We’ll be on hand to demonstrate our Flow location analytics platform and Connect WiFi marketing technology to show how they can be used in retail marketing. Come meet us at booth N929 to learn more about how Flow and Connect are helping to revolutionize the retail experience for customers and owners.

Connect transforms guest WiFi into a powerful WiFi marketing tool. It allows businesses to monetize their guest WiFi and engage customers at a personal level by offering one-click access to the internet via social accounts and email. In exchange, businesses gain actionable insights about their customers including age, gender, location, interests, and behaviours. It then provides the means to create multi-channel marketing campaigns with email, SMS, and social posts. Businesses can also conduct targeted digital advertising and use the rule-based marketing platform for real-time personalized communication.

Flow is our cloud-based location analytics platform that helps businesses understand the behaviour of their customers. It features easy-to-use interface providing real-time analytics and heatmaps across all venues owned by a business. It allows you to slice and dice metrics across all properties in ways that make sense for businesses. Track key objectives across all locations and obtain complete visibility on shopping behaviour. Visualize first time vs. repeat visitors, customer loyalty, dwell times, walking paths, real-time heatmaps, and the complete conversion funnel. Set and compare the performance of your campaigns.

RECon is the world’s largest global gathering of retail real estate professionals. Leading developers, owners, brokers, and retailers to conduct a year’s worth of business under one roof in the Nevada desert. The convention features three days of deal-making, professional development workshops, networking, ICSC’s Global Awards Ceremony and so much more. Click here to learn more about the convention and register for the event.

The post Come Visit Us at RECon 2019 in Las Vegas: May 19 – 22! appeared first on Aislelabs.

New and Redesigned Way to Login

We have redesigned our login page to enhance the user experience for the thousands of users who log into our platform every month. Our design team is on a mission to make our product look stunning and the new login page has an improved layout with enhanced fields and buttons. We also now allow you to view your passwords while typing and support better error handling. Organizations using IdP providers such as Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure AD, Okta, F5 can instantly sign in using their official account without creating a new identity on Aislelabs platform.

Smart Fill for Missing Data – Visitor Analytics

When you manage hundreds of APs, some are bound to go down, be it a hardware issue on the AP, cabling issue, or internet connectivity to your site. While Aislelabs data ingestion has an up-time greater than 99.99%, issues on the site levels mean there are times with no data. Even if a single day of data for your site is lost it can result in 3% discrepancy in monthly numbers. To solve this, Flow now features a Smart Fill feature. Different filler types such as moving average, same day data or custom mapping use distinct algorithms to make up for the lost visits which are displayed in grey on the charts.

SMS Allowed/Excluded Countries

Running international SMS campaigns for all the users in your CRM can be challenging with different regulations in countries in regards to shortcodes, pre-registered texts, and texts to be sent during business hours. To make it easier, we have added the option to whitelist and blacklist countries. You can now specify which countries the SMS message should or shouldn’t be sent. For example, if you created a dynamic list from your CRM to run a promotional SMS campaign where international visitors are not your target customers, these countries can be filtered out using the blacklist feature.

SMS Campaigns Limit

SMS campaigns now allow you to set a limit to the number of recipients. Smart Coupons already allowed you to run intelligent coupons which prevent abuse and limit one-time use only. If you are running a promotional SMS campaign with smart coupons which is only available to the first 100 users, this is now possible with an easy setting. Users can define the maximum number of messages to be sent along with the number of smart coupons available for redemption. This helps to effectively utilize your integrated marketing communications budget on promotions.

Inline Renaming of Items/Records in your List

Continuously automating your marketing for different sites using campaigns, templates and other components usually leads to a large number of records without a proper naming convention. Inline editing allows our users to directly edit the name field from the table without using a pop-up or a separate form. You can make all the changes while on the same screen where all the records are listed.

Other Features

• In the March update, we changed the format for site & connect reports CSV export to AL_Tabname_datetime.csv where datetime is the date & time of download. Now, we have added the tdids and org ids as well to this format – AL_tab_TDID/ORGID_datetime.csv.
• Updated chart colours and icons on the space occupancy page.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed minor performance issues on the sensor status page.
• Improved error handling for not allowing special characters and spaces in sender email.

