To Help Foot Traffic Analysts, FourSquare Unveils Location Data Dashboard

With over 93 million mapped locations, it’s safe to say Foursquare has cornered the market on foot traffic pattern for brick-and-mortar retail locations.

The location-based tracking service is taking its services to a new level with the unveiling of its new analytics tool. Over the last few quarters, Foursquare has reached out to and been working silently with various brands to develop its Foursquare Analytics tool. Brands like Taco Bell, TGI Fridays, H&M and Equinox have stepped on board to serve as beta testers for this new offering.

Through its demographic-based data, Foursquare Analytics is able to provide a complete breakdown of consumers’ foot traffic patterns in terms of time of day and frequency of visits. Given the amount of business that’s been pulled into the eCommerce arena over the past few years, this tool may be the key to help retailers optimize operations to compete on a similar level to the online world.

Foursquare’s VP of business development, Mike Harkey, commented to AdWeek on this new tool and how it will benefit foot traffic analysts in their quest to engage consumers at physical retail locations. He said, “We figure it as Google Analytics but for the real world. The analysts, the strategists can go in and really chase up their own questions — they might have a thesis for something that’s happening in the market.”

One of the likely lucrative ways in which Foursquare could capitalize on this new tool is through targeted advertising. When asked about the possibility of Foursquare reaching out to ad agencies for future partnerships, Harkey hinted at the possibility down the road. He said, “Today our primary focus is on clients directly — we want to understand the questions that they’re trying to answer and walking through how they can access that through the dashboard. Over time, you could certainly imagine us developing a version that would make sense for agencies as well.”