4 Reasons Why WiFi Is The Future Of Location-Based Marketing

GPS data has been a mainstay of digital marketing for years, but it has always had some major drawbacks, and recent privacy changes have made it an even more unreliable source for accurate location-based marketing data. 

Zenreach — the leader in location-based marketing solutions — wanted to share a few ways in which WiFi, and not GPS, is the future of location-based marketing.

Zenreach, the leader in location-based marketing solutions, recently wrote about why WiFi is the future of location-based marketing all in a new whitepaper. Here are some of the highlights:

1. GPS requires users to explicitly give GPS-enabled app permission in order to measure their location. Most people have their phones set to automatically ping nearby WiFi routers, eliminating that need.
2. A quick blip of GPS data can’t tell the difference between someone walking by a restaurant or retail location for a second and someone who is actively there to shop. WiFi allows for “dwell” time measurement to ensure only actual customers are counted.
3. GPS is imprecise, especially in largely urban areas. In dense locations, it can be nearly impossible for GPS to differentiate between one storefront and the place next door, let alone any locations that might be on another floor of a multi-story building. WiFi doesn’t have that problem because the router is located in the location we’re looking to measure.
4. Recent privacy policy changes at Apple and Google will make it even harder for GPS to keep up. These will require customers to opt-in to GPS location data tracking and will reduce cross-app tracking and GPS location-data sharing.

Read Zenreach’s full paper here.