The post April 2019 Product Updates appeared first on Aislelabs.

Some of these following tips might be irrelevant to your space. For instance, we cover dressing rooms which clothing retailers and department stores need but other types of brick and mortar retailers won’t have any use for.

Visibility

One key way to reduce inventory losses is to maintain good visibility. We’ve already covered several reasons to have wide aisles but a byproduct of that is it makes it easier for staff to see shoplifters. Low shelves also improves visibility and make sure any temporary displays won’t provide cover for thieves.

Seating

Providing some type of seating outside of dressing rooms for friends who are accompanying shoppers goes a long way. Seating like this is primarily used in clothing stores but it isn’t exclusive. Shoppers get tired from time to time and providing a simple lounge or stools near the checkout enhances the overall customer experience. This is also another great way to slow shoppers down which extends their visit and increases the chances of customers making a purchase.

Dressing Rooms

Dressing rooms for clothing retailers and apparel stores are a must! There’s no getting around this but dressing rooms to take up valuable space, especially when you add in a seating area. Make the most of it by using the dressing room’s exterior walls for accessories, promotional items, and impulse buys– you might get a sale from someone accompanying a shopper! Also, make sure that your changing space meets your local accessibility guidelines.

Checkout

The checkout area is more than just a place to put a cashier. Quite a lot of thought should be put into where it is located and what is around it. For retailers who do not use baskets, having a large counter where shoppers can leave items is essential. Customers with empty hands who aren’t carrying anything are much more likely to pick up even more items. It also comes in handy for an efficient checkout process and space for shoppers to set their personal belongings down.

One of the key concepts we’ve introduced all the way back in part 1 is the right hand turn. Roughly 90% of shoppers will enter a store, turn right, loop around in a counter-clockwise path, and leave on the left side. That means the best place to put your checkout is at the end of that journey on the left side of the entrance since it is part of their natural exit path. Make sure that it’s also a place of high visibility to discourage shoplifting.

Small complementary impulse buy items should be located around the checkout as a shopper waits to pay. The back wall behind the counter is a great place to advertise special promotions. The checkout is the last place to upsell a customer.

Finally, some thought should be put into the back-of-house operations. Inventory, shipping and receiving, and employee workspace or break area needs to be placed somewhere. Having this area located near the checkout and concealed minimizes customer distraction and keeps them focused on shopping.

The next part in this series will cover signage strategies in your space.

The post Customer Paths and Retail Store Layout — Part 8 appeared first on Aislelabs.

We explore the customer acquisition cost along with the return on investment over a five year period with this use case for clothing retailers. You can download the PDF and read along with this guide that explains it all.

Client’s Stores & Visitors

In this use case, we have a chain of 100 stores with 400 guests visiting each store per day. Of those, 1% connect to the guest WiFi at least once. That means the annual number of users acquired would be 146,000 and the total number of users acquired over five years would be 730,000. The cost per user acquisition is $0.890.

Total Cost of Ownership Over Five Years

Now we need to calculate how much the cost of ownership of the Aislelabs Connect platform would be. At $100 per store and a one-time hardware setup cost of $500 per store, the total cost over the 5 year timeframe is $650,000.

Online Purchases

In this use case, 5 email/social campaign run each and every month. The campaigns’ average open rate is 1% with a conversion rate (ie. the percentage of users who shopped online after opening the email) of 1%. At an average purchase of $50 the estimated annual revenue of offline purchases is $219,000*.

In-Store Purchases

In this use case, 1 email or social campaign for an in-store purchase is run each and every month. The campaigns’ average open rate is 15% with a conversion rate (ie. the percentage of users who visited the store after opening the email) of 1%. At an average purchase of $50 the estimated annual revenue of offline purchases is $657,000*.

Purchase Influenced by Positive Reviews

Along with running digital campaigns for in-store purchase, an ongoing campaign encouraging positive reviews is also run. With 1% of visitors viewing the positive review per year influencing 0.5% of new customers that viewed the review we reach an estimated annual review of $182,500* with an average purchase of $50 per customer.

