How Small Businesses Can Use Location Data
Using Location Data to Level Up Your Marketing
Back in the day, you needed to volunteer your location. Now, we have technology that allows us to figure out your location without volunteering it.
The data provided in this article comes from Foursquare. It comes from multiple sources, but primarily they have two types of data sets available: places data and visits feed. Places data comprises more than 95 million points of interest, which allows mapping in real-time and goes back upwards of 3 years. Visits feed ascertains the insights from this analysis and other recent analyses of COVID-19 insights. The data is coming from the mobile app IDs where Foursquare is tracking consumers throughout the physical world based on the places that they are going.
Plan, Reach, and Measure
“The beauty of location data, especially during the pandemic, is that it allows you to identify those who are staying at home versus those who are more out and about,” said Emily.
As we begin to transition back into the world, it is essential to know who has returned to shopping at non-essential locations, airports, movie theaters versus those who are exercising more caution in their day-to-day life. By looking at location data in real-time, you can segment those people, not just by age and gender, but also by thinking about their real-world physical observed behavior.
These location-based pandemic insights can be acted on in a myriad of ways.
Solutions such as location-based audiences and proximity targeting allow businesses to segment audiences and reach customers where they are in real-time, for example, reaching consumers shopping at grocery stores three times a week versus once a week.
You can also use this data to segment based on pre-pandemic behaviors, identifying who was visiting your location or a competitor’s location frequently before the pandemic.
Marketers can also use location data to measure ad effectiveness and drive traffic to physical locations. Foursquare Attributions is one of the many great ways to measure if someone who is exposed to an ad is more likely to then visit your location. This type of tool can help improve return on ad spend by analyzing and optimizing campaign performance with actionable reporting.
