IP geolocation as a technology can do more than just pinpoint a person’s location based on his/her Internet Protocol (IP) address. Besides providing location details and coordinates, some IP geolocation APIs may reveal a subject’s Internet service provider (ISP), connection type, Autonomous System (AS) details, and related domain names.
These data points help make the most out of the best IP geolocation API functionalities and improve crucial business processes, three of which are explored in this post.
1. Website Content Personalization
Website personalization is all the rage right now, and for good reason. In the retail industry alone, 70% of businesses that implemented personalization experienced ROIs as high as 200%. If RoIs are not a good enough reason to implement web personalization, we don’t know what is.
IP geolocation can be considered a driver of website personalization. By automatically detecting website visitors’ location, businesses can present them with content in their local language and even slang. But more than that, knowing their location enables enterprises to use culture-based marketing techniques. Marketers can create content based on local news and events, personalizing user experience (UX).
Notice the difference between Amazon’s landing page when accessed from the U.K. and Japan. Typing in amazon[.]com would lead visitors to the landing page where they can choose to go to a country-specific page—that would be amazon[.]co[.]uk for the U.K. and amazon[.]co[.]jp for Japan.
Below is the Amazon home page for visitors whose IP addresses indicate they are in the U.K. It shows a banner for Black Friday deals, along with products that people in the country might be interested in, such as one labeled “Poppies from The Royal British Legion.”
Visitors with Japanese IP addresses would see a different home page. For starters, the language is automatically changed, although there is an option to translate content into English. The featured clothing products are also appropriate for the current weather in the country.
All these personalized details can lead to more sales for Amazon and its sellers, and they are made possible by detecting visitors’ IP addresses.
2. Digital Rights Management
Digital rights management (DRM) aims to protect copyrighted materials, such as music, movies, and television (TV) series. Since most media piracy is now digitized, DRM followed suit and started employing technology such as IP geolocation to become more effective. The media library of Netflix that differs from country to country is an example of this.
Disney+ uses the same policy, automatically disallowing people in countries where its service is unavailable. Check out the Disney+ landing page when visitors have a Philippine IP address. There is no way to sign in, so unauthorized access is automatically minimized.
Aside from enhancing DRM, an IP geolocation API can also improve UX by detecting visitors’ connection type and automatically adjusting media content quality for faster loading time.
3. Fraud Detection and Prevention
Apart from increasing ROIs through content personalization and ensuring regulatory compliance and copyright protection through location-based DRM, businesses also have to think of strategies to lessen fraud. Below are some ways an IP geolocation API can help businesses with fraud detection and prevention.
- Compare users’ current location data with their logged information, such as billing and shipping addresses. If their current location data is different, the transaction can easily get flagged.
- Customers’ billing phone numbers can be compared with their ZIP codes revealed by an IP geolocation API as well. Every transaction where the information differs should be flagged.
- Use IP geolocation data to detect the use of anonymizers, such as virtual private network (VPN) or proxy servers. Additional authentication can be required for visitors who use anonymizers.
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Website personalization, fraud detection and prevention, and DRM are crucial business processes for companies in any industry. For one, fraud plagues all types of organizations, while website personalization applies to all who wish to build their online presence. Powering these business processes with technological advancements like an IP geolocation API can help companies achieve more.