Vertis Media / TNNWhen Vertis was transitioning a major client to our in-house media buying platform, we faced a critical technical challenge: we needed to assign non-overlapping trade areas to each store location, ensuring that every ZIP code where media was purchased mapped to a single, specific store. With over 10,000 ZIP codes nationally to process, manually working through store-to-ZIP relationships would have taken weeks and threatened our timeline for the platform launch.
I developed an automated geospatial solution using an iterative scripting approach. The script created buffers around each point location (store) and counted outward in mileage increments until it encountered the boundary of another store's territory. When a new ZIP code was encountered, it was logged in our database and removed from the next iterative query. This intelligent, cascading approach systematically mapped the entire national territory without overlap or manual intervention.
We successfully mapped all 10,000+ ZIP-to-store relationships in less than 3 days—a process that would have taken weeks manually. As a result, we transitioned to the new internal system in less than half the originally budgeted time. Media buyers and analysts were freed up to focus on value-add client activities rather than foundational data mapping, since the critical store-to-territory relationships had been established. The client team was highly appreciative of the work, and I received a promotion shortly after the project's completion.
