Foursquare debuted a foot-traffic measurement tool called Foursquare Analytics on Monday.
Foursquare Analytics, which uses opted-in users to measure in-store traffic, began in private beta last year with brands like TGI Fridays, Equinox and Taco Bell. Brands that pay a monthly subscription fee to use the SaaS product.
TGI Fridays matches customers from its CRM system against the Foursquare panel to identify trends, said Sherif Mityas, the brand’s head of strategy and insights.
“It allows us to see that maybe on certain days or times people are getting a drink nearby and then coming to a location to eat,” Mityas said. That insight could prompt the restaurant to serve ads or deals to mobile users who match those Foursquare demographics, with the goal of annexing the happy hour business of people who are already regular diners.
During the beta, Mityas said TGI Fridays also saw that it was overindexing with people who were coming from movie theaters at certain times of night. “That’s a different kind of guest and messaging then with other mobile campaigns we’d run,” Mityas said, “and with this data we know it’s a whole new rich fishing ground for foot traffic.”
Foursquare Analytics is meant to be a way for “analysts or strategists to understand what’s happening not only with their business but in their category and competitive set,” said Mike Harkey, Foursquare’s VP of business development.
After Foursquare’s location-tracked panel is anonymized and normalized against census figures, it can be used as a data stream where businesses can “toggle back and forth based on geo or audience demo or whatever applications they have and just dig into data in a deeper way,” Harkey said.
Foursquare Analytics’ release adds a third leg to the mar tech portfolio Foursquare has assembled since 2015, which includes the Pinpoint programmatic targeting platform and its retail attribution product.