Results

The time to break-even would be about 11 months with an approximate number of users acquired to be about 125,000. The estimated annual revenue is $1,058,500* with an estimated total revenue of $5,292,500 over five years giving you a return on investment (ROI) of 714.23%.

*After five years

The post WiFi Customer Acquisition Cost for Clothing Chains appeared first on Aislelabs.

The United States government passed the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2018 requiring all airports to have real-time security checkpoint wait times displayed. We at Aislelabs can assist airports achieve these goals using the Aislelabs Flow product. Flow utilizes the existing wireless infrastructure to deliver such metrics and no new hardware installation is required at the airport.

With Flow, airports can obtain lead curves and real time wait times for both arriving and departing passengers for every checkpoint including security, immigration, customs, and check-in areas. Not only does this satisfy the requirements of the FAA Reauthorization act, but it assists airports plan resources based on actual demand, streamline operations to reduce delays, and increase on-time flight performance.

The Aislelabs solution goes beyond just fulfilling the requirements of the Act. Airports using Flow are able to analyze the entire journey of the passengers from curb-to-gate and vice versa visualizing passenger flow analytics across the entire terminals. Thus terminal wide passenger flow intelligence is delivered in real time utilizing the existing WiFi infrastructure without the need for additional hardware and capital expenses.

Using a powerful prediction engine, Aislelabs Flow forecasts future delays and passenger arrival curves based on current operations, real-time flight schedule, and external conditions like weather and traffic. In addition it easily delivers alerts regarding unexpected events.

The analytics provide complete visibility in the passenger journey, uncover inefficiencies as well as boost retail sales by reducing delays and increase dwell time in duty free and retail areas. Insights can be shared with airport retail partners and retail KPIs and metrics are provided by retail category, travel destination, and airline.

The post Aislelabs Helps Airports Fulfill FAA Reauthorization Act of 2018 Requirements appeared first on Aislelabs.

As our solutions become more robust, it becomes very important to make sure that data is easily understandable and our users have a streamlined experience. We are adding a fresh coat of paint to our enterprise-grade solutions.

A Delightful Experience

Aislelabs has been building new features and tools into our platform from when we started more than 5 years ago. Over this period, we have received an incredible amount of user feedback from our customers, across industries located around the world. Since then, with every monthly product release, we have added new charts, graphs, and metrics to analyze visitor behaviour.

While some clients appreciate the ability to use the solution to get a bird’s eye view of their business, many others rely on the granular data that they can slice and dice with a deep dive. Meticulously designed to be user friendly and easy to understand, the platform none-the-less, must rise to the challenge of serving both needs.

This means the design guidelines set when the product was released quickly became outdated after a few release cycles. As engineers worked on customer feedback and added new tools or metrics, they took the creative liberty to design the look and feel of how information was displayed. With functionality working as the foundation for each new feature, we could easily solve and deploy the solution, quickly shipping it to our clients.

As we continued to evolve our design guidelines, engineering updates always outpaced it. It was about time for a top-down rethink of the design to remove clutter and reorganize what we had built. Since our core design UI sensibility still remains the same, this is more of a “spring cleaning” to tackle design inconsistencies that have cropped up over the years.

Charting a Better Course

An example of this are charts which is a key way to visualize data for analysis. However, if one type of chart is too often used it can look monotonous and risk confusing the user. On the flip side, by using too many different types of graphs and charts, you risk confusing the user and creating too heavy of a cognitive load.

Compounding all of this is by having so many reports and features, the iconography and terminology also needs to be easily understood and focused. As we continue to upgrade our products, our design team has been hard at work refining these experiences.

The Three Elements

To delight our users and create an exceptional experience using Aislelabs products, we’ve put a lot of time and thought into standardizing elements of the platform. To that effect, we’ve identified three key aspects to focus on: colour, terminology, and iconography.

Colour

Colour plays an important role in making our user interface more intuitive. By sensibly using colour in key areas we can draw user attention to specific sections of the UI and have it reflect different information.

