy	Best Range	Needs Opt-in?
GPS	About 4.9 m for smartphones under open sky (ion.org); weaker indoors	Streets, parking lots, venues	Yes, app location permission
Wi-Fi	Room or building level	Malls, airports, stores	Usually (app or network sign-in)
Bluetooth beacons	Very close range; phones estimate distance from signal strength	Aisles, entrances, displays	Yes, a specific app must be installed
Mobile network (cell towers)	Neighbourhood level	Wide areas, rural reach	No for carriers; aggregated for ads
SDK location data	Depends on the app’s GPS/Wi-Fi mix	Audience building, measurement	Yes, consent inside each app
Screen proof-of-play + audience data	Known screen location, modelled audience	DOOH and in-store screens	No personal data needed to serve the ad

One trend matters here. Both major phone platforms now let people share only an approximate location. On Android 12 and later, users can grant approximate location even when an app asks for precise location (Android Developers). On iOS, apps must ask permission before tracking users across other companies’ apps (Apple). Fewer precise signals are the main reason the screen itself has become a stronger reference point.

Where do proximity ads appear?

Proximity ads can appear in four places: on a phone, on a digital out-of-home screen, on an in-store screen, or later in social and display retargeting. Each one trades precision for reach differently.

• Mobile (in-app and push): the most precise, reaching one person at a time. It only works for people who share their location with an app, so reach keeps shrinking. Best for driving a visit.
• Digital out-of-home (DOOH): reaches everyone near the screen at once, with no personal data needed to show the ad. Best for awareness in the places your audience goes every day.
• In-store retail media: screens inside the store reach shoppers in the aisle. It is the closest an ad gets to the purchase.
• Social and display retargeting (Meta, TikTok): re-engages people who were near your screen or store earlier. It relies on consented IDs and works best as a follow-up.

What are the Three Proximities in Proximity Targeting?

The three proximities are the three distances a modern proximity strategy measures and acts on: distance to the store (intent), distance to the screen (exposure), and distance to the shelf (the decision). The old model only used the first. Adding the other two is what turns proximity targeting from a mobile tactic into a full path from commute to checkout.

1. Proximity to the Store: Targeting Intent

Proximity to the store means reaching people who are near, or have recently visited, your locations, a competitor’s locations, or places linked to your category. Where someone spends time is a strong clue to what they want. Targeting a rival’s customers this way is called geoconquesting.

Perion example: Krungthai Bank, Thailand. The bank wanted to stand out against Kasikorn Bank, Siam Commercial Bank, and Krungsri in digital investment. The campaign targeted people based on visits to Krungthai branches, competitor branches, central business district locations, and premium residential areas. It added dayparting, and late evening (9 pm to midnight) turned out to be the strongest window (Perion case study).

• 1.43% CTR, against a 0.70% benchmark
• 83% viewability
• +40% uplift in positive brand image, measured by Happydemics
• 8,000+ clicks

2. Proximity to the Screen: Targeting Exposure

Proximity to the screen means the screen itself is the reference point. Anyone physically close enough to see a DOOH or in-store screen counts as exposed. Those exposures can then be reached again on mobile, or compared with people who were not exposed to measure the effect.

This matters for two reasons. First, a screen serves one ad to everyone nearby, so it does not need anyone’s personal data to deliver the message. Second, it lets you choose places by where your audience goes, not only by where your store is. That is exactly what happened in the Albertsons Media Collective and Primo Water campaign, where screens in transit hubs, gyms, and offices drove a 5.5% incremental sales lift.

Screen proximity works even better when the creative reacts to what is happening near the screen:

• DOOH-to-mobile retargeting. The Krungthai campaign re-engaged people on their phones after they had been exposed to the DOOH screens.
• Live data triggers. For Vaseline Malaysia, screens across Klang Valley pulled in the live UV index and updated the creative throughout the day, with green, orange, and red levels. The campaign delivered more than 1.65 million impressions. 

For more on this, see how DOOH contextual targeting works.

3. Proximity to the Shelf: Targeting the Purchase Decision

Proximity to the shelf means reaching shoppers on in-store screens in the last few meters before they choose a product. It is the closest an ad can get to the purchase. Physical stores still account for more than 80% of U.S. retail commerce, so many buying decisions are made in this final stretch.

In August 2026, Perion acquired PRN, now Perion Retail Networks. The footprint includes a top warehouse club’s 4K TV network across 750+ locations, a top big-box retailer across 4,500+ stores, and a national healthcare retailer across 2,200+ stores. The aim is to reach shoppers across the full last mile, from the commute to the shelf, while they compare products.

Perion example: a dry eye relief drops brand at Costco. The brand ran a multi-month campaign on Perion’s Costco TV Network. An independent partner, MFour Mobile Research, surveyed 400 in-market Costco members from June to August 2026 and compared test and control shoppers. The 2026 campaign showed a 133% lift in current purchase and a 61% lift in future purchase of the brand at Costco (self-reported survey data).

What are the Benefits of Proximity Targeting?

The main benefit of proximity targeting is relevance in the real world: the ad reaches people where they can act on it. Used across all three proximities, it also brings these advantages:

• Less wasted spend. Budget goes to places and hours where your audience actually is, instead of a whole city.
• Competitive reach. You can talk to a rival’s customers near the rival’s door, as Krungthai Bank did with competitor branches.
• Privacy resilience. Screen-based proximity does not need personal data to deliver the ad, so it holds up as mobile IDs shrink. It also fits a cookieless targeting plan.
• Timing that fits the moment. Dayparting and live triggers, such as UV levels or weather, line the message up with what people are doing.
• A full path, not one touch. Store, screen, and shelf can be planned as one sequence, from the commute to the moment of choice.
• Results you can prove. Physical exposure and physical visits can be compared against a control group, which most digital-only channels cannot do as directly.

How do You Measure Proximity Targeting?

You measure proximity targeting by comparing two similar groups of people: those who were near the ad (exposed) and those who were not (control). The gap between how often each group visits or buys is the effect of the campaign.

Step 1: Build exposed and control groups. The exposed group is everyone detected inside the exposure radius while the ad ran. The control group looks alike (same areas, similar habits) but was not exposed. A good control group is the difference between a real result and a guess.

Step 2: Track visits over an attribution window. Both groups are usually tracked for 7 to 14 days. Match the window to the category: a coffee visit can follow within hours, while a car dealership visit can take weeks.

Step 3: Calculate visitation lift.

Worked example: 200,000 people were exposed, and 5,000 of them visited the store, a 2.5% visit rate. In a matched control group of 200,000, 4,000 visited, a 2.0% rate. 

Lift = (2.5 − 2.0) ÷ 2.0 × 100 = 25%. 

The campaign drove about 1,000 extra visits (5,000 − 4,000).

Step 4: Work out cost per incremental visit (CPIV). Divide total spend by the extra visits the campaign caused. If that campaign cost $15,000, CPIV = $15,000 ÷ 1,000 = $15 per incremental visit. CPIV lets you compare a DOOH or proximity campaign directly with paid search or social.

Step 5: Go beyond the visit to the purchase. A visit shows interest. A receipt shows a sale. Through its partnership with Fetch, Perion advertisers can activate audiences built from verified, SKU-level purchase data from more than 13 million monthly active users across 26,000+ merchants. Retail partners can also report sales lift directly, as Albertsons Media Collective did for Primo Water.