Beacons: The Pixelfor the Real World

By now, you have heard the pitch hundreds of times.

CAFE

I'm entering my favorite coffee shop...

...and suddenly my phone goes berserk in my pocket.

I pull it out to discover a message for 10% off my next latte!

10%OFF!

10%OFF!

...or iBeacons in Apple speak. Now what does this actually mean?

Let us break it down for you.

Cool!We‘ve just witnessed...

THE

POWEROF

BEACONS

Beacons are small Bluetooth Low-Energy emitters (BLE) and can be set to have a range as narrow as a few inches or as wide as a few feet. Since iBeacons were introduced as part of iOS7 at WWDC, we have seen waves of cool geofencing applications.

Geofencing is the broad concept of setting a virtual zone for a real-world geographic area. It can be done by setting a radius around coordinates on a map and rely on a device’s GPS to detect its location and proximity. This can also be achieved with beacons, which adds accuracy to the picture, so much that they can be used to detect proximity to very specific areas in stores. Their popularity is booming because they cost from $5 to $50 per unit and they can be detected by smartphones without causing excessive battery drain. When a mobile user comes close to a specific area in a physical location, a mobile app with the proper SDK can detect

the installed beacon, giving the brand a very useful signal about a user’s proximity to a point of interest. From there, the coffee shop app on the phone would have detected proximity to this beacon and can trigger a push notification to opted-in users. As influential as push notifications can be, let us elaborate why they are exclusively sent to opted-in users.

When a consumer installs an app, they are not agreeing to receive push notifications. An app needs to receive official approval in order to deliver push messaging to an individual. They can do this through a myriad of tactics but the most powerful is showing value in the push notifications. Providing users concrete benefits given once opted in proves to be the most impactful approach.

In our previous example, the coffee shop would have likely set up a beacon at the entrance of the store. These actions will enable a retailer to increase app engagement and drive foot traffic.

How does it work exactly?

While this example is often used to show off the basic capabilities of beacons, it does not capture their full potential. First off, I don’t drink lattes! My mobile transaction history would show that. Mass push notifications can often feel irrelevant to a significant portion of the brand’s audience. Second of all, I was already entering the coffee shop. Most likely… you know… to buy coffee. A brand needs to be wary of not cannibalizing existing sales.

Beacons, and geofencing in general, are too often isolated from other marketing strategies. The real power of this new tool comes from integrating it into a larger platform that can combine data from all online sources (e.g. web pixels, mobile SDKs) and data from “offline” channels (CRM data, Point Of Sale data, etc.). It is also vital to enable more than push notifications. Beacon data should enable all delivery channels and should even be used as an input for user historical profiles.

Beyond the Basic Use-Case

+NotificationsBeacons Analytics Attribution Pixel Data CRM Data Profiles

A beacon’s real power comes from integrating it into a larger marketing platform.

A beacon’s role is to let a brand’s app detect a user visiting a point of interest in the physical world. Ring any bells? Just as pixels are scattered on different sections of a website, beacons scattered in different sections of a physical location can be used to generate analytics and segments, based on user behavior in the physical world. As such, we should simplify our vision of beacons: they’re nothing more than pixels for the real world. They are a lightweight tool built to detect user interest and intent. And, as such, they should adhere to these principles:

Don’t isolate beacon data from all other data sources

Activate beacon data on all real-time delivery channels

Use beacon data to enrich user historical profiles

A "pixel" for the real world

Desktop PixelDeployed Via HTML

Mobile PixelDeployed Via SDK

Real World PixelDeployed Via Geofence

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A real-time message delivery opportunity is indeed triggered by the geofencing signal; however, the real power comes from joining this data with other data sources.

For example, I always pay with my coffee app. This mobile transaction data can be very useful to see what type of drink I usually buy. It would be more relevant to upsell me on a cookie to go with my coffee, rather than indiscriminately spamming me about lattes.

Enhancing the real-time geofencing signal with historical user profiles will significantly improve message efficiency.

Having said all of that, this is difficult to achieve in the common “multi-provider” model.

Don’t isolate beacon data from your other

data sources

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Apps typically use a wide portfolio of SDK providers to support very specific features: Analytics, Geofencing, Push Notifications, and Media.

The data collected is often siloed in each provider’s backend and is isolated from other datasets.

Coffee App

Analytics Geofencing Install Tracking Push Notifications Mobile RTB

Siloed data withno communicationbetween providers

BrandX - TV

A user goes to an electronics website on her computer to check prices on Brand X TV.

She forgets about it and later goes to that electronic company’s retail location to buy a cable for her phone. When she enters the store, a beacon at the entrance would become all the more useful since the brand has data from the website pixels.

A strategic push notification would be: “Avoid the shipping fee and purchase a Brand X TV in our store today!”

In the “integrated” model, geofencing, analytics and advertising data flows into the same data platform, and datasets can be cross-referenced in real time to significantly power more efficient campaigns.

Interestingly enough the “integrated” model is also the approach RadiumOne follows.

Let’s apply this method to something tangible...

Brand XTV

Push Notifications should not be the only delivery option to reach a user who triggers beacon data, as the true impact of beacons comes from a holistic strategy.

Developing an integrated platform approach not only enables push notifications, but also ad targeting on web and mobile. This opens the door to much more powerful marketing opportunities.

Activate beacon data on all real-time

delivery channels

2

If the beacon data is used with sales data, the brand could focus its resources on users that have expressed interest in TVs in the store, but have not purchased yet.

With a fully integrated platform approach, the brand should also be able to run mobile and desktop ads based on this interest during the visit or immediately after they leave the store.

Imagine that same beacon setup in the TV section of all Best Buy locations. Any user that passes one of these beacons and stays in range for a few minutes is demonstrating a strong interest signal for buying a new TV.

But push notifications are not the only way to reach out to the user.

TVs!On Sale

TVs!

TVs!

Bike EnthusiastPhotographer

ParentFoodieFrequent TravelerRunner

Ad

Ad

AdGeofencing signals are a valuable real-time message opportunity, but can also be used as input data for user historical profiles.

For example, a customer regularly triggering beacons in the kids’ section of Old Navy is a strong indicator to place that person in the “parents” segment. These profiles are typically built based on online, mobile web and mobile app behaviors and are great inputs for enriching already existing profiles.

Beacon signals provide valuable input, which may have not otherwise been captured.

Use beacon data to enrich historical

user profiles

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Being one of the top 10 ad companies in the world gives us the scale to reach a very large audience across all delivery channels: mobile apps, mobile web, regular web, video, and social. As the mobile landscape continues to evolve, along with your mobile strategy, so will RadiumOne Connect. Just like you, we plan to be here for the mobile long haul so buckle up!