When you set up marketing for an event on BrightStar, you're not choosing a location by hand — the geo-targeting engine works that out for you, based on what kind of event you're running. Think of the moment you're standing at a retreat check-in table, or handing out programs at a kirtan door: everyone in that room got there somehow, and most of them live within a reasonable distance of the venue. The geo-targeting engine is built around that reality. It sets the target area from your event type, decides how your budget is weighted across distance, and gives you room to override the defaults when your event doesn't fit the usual pattern — a destination retreat, a multi-city tour, or a region you already know well.
How does BrightStar decide who sees your event?
For in-person events, BrightStar centers targeting on the venue's coordinates and builds outward in three rings: a primary radius of 50 miles, a secondary radius of 100 miles, and an extended radius of 200 miles. The idea is simple — the closer someone lives to the venue, the more likely they are to actually show up, so the engine treats that inner ring as the core audience and treats the outer rings as reach that catches people willing to travel farther. Online events work differently, because there's no venue to travel to. The default there is the event's own country, which you can expand to English-speaking countries, or further out to all supported regions, depending on how wide you want your online audience to be.
Why does your ad budget favor the nearest ring?
BrightStar splits in-person targeting into three density tiers, and the budget follows the same logic as the radius: closer means more spend. Tier 1, the 0 to 50 mile ring, gets 50% of ad budget and every campaign you run, because BrightStar rates this audience's quality as highest. Tier 2, from 50 to 100 miles, gets 30% of budget and is included on your major campaigns rather than every send. Tier 3, from 100 to 200 miles, gets the remaining 20% and is reserved for announcement-level emails only. The pattern protects your budget from being spread evenly across people who are progressively less likely to attend — the farther the ring, the lighter the touch.
Where do you change the default targeting?
If the defaults don't match your event, BrightStar lets you override them without waiting on anyone else to change it for you.
- 1Go to Settings → Marketing → Custom Regions
- 2Add specific cities or metro areas you want included
- 3Exclude regions that are already saturated — for example, areas where a competing event is drawing from the same audience
- 4Set a custom radius for a particular event instead of using the 50/100/200 mile default
- 5Target by postal code prefix if you need finer control than a city or metro boundary
What happens with a hybrid event?
A hybrid event on BrightStar uses both strategies at once rather than picking one. The in-person side of your audience is targeted the same way a fully in-person event would be — geo-targeted rings around the venue, weighted by distance. The online side is targeted nationally, the same way a standalone online event would default to its country. You don't have to choose between the two; BrightStar applies each strategy to the attendees it actually fits.