Latest / Marketing Automation with Fexingo: HubSpot, Marketo, and Automated Customer Journeys / How Marketing Automation Misses Customer Location Changes
Transcript
- Lucas: So you're a loyal customer, you've been getting emails from a brand for years, perfect timing, local offers that actually apply to you — and then you move to a different time zone. Suddenly the emails hit at 3 AM, the offers are for stores you can't visit, and the whole relationship feels off. Luna: And the brand has no idea it's happening. Their automation is just humming along, sending the wrong message at the wrong time to the wrong person. Lucas: Right. That's the blind spot we're talking about today — how marketing automation workflows miss customer location changes. I'm Lucas. Luna: And I'm Luna. If these conversations have sparked something you've actually used in your own work, the way we keep this show ad-free is through listener support — buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Just a simple way to keep the conversations going. Lucas: Yeah, we really appreciate that. Now, the location change issue — it's surprisingly common. A 2025 MarTech survey found that 68% of marketers have no automated re-engagement trigger for when a customer's geographic data shifts. Luna: Two-thirds. And yet almost every marketing automation platform — HubSpot, Marketo, Salesforce Marketing Cloud — they all have geolocation fields. The problem is, those fields are usually static. They capture the data once, often at sign-up, and then never update. Lucas: Exactly. So you end up with a customer who moved from New York to Los Angeles six months ago, but they're still in the 'Northeast' segment. Their email send time is based on Eastern Time. Their offers are for the Manhattan store. Luna: I saw a real example of this with a retailer I used to work with. They had a weekend sale campaign that went out at 9 AM Eastern every Saturday. That was fine for their core East Coast audience. But they had a growing base of customers who had moved westward — some to California, some to Hawaii — and those customers started getting the emails at 3 AM or even midnight. Lucas: Did they complain? Luna: Some did. But most just disengaged. The open rate on that segment dropped by 40% over three months. The brand didn't realize it was a location problem — they thought the creative was tired. Lucas: Classic attribution error. So how do you solve it? The obvious answer is to prompt customers to update their location. But relying on self-reported data is unreliable. People forget. They don't think about it. Luna: What's the alternative? ip based geolocation? Lucas: That's one approach. Most platforms can detect the IP address of a user when they open an email or visit your site. You can build a workflow that checks the ip derived location quarterly and compares it to the stored address. If there's a significant difference — say, a different metro area or time zone — you trigger a re-permission campaign. Luna: But IP geolocation isn't perfect. It can be off by hundreds of miles, especially with VPNs or mobile data. Lucas: True. That's why you don't automatically update their record. You use it as a signal to ask. Something like: 'We noticed you might be in a new area. Would you like to update your location for better offers and timing?' That's a permission-based approach that builds trust. Luna: And it's also a compliance safeguard. If you're sending location-specific offers or relying on local regulations — like state-level privacy laws — having accurate data matters. Lucas: Exactly. California has the CCPA, Colorado has its own privacy act. If you're treating a Colorado resident under California rules because your data says they're still in San Francisco, you could be out of compliance. Luna: So the workflow would be: detect potential move via IP, send a gentle nudge, update the record only if the customer confirms, and then re-segment them into the right time zone and local offer pool. Lucas: Right. And you can even make it dynamic. If the customer doesn't respond to the first nudge, you could try a different channel — maybe SMS if they've opted in — or simply adjust their send time based on the IP data alone, with a note that they can correct it. Luna: That's interesting — adjusting the send time without updating the address field. That way you're respecting their likely schedule without making assumptions about where they live. Lucas: Yes. It's a pragmatic middle ground. The key is that the automation has to include a trigger for geographic change. Most workflows don't. They're built around actions — purchase, email open, form submit — not around changes in passive data. Luna: So how do you implement that in practice? Say I'm using HubSpot. Where do I start? Lucas: First, make sure you're capturing IP data on email opens and website visits. HubSpot does that by default, but you need to surface it in a custom property. I'd create a property called 'Last Known IP Location' and set up a workflow that updates it monthly based on the most recent IP. Luna: Then a second workflow that compares that to the stored 'Mailing Address State' or 'Time Zone' field. Lucas: Exactly. If they don't match, it adds the contact to a 'Location Change Detected' list. Then you can send a re-permission email. I've seen brands do this with a simple one-question form: 'Are you still in? If not, tell us where you are.' The response rate is usually around 15 to 20 percent — not huge, but enough to clean up a significant portion of your list. Luna: And for the ones who don't respond? You mentioned the time zone adjustment based on IP. Lucas: Right. You can create a separate 'Derived Time Zone' property that's set by the workflow based on IP. Then use that for send-time optimization instead of the original time zone field. It's not perfect, but it's better than sending at 3 AM. Luna: That reminds me of a story. A friend of mine moved from Chicago to London for a year. She kept getting emails from a US retailer offering 'same-day delivery' — which obviously didn't apply. She eventually unsubscribed. The brand lost a loyal customer just because their automation didn't account for location. Lucas: That's the human cost of this blind spot. It's not just about email timing — it's about relevance and respect. When you send an offer that's physically impossible for someone to use, you're telling them you don't see them. Luna: And it's worse if the offer is time-sensitive. 'Flash sale ends tonight' — but for the customer in Hawaii, it ended five hours ago. Lucas: So the fix is relatively simple from a technical standpoint: a quarterly IP check, a re-permission campaign, and a fallback time zone adjustment. But the real change is mindset. You have to treat location as a dynamic attribute, not a static one. Luna: What about international moves? That adds currency and language complications. Lucas: It does. If someone moves from the US to Japan, you probably shouldn't keep sending them dollar-based offers. The workflow could check the country from the IP and, if it changes, trigger a different re-engagement flow — maybe asking if they want to switch to a local version of the brand. Big global retailers like Amazon do this well, but smaller brands often miss it. Luna: So the takeaway: automation should be aware of life changes, not just purchase behavior. Location is one of the most important — and most overlooked. Lucas: Exactly. And it's a relatively easy win. Most platforms have the tools. You just need to set up the trigger. I'd encourage listeners to check their own workflows this week — pull a list of contacts where the IP location and the stored address differ by more than a hundred miles. You might be surprised how many you find. Luna: And if you do, you know what to do. Thanks for listening, everyone. Lucas: We'll see you next time.