Wollongong runs down the coast in a strip that is sometimes only a couple of kilometres wide, with the escarpment on one side and the Pacific on the other. No city in the country makes radius targeting look sillier. This page covers what a franchise marketing platform does for an Illawarra network.
Amplaro is a digital franchise marketing platform: head office builds local campaigns once, and every Wollongong franchise partner activates them for their own store, targeted to that store's real stretch of the strip rather than a circle over sea and cliffs. The partner picks a campaign, a budget and a date. The brand, the artwork and the spend limits are already locked by head office.
The general version of this page is what a franchise marketing platform is. This one is about the Illawarra: the narrowest catchments in the country, and a customer base that commutes north but spends at home.
From the northern beach villages down through the city to Lake Illawarra and Shellharbour, the suburbs form a chain along the coast road and the rail line. A circle centred anywhere in that chain wastes one half on the water and the other on the escarpment, and still misses suburbs a short drive up or down the strip that the store serves every day.
On the 150 NSW zones in our benchmark, built from official suburb boundaries, a covering circle put a median 67.9% of its area outside the zone it was meant to serve. Fitted Meta targeting put 14.2% outside at 92.4% coverage, and fitted Google targeting 13.8% at 90.4%. A pinched coastal strip is the extreme case of that geometry. The full method is on the zone benchmark, and how a polygon becomes an ad audience is on zones into ad audiences.
A big share of the Illawarra commutes to Sydney and spends at home. That shapes when local marketing works: evenings, weekends, school pickup, the Sunday shop. It also means the market rewards brands that feel like part of the strip rather than an ad blown down from Sydney.
Each store runs the same package for its own piece of the chain, from the northern villages to Shellharbour, without bidding on a neighbour's suburbs. See delivery area targeting.
Campaigns schedule for the hours the strip is home. Head office builds the timing into the package, the partner just launches it.
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 Wollongong 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. The full flow is on how it works, and the network playbook is on rolling out.
Because there is often only a couple of kilometres of city between the escarpment and the sea. A 3 kilometre circle centred on a store in that strip spends one side on the ocean and the other on the cliffs, before it has reached half the suburbs the store actually serves up and down the coast. The catchment is a ribbon, and a circle is the wrong shape for a ribbon.
Yes, if the targeting is resident-based rather than moment-based. A large share of the Illawarra works up the motorway but lives, shops and orders at home. Fitted trade areas reach the households, and campaigns can be scheduled for evenings and weekends when commuters are back and deciding what is for dinner or when to book.
It should not. The strip is a chain of distinct centres, and a store in the northern suburbs serves a different community than one near Shellharbour. Each store activates the same head office package for its own stretch of the strip, so the brand is consistent while every dollar stays close to the store that spent it.
The benchmark used 150 zones built from official NSW suburb boundaries from across the state. On those zones a covering circle put a median 67.9% of its area outside the zone, against 14.2% for fitted Meta targeting at 92.4% coverage. A coastal strip pinched by an escarpment is the extreme version of the geometry that produces 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 NSW zones. A strip catchment is a harder case still, and fitting your actual shapes takes one demo.