The short answer
Geofencing reaches the people who spend time at the places you pick
Pick the places that matter, down to a building or a block: the club, the office park, the ferry terminal. We draw a boundary around each one. People whose phones show up inside it see your ads while they're there and after they leave. On listing ads it's called custom geofencing and comes with Luxury, and brand ads can add geofencing.
Watch it in two minutes
How it works
You send us a list of places with their addresses, and we draw a boundary around each one. A boundary can be as tight as a single building or as wide as a quarter mile. Tight usually wins, because a boundary around the clubhouse catches members, and a wide one catches the parking lot and the street.
It works with location from apps where people already said yes to location sharing. When a phone shows up inside a boundary, it can see your ads during the visit and after it leaves. Everything stays anonymous. We know a phone was at the marina, and that's all we know.
Three to eight places per listing is a strong start, and longer lists work well for big homes with buyers in many cities. Places people visit again and again beat one-afternoon events, because a boundary needs time to collect enough phones. Your Traffic Report shows the results every day, ready to forward to your seller.
Think about where the person who buys this home spends a Tuesday: the club, the school pickup line, the train platform, the office park. Those are the places worth adding.
Geofencing pairs well with the rest of your targeting. The boundaries catch people at the places, and your geographic targets and buyer profile catch the same kind of buyer at home, reading the news. Strong luxury plans run both, so the right buyer sees the home from two directions.
How Compass agents use it
- A Compass agent in Tiburon drew boundaries around two yacht clubs, the Tiburon ferry terminal and the San Francisco Ferry Building for a $7.5M listing, reaching the people who sail and commute across the bay.
- A Compass agent in Seattle picked four private schools, a tennis club and a yacht club for a $6.5M home, the places where the buyer's family already spends its week.
- A Compass agent in Ho-Ho-Kus, New Jersey runs brand ads with boundaries around the commuter train stations, Hoboken Terminal and Penn Station, plus a country club and the local YMCA, so the agent's name rides along on the daily commute.
- A Compass agent on Whidbey Island started brand ads with geofencing around the ferry docks, paired with ads that sell the island life.
- Compass agents across Northern California ran four days of ads with boundaries around the San Francisco convention center and the hotels nearby during a major tech conference.
How to explain it to your seller
Skip the technology and tell the story of the places.
"Your ad is reaching people at the yacht club, on the ferry and at the schools nearby, because those are the places your buyer spends the week. Everyone stays anonymous. It simply means the right kind of person sees your home."
- Put the place names in your seller update. A line like "the yacht club, the ferry and the country club" shows real thought in a few words.
- Leads are possible but never promised. When a seller asks whether someone from the club bought it, say the ads reached the right kind of buyer, and the report shows how many.
Which packages include it
Listing ads: Custom geofencing comes with Luxury at $1,200 per listing, for 30 days, with your list of places built before launch. On Showcase, you can also swap the YouTube video ads for custom geofencing at the same price.
Brand ads: Geofencing is part of brand ads. Plans start at $600 a month.