Unacast’s latest Q4 Proxbook report confirms that beacon deployments are on track and the numbers align with ABI Research’s forecast of 400 million beacons to be deployed by 20201. Last year, we saw big brands undertaking large scale beacon deployments. And, this year started with Rite Aid’s announcement of initiating the largest beacon-deployment in a retail setting till date. Discover the top 25 proximity marketing campaigns in retail and what they are doing right.
A review on real-life beacon deployments in retail store tends to demonstrate a resurgence of proximity geographic location tracking.
WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT
Digital transformation strategies require that customers are tracked in the real world as much as they are in the web-world. This often means that the mobile devices we carry enable a seamless digital communication - tools to push promotions and notifications while we walk the street or store aisles. To do so, retailers must know where you are and geofencing is not enough anymore. Beacons come to the rescue and mobile OSes - both Apple and Google - now build into their APIs very good location services which allow mobile app developers ways to connect with users in a very personal way. Using GPS location is not sufficient, especially indoors, so beacons are a must and reports such as this one show that our physical world has become a forest of digital beacons to track our every moves. We all thought this technology was dead after the initial failure of the 2013 Apple announcement. However, all retailers should now include geolocation and proximity tracking in their digital strategies and mid-term roadmaps, as it has apparently moved from the lab to the real world.
More on location services in the OSes, see the following links:
https://developer.apple.com/library/content/documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/LocationAwarenessPG/Introduction/Introduction.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40009497-CH1-SW1
https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/location/index.html