Dear customer,
On September 25th 2019, we are going to make some changes to Spaces as a strategic step in the evolution of Cloud4Wi products. Spaces will focus on supporting use cases related to marketing initiatives by informing the strategy and measuring the impact of store-related campaigns.
For example, by monitoring the behavioral and traffic metrics before and after an initiative, you can assess the effectiveness of those actions. By comparing results across multiple locations, you can A/B test different solutions to identify the one that works better. Whatever the campaign goal is, Spaces will provide additional data to quantify the impact and additional dimension analysis to troubleshoot the reason for success or failure.
Product changes
We are reviewing the Spaces dashboards and removing some of the metrics that refer to the count of unique individuals. These metrics will be removed from the Cloud4Wi Dashboard (Overview, Trends, and Custom Reports), from the CSV export and from API endpoints.
In particular, we are going to remove the following metrics:
- Potential / Missed Visitors
- Visitors
- Identified Visitors
- Potential / Missed Visits
- New Visitors Rate (complement of Returning Visitors Rate)
- Engagement Rate (complement of Bounce Rate)
We will also convert the metric currently called "Visitors" in an equivalent one to preserve the possibility to assess the level of traffic in the stores, especially analyzing its evolution over time and compare it across stores. This new metric will be named Traffic Index to not be confused with a measure aimed to estimate the exact number of visitors.
The main metrics Spaces will provide are:
- Visit time: the time visitors spend in the store is a good proxy of engagement. By tracking the history of this metric, brands can understand what store marketing initiatives are working and which ones don’t keep visitors engaged
- Bounce Rate: this metric is based on the visit time and represents the percentage of visits shorter than X (customizable) minutes. This metric, for example, may help measure the effectiveness of promotions displayed in the store entry area to capture visitor attention.
- Attraction Rate: this metric is a proxy of the attractiveness of the store. With Spaces, we listen for all devices inside and nearby the store. By classifying the behaviors of the device, we are able to measure the foot traffic that just passes by versus the actual visits to the store. By comparing this value across multiple stores, the client can identify what displays and window setups work better for attracting visitors.
- Returning Rate: this metric represents the percentage of guests in a certain period who already visited the brand in the past. The Returning Rate is a proxy for customer loyalty and its evolution can help assess the effectiveness of retargeting campaigns and customer satisfaction.
- Traffic Index: this metric is a proxy for the store traffic. While it can't tell exactly how many visitors visited during a certain period, this metric will help you understand how traffic intensity changes over time or how different stores perform compared to each other.
Traffic Index is still represented with a number to facilitate comparison in time and across the stores, but it actually does not represent a count of visits or visitors.
As a consequence of these changes, also the parameters for blacklisting staff and network devices will change. For analytics and reporting purposes, you'll be able to discard any visit longer than a configurable visit time.
How to prepare
If you are currently using the metrics that will be removed or converted, we suggest adapting your practices. Get in touch with our team to discuss the best strategy.
If you are currently using the APIs to extract those metrics, you might need to adapt your integrations. The API endpoint won't be removed and data model won't change, but they won't return any data for the metrics that will be removed.
If you need more time or if you have any feedback, do not hesitate to get in touch with our Support or your Customer Success Manager.