Timing matters. If you’re sending SMS messages or placing calls without knowing where your recipients are—or what time it is there—you’re risking low engagement, annoyed users, and wasted budget.
GeoIP and timezone detection helps you send messages at the right time and better understand your audience. In this article, we’ll explain how this data works, how it’s different from area code-based guesses, and how to use it to improve campaign performance.
🛰️ What Is GeoIP Data?
GeoIP data is location information derived from a user’s IP address. When someone visits your site, submits a form, or clicks a link, their IP can usually be mapped to a country, region, and city—along with the corresponding timezone.
When combined with phone number validation, this data gives you context about:
- Where a user is physically located
- When it’s an appropriate time to call or text them
- Whether their phone number’s area code aligns with their current location
🕐 Why Timezone Matters in Messaging
Sending a promo text at 3 a.m.? Calling during someone’s commute? Poorly timed messages can:
- Get ignored or deleted
- Annoy users and lead to unsubscribes
- Reduce trust and brand perception
- Violate quiet hours in regulated regions
Time-based targeting is one of the easiest ways to improve:
- SMS open and response rates
- Call answer rates
- Customer satisfaction
When your communication is aligned with the user’s day, it’s more likely to be seen—and more likely to convert.
📍 Why Area Codes Aren’t Enough
Many businesses try to infer timezone from the area code of a phone number. But that’s unreliable.
People move. Numbers get ported. Someone in California might still have a New York number—or they might be using a VoIP number registered in another state altogether.
That’s why GeoIP is a stronger signal. It reflects where the user is right now, not where the number originated.
⚙️ How CheckThatPhone Helps
When you send a phone number and IP address to CheckThatPhone’s API, you get:
- GeoIP country, state, and city
- Timezone and UTC offset
- Geo source – whether the info is from IP or area code
- Optional: carrier and deactivation status
If the IP isn’t available, the API still returns timezone data inferred from the number’s area code, but flags it clearly as area-code based.
This lets you:
- Schedule campaigns at the right local time
- Personalize messages by region
- Trigger follow-ups based on working hours
- Detect suspicious mismatches between IP and number (e.g. a Canadian number used from a U.S. IP)
✅ Final Thoughts
Smart communication isn’t just about what you say—it’s also about when you say it. GeoIP and timezone intelligence help you optimize timing, improve engagement, and avoid costly missteps.
With CheckThatPhone, you can validate U.S. and Canadian numbers, extract real-time location and timezone data, and make every message count.
👉 Start your free trial and time your next campaign perfectly.