Townsville is northern Australia's biggest city and a long day's drive from the nearest head office. Stores here have always had to look after themselves, which is exactly what a franchise marketing platform is for: local autonomy inside brand rules. This page covers how that works in the dry tropics.
Amplaro is a digital franchise marketing platform: head office builds local campaigns once, and every Townsville franchise partner activates them for their own store, targeted to that store's real trade area rather than a circle on a map. The partner picks a campaign, a budget and a date. The brand, the artwork and the spend limits are already locked by head office, however far away that head office sits.
The general version of this page is what a franchise marketing platform is. This one is about Townsville: a market that gets forgotten by southern brand teams, a map with a hill in the middle of it, and a trading year split by the wet.
Castle Hill sits in the centre of the map, the Ross River winds through the suburbs, and the coast closes one whole side. Add the garrison and the university, each with its own comings and goings, and two suburbs the same distance from a store can be entirely different markets. A radius averages over all of it and calls the result targeting.
On the 150 Queensland zones in our benchmark, built from official suburb boundaries, a covering circle put a median 63.9% of its area outside the zone it was meant to serve. Fitted Meta targeting put 11.5% outside at 92.7% coverage, fitted Google 10.4% at 92%. The full method is on the zone benchmark, and the plain-language version is radius vs delivery zone.
Townsville franchising is strong in food, fitness and trades, with a customer base built on the garrison, the port, the hospital and the university. Brands run from the south east corner tend to treat it as an afterthought, and the stores feel it first in the marketing.
Pre-approved packages mean a partner launches tonight, not after Brisbane replies. The guardrails hold either way. See brand control.
The dry is event season, the wet lifts delivery and indoor trade. Both packages sit in the catalogue, and partners switch in minutes.
The sector versions of this page start at franchise industries, from restaurants and QSR to gyms and fitness.
Head office builds campaign packages once: artwork in the brand font, offers, budgets, dates, guardrails. A Townsville partner signs in, picks a campaign, sets a budget inside the limits, and is live in minutes on Meta and Google with the store's own trade area as the audience. Organic posts to the store's own pages and printed flyers ride along in the same order flow.
Head office sees every campaign, every store and every dollar, including the stores that have launched nothing, which for remote markets is usually the first honest number anyone has seen. The full flow is on how it works, and the network playbook is on rolling out.
By making the approved route the easy route. Townsville stores are used to being far from the brand team, which historically meant improvised local marketing: a cousin's design, a hand-boosted post. On the platform the partner picks from campaigns head office already approved, adds their store details inside locked guardrails, and launches. The distance stops mattering because nothing needs a same-day approval.
The coast on one side, Castle Hill in the middle of the map, the Ross River winding through the suburbs, and the garrison and university precincts with their own rhythms. Suburbs the same distance from a store can be completely different markets. A fitted polygon follows those lines; a radius averages over them. See delivery area targeting.
It changes what people do, so it should change what runs. The dry is event season and outdoor season; the wet moves life indoors and lifts delivery. Head office can build both packages in advance and partners switch in minutes, without waiting for anyone two thousand kilometres away to notice the humidity.
The benchmark used 150 zones built from official Queensland suburb boundaries from across the state. On those zones a covering circle put a median 63.9% of its area outside the zone, against 11.5% for fitted Meta targeting at 92.7% coverage. Coastline, a river and a hill in the middle of town are exactly the features that produce those numbers. Full method on the benchmark page.
The hub for this topic is the franchise marketing platform guide, and the measured case against circles is the zone benchmark. Every city breaks a radius differently:
The benchmark says what circles do to typical Queensland zones. Your northern shapes are their own case, and fitting them takes one demo, on your time zone's afternoon.