The Aislelabs UI has many metrics that this update standardizes into colours for each. For example, Visits and Dwell are two key metrics that have been standardized with mint green always representing Visits and blue for Dwell time. This means, the user can simply look at the color and understand what metric the chart is for without having to read the label. The end goal is to have this consistency carry over to all 80+ reports, so each metric has its own unique color consistently displayed across reports.

For example, let’s say a user accidentally clicked through to the space dwell report (indicated in dark teal) instead of site dwell (indicated in blue) which the user typically looks at. The user won’t have to know that site dwell is indicated with blue, but because they are used to seeing that colour for graphs and charts, having them in dark teal will look “wrong” and give them a gentle mental clue they are not on the right page.

These changes also add a splash of colour without overwhelming the user. This helps ensure that each report is visually appealing without being monochromatic or garish.

Labels & Taxonomy

The amount of terms used by Aislelabs has been consolidated and standardized. To combat using different terminology for each report, the language used in the Aislelabs solution has been made more consistent.

Another issue for terminology we’ve encountered has been establishing the difference between how our products deal with related but different terminology. For example, Aislelabs Flow detects anonymized data whereas Aislelabs Connect links an identity with each visit. While both deal with visitors in a given space, how the data is treated and what can be done with it is very different and should not be confused. In this case, each unique anonymized visit is just called a Visit in Flow. Whereas if the same visitor also connects to the WiFi, Aislelabs Connect refers to it as a Connected Visit. Visits and Connected Visits are similar but have different metrics, so we chose related colours mint green and dark green to represent them, respectively, in the UI.

We have streamlined the glossary of terms used throughout the platform. For example, in different reports we have previously used the terms Visits, Total Visits, and Site Visits interchangeably. Since all three terms describe the same thing, they have been truncated to just the term Visits across the platform. This glossary is now a standard element and there will be no deviation from it.

Icons

Aislelabs’ iconography has received updates as well with the biggest change coming in the form of the colour palette. Each icon is using greytone as a base but with a splash of bold colour to help denote what the icon is describing as we’ve laid out earlier.

The colour that denotes Unique Visitor is red, for example, so the icon used is a single person with a red shadow underneath. Likewise, blue is used for Site Dwell so the clock icon uses blue hour and minute hands.

Bringing it All Together

Using colour, icons, and labels we can demonstrate the updates we have made to the platform in action. Below (left) we have a screenshot of the old user interface which was thoughtfully crafted and easy to use. Crucial aspects stand out such as date, people filters, and call to actions. However, equal priority was given to all sections by showing similar kinds of graphs or charts that made it difficult for users to make sense of the data.

On the right, the refreshed design including single colours for each element indicating where the user should focus. Along with standardized colours, matching icons creates a cohesive whole and provides a pleasurable experience for users.

How We Keep Up

New features are constantly ideated in-house or from client feedback which are then given to our developers to build. Because updating the Aislelabs solution with new features and reports is ongoing, keeping the entire team aboard becomes a challenge.

To keep consistency, Aislelabs uses a built in style guide for our developers as a resource which they can consult while they build new exciting features our clients ask for. From here, the developers can reference the guide for colours, icons, and style all while keeping the overall look consistent. Included in this guide are icons, terminology, the types of charts or graphs used for specific metrics and more.

The guide is periodically updated as new icons and designs are refreshed by our designers who regularly hold meetings with our development team. Rather than introduce each new update piecemeal, several new design elements are worked on and then revised every few weeks on the platform. This is to keep the entire team appraised of new design updates without bogging them down with every small change.

More to Come

The Aislelabs solution is constantly changing, improving, and being refined. It is more of a living organism that evolves with changing technology and user needs. We’ve planned more changes due in the summer and cannot wait to introduce you to them!

The post Bringing New Style and Design Updates to Our Products appeared first on Aislelabs.

Aislelabs is located at booth 8040 on the expo floor. Come talk to us about our Flow location analytics platform and how it can revolutionize airports with passenger flow analytics. Flow works with your existing infrastructure so it’s easy to install. We also offer a social WiFi product for guest WiFi that gives you insights into your passenger demographics. Exhibition entry is free to any and all airline and airport industry people.

