From Missed Opportunities to Marketing Precision

Why audience precision is the new superpower for successful campaign launches?

Marketers are under constant pressure to deliver results: shrinking budgets, rising expectations, and the unrelenting demand to prove ROI. Yet, despite creativity and strong planning, many campaigns underperform, not because of the idea, but because they fail to reach the right people. In today’s market, precision beats reach. The future of marketing belongs to those who know exactly who to talk to, where they are, and when to engage them.

“ "Awareness" is not an objective anymore. If you can't measure the impact precisely, you won't be able to justify any action.”
- Pauline Paris, CRO Deputy at MyTraffic. 

Every marketer has lived it: weeks of planning, striking creative assets, and significant ad spend… only to see disappointing results. The reason? An imprecise audience definition. Even a small mismatch between your campaign and your actual audience can drain your budget and weaken your brand impact.

The hidden cost of imprecise targeting

Broad targeting strategies such as “all women aged 25–40 in Paris” may seem effective on paper, but reality proves otherwise. Audiences don’t behave uniformly. They live in different micro-zones, shop in specific areas, and follow unique mobility patterns. Without acknowledging these nuances, campaigns inevitably waste precious resources.

Precision is the new reach

What if, instead of casting a wide net, you could engage only the audiences who truly matter? Location intelligence makes this possible by:

• Using catchment analysis to reveal where customers actually come from.
  
  
• Leveraging point-of-interest data to identify lifestyle hotspots.
  
  
• Mapping mobility patterns to understand real-world consumer behavior.
  
  

This transformation moves campaigns from guesswork to measurable impact.

‍

The industry shift is already happening: Geography is the new cookie.

Even global media leaders are pivoting towards precision. Publicis Media recently launched #Grid, a solution that replaces cookies with geography as the new targeting backbone. With #Gridpeople, marketers can identify micro-zones where their target audience is overrepresented, for instance, neighborhoods with high concentrations of seniors, premium car owners, or affluent households. With #Gridplaces, brands can activate real-time mobile advertising around strategic points of interest such as stadiums, airports, or Olympic venues, reaching people literally in the last meters before a purchase or experience.

And this isn’t just theory: since its launch in 2019, Publicis has already been supporting brands like McDonald’s France, Lidl, and other major advertisers with #Grid, proving that precision targeting is not an experiment but an operational reality at scale. By concentrating spend only where it matters most, companies are able to deploy their media investments more effectively across the French territory, with a 100% business-driven approach.

This move by Publicis underlines a clear reality: the future of advertising isn’t about who people are on paper, but where they are, how they move, and the context in which they can be engaged. Precision is no longer a nice-to-have, it’s becoming the new industry standard.

‍

Case in point: Roland-Garros x Lacoste

To illustrate this shift, MyTraffic conducted a visitor analysis during the Roland-Garros tennis tournament for Lacoste. The study revealed not just who attended, but where they came from, how they moved across the city, and which zones offered the greatest potential for engagement. Key takeaways from the study:

• Visitors were segmented not just by demographics, but by mobility and origin areas, revealing how far audiences were willing to travel, with 41% of attendees coming from outside of Paris.
  
  
• Catchment areas identified where Lacoste could strengthen visibility and engagement beyond the tournament. Visitors weren’t just local: the data showed a diverse audience with significant travel patterns and long dwell times, 38% stayed at least 3 hours, with an average stay of 2.02 days.
  
  
• These insights helped Lacoste refine marketing activations and align brand presence with high-value audiences. The study revealed attendees had a median household income of €48,600 and spent around €1,350 per year on clothing, both around 22% above national averages, positioning them as a premium audience worth targeted investment.

This level of insight can allow Lacoste to align brand presence with high-value audiences beyond the event itself, the kind of precision that turns campaigns into impact.

‍

The marketer’s daily challenge

Campaign launches are never simple. Marketers must juggle competing pressures: sales teams demanding leads, media agencies asking for audiences “yesterday,” and executives questioning effectiveness. The constant challenge? Reducing guesswork and launching with confidence.

Marketing Explorer: from guesswork to precision

This is where MyTraffic’s Marketing Explorer, changes the game.

With Marketing Explorer, you can:

• Define audiences with granularity down to IRIS, ZIP code, or city.
  
  
• Enrich targeting with socio-demographic and mobility data layered with POIs.
  
  
• Visualize heatmaps and potential zones before activation.
  
  
• Export audience lists directly into CRM or media buying platforms.
  
  
• Operate seamlessly across France, the UK, Spain, and Germany.
  ‍

Instead of “let’s hope this works,” marketers finally gain the clarity and confidence that campaigns will perform.

Conclusion: Your campaigns don’t fail because of the audience you choose, but because of the places you overlook.

The marketing world has no room for vague targeting. Brands that succeed will be those who embrace precision, not reach. With Marketing Explorer, you’re not just launching a campaign — you’re launching one that’s built on data, accuracy, and impact.

👉 Discover how Marketing Explorer can redefine your next campaign and book a demo with one of our experts by clicking here. 


‍

An article written by MyTraffic Marketing Team. 

‍