There is a list of people who want exactly what you sell. They are walking into your competitors’ locations right now, browsing, comparing, deciding. Competitor conquesting is how you advertise to them.
We are The Profound Agency, a visibility agency in Hillsborough, New Jersey. Through our geotargeted mobile channel, we serve your ads to people whose location history shows they visit your competitors. When they are thinking about the purchase, you are thinking about them.
Why it works
Most targeting is a guess dressed up as data. An interest target guesses that someone who liked a page might buy. A demographic guesses that a 35 year old homeowner might need what you sell. Location history does not guess. A person standing in your rival’s store has the need, the intent, and the budget, demonstrated by their feet. They have qualified themselves more reliably than any form fill ever could.
That is the whole insight. You are not predicting demand. You are intercepting it.
The anatomy of a conquesting campaign
Define the hunting ground. We start with your competitors’ locations: their stores, their lots, their offices. One rival or twenty, local or national. The boundary is drawn around the places whose visitors you want.
Build the reason to switch. An ad that just says you exist will not move someone mid-errand. The message needs a reason: a better price, a closer location, a stronger guarantee, a first-visit offer. Conquesting earns attention with relevance; it closes it with an argument.
Time it to the visit. The visit is freshest right after it happens. Someone who was at the competitor this morning is still deciding tonight. Recency is the multiplier, so the campaign is built to reach people while the comparison is still open.
Who does this
Anyone with a local rival and a better offer. Auto repair shops conquest dealerships. Independent gyms conquest the big chains. Restaurants conquest the strip with the long lines. Clinics conquest the practice across town. If your competitor has foot traffic and you have an edge, the campaign practically writes itself.
Is it fair?
It is standard practice in every competitive market, and it runs through proper advertising channels with the same standards as any other campaign. Your competitors can do it to you, too. The question is who does it first.
The offer is the ad
Conquesting fails when the ad just announces you exist. Someone mid-errand at your competitor does not need awareness. They need a reason to change plans. That reason usually comes in four flavors: a better price, a closer location, a stronger guarantee, or immediate availability. The winning conquesting ad leads with the switching trigger, not the logo. “The same brake job, half the price, fifteen minutes closer” beats “Now open!” every time, because it answers the only question the prospect is asking: why should I go to you instead?
Conquesting versus plain geofencing
They are siblings, not twins. Geofencing draws boundaries around your world: your trade area, your events, the places your customers gather. It is defense and discovery. Conquesting draws boundaries around theirs: the rival’s locations, and it is pure offense. The strongest local campaigns run both. Geofencing holds your home turf and catches demand where it forms. Conquesting goes and takes the demand that formed somewhere else. One without the other is half a strategy.
Mistakes that waste the click
The most common is the landing page. A conquesting click sent to a generic homepage dies there, because the visitor arrived with a comparison in mind and found no comparison. Send them somewhere that continues the argument: the offer, the price difference, the reviews, the map. The second mistake is targeting too wide: fencing every competitor in the state when your business serves one county. Relevance is the weapon. Dilute it and you are just buying impressions.
Starting small
You do not need twenty competitors to start. One rival, one offer, one month. Fence their busiest location, run the switching argument, and watch what the visits do. Conquesting is one of the few channels where a small test reads clearly: the audience is defined, the intent is proven, the result is visits. Learn on one competitor, then roll the winners across the rest.
Ready to meet your rivals’ customers? Book a call and we will build conquesting into your media plan.