Retailers such as Toys R Us, Macy’s and JC Penney will have to again work hard to draw shoppers to their stores this holiday season as they continue to lose customers to online e-commerce giants like Amazon.

To have a chance at succeeding, they’ll need better data. Retailers should investigate taking advantage of advanced marketing technology such as location data services to capture real-world consumer data that can be leveraged via mobile marketing.

The benefits of using real-time location data

Many retailers already make use of real-time, in-store location data for in-store engagement, personalization and assistance. Based upon their position relative to a store or even inside it, customers can be notified of timely offers.

This practice of proximity marketing has been around a few years, and is what most marketers think of when talking about location-based targeting. A few retailers are expanding the use cases for location data to also notify their shoppers about video overviews of products near them, as well the opportunity to engage with augmented reality content and games based upon where the shoppers stand in the store.

Gaining competitor audiences with historical location data

There is another use case for location data which is growing to become an important tool in the marketer’s tool belt. By utilizing anonymous and privacy compliant historical location data, retailers are able to build audiences of their most loyal shoppers as well as audiences they hope to win over from competitors. These marketers can see which audiences visit their stores, as well as their competitors, then use this data to encourage additional foot traffic, or even incentive shoppers to shop online at the retailer’s own ecommerce site.

Toys R Us, for example, could find audiences that that have visited their own locations, or competing locations such as GameStop, Target and BestBuy. As shown in the image above, you will see at the top level — the audience that visits electronic stores. In the granular areas, you see audiences that visit GameStop and Best Buy, as two examples. The pins on the map represent the retail locations of GameStop and Best Buy.

This technique also works well for the brands that sit on the shelves inside retail locations. By finding the audiences that visit the retail locations they care about most, they’re able to build campaigns relevant to these specific audiences. The marketers can then target these audiences on social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat using custom audiences.

The importance of privacy and security

Privacy and security is important to all consumers, especially in location marketing, retailers and vendors need to be transparent about the steps they are taking to protect the confidentiality of the data it collects from consumers.

Retailers should only work with location data vendors that following stringent best practices in protecting consumer privacy, which also protects their brand reputation. There are also numerous industry trade groups that help ensure responsible data practices, such as the Network Advertising Initiative (NAI), a leading self-regulatory association dedicated to responsible data collection and its use for digital advertising.

Other associations that focus on industry best practices in privacy and security are Mobile Marketing Association’s Privacy Committee and the Internet Advertising Bureau’s Public Policy Committee.

End goal for driving traffic

The goal for retailers should be to blend the digital and physical measurement which creates new possibilities to improve targeting and customer responsiveness, and drive more traffic, whether that be on foot or online.

For retailers, the use of location–based data can dramatically boost advertising performance and reduce campaign costs. It is a major leap forward in mobile marketing and will be the best way to recapture shoppers regardless of the season.

About the Author: Brian Handly is CEO of Reveal Mobile, which helps advertising agencies, brands, media companies and mobile app publishers leverage location-based audience segments to improve their advertising campaigns and inform their product decisions.