Aislelabs Flow can deploy an end-to-end passenger flow analysis and predictive intelligence platforms enabling analysis across the entire airport utilizing the existing WiFi infrastructure. We can demonstrate an overview of the deployments, key functions and operational intelligence gained. One unique feature of the technology is the ability to provide predictions regarding passenger volumes and flow, correlating information collected with FIDS and other operational data. This enables airports to operate in a predictive manner, anticipating volumes and delays and scheduling personnel suitably to handle such delays. The talk will highlight key learnings to date and the way forward.

We hope to see you there to discuss the future of airline travel and airports!

The post Passenger Terminal Expo in London Is Live! Come Visit Aislelabs! appeared first on Aislelabs.

A Fresh Coat of Paint – Enhanced User Experience/UI

Our design team has refined the user experience across our platform by removing the clutter and minimizing cognitive load through the use of new colours, labels, and icons. Read more about our design journey here.

User List Split – A/B Testing Email Campaigns

Every marketer faces the challenge to run the most engaging email possible. Being aware of what works is key to successful marketing campaigns. With the introduction of the split user list, you can now pinpoint which version of your email campaign is most effective. A/B testing will help you answer questions such as which day of the week or time of the day has better click rates? Does personalization by including a customer’s first name in the email subject line results in a higher open rate? What kind of content resonates with the different segments of your audience?

CRM – Dynamic User List for Personalized Engagement

You can already create audience lists for your marketing campaigns based on a user’s behaviour and demographics. We are now introducing Dynamic Lists, which always stay up-to-date with your audience profile to save you time, so you can focus on getting your message out there.

For example, you can now create a dynamic list with an audience profile of males aged 20-35 who have visited your store more than once in the past 90 days. Every new user acquired who matches this criteria will be automatically added to the list. Similarly, users who did not visit more than once in the last 90 days will be automatically removed. Therefore, when you run a campaign, you can just use this list without having to manually update it every time.

You can create as many dynamic lists as you like, giving you all the power you need to hyper-target your messages to relevant audiences. Dynamic lists can be used for email campaigns, SMS marketing, online advertising, smart coupons, and surveys.

Send Test Email Campaigns

Aislelabs customers send tens of millions of emails per month. When you send these many emails, you want to be absolutely certain that everything is set up correctly.

While we always had a test email feature allowing you to test the contents of any email, you can now also test run the entire campaign. This means all campaign attributes such as sender name and subject are also tested so you can have peace of mind before you send your next million emails.

Weekly CRM Reports

Last month we improved the reporting on Your CRM by adding CRM trends. Now, you can get these delivered right to your inbox. If you are on the go, no more logging in the dashboard is required to see your CRM grow – we will let you know the key stats every week.

The report communicates the unique/new user devices acquired, top 5 sites of the week, and active email campaigns. You also have the option to select recipients, a day of the week, the time, and the timezone of when you want the report to be delivered. The metrics in the report help you assess the performance of different sites in your organization.

Enhanced Visit Behaviour Filter

Categorizing your audience based on their visit frequency to your site is the core of a successful marketing strategy. Current filters only allowed you to filter individuals who visited a specific number of times. Enhanced visit filters on all marketing pages now accept a range of values for the number of visits instead of an absolute visit number. For example, enticing all your customers who visited more than once but less than three times with a promotion is now possible with the new filter range.

Expanded Metrics on Historical Report

We have added the engaged/bounced visits and unique visitor metrics for spaces and areas in the Historical report. These charts were already available in the site reports. You can uncover actionable insights by evaluating the engaged/bounced dwell in distinct spaces or areas. Moreover, the engage/bounced threshold is configurable giving you the flexibility to identify unique traits of your visitors.

Other Features

• Self-serve user creation now supports IDP providers. Organizations using Okta, Google Oauth or Azure AD can now invite new users using the Identity Provider field on Users & Access Management page.
• SMS logs now display the number of SMS completed along with total, pending and sent.
• All site reports’ CSV exports have got a new name format – which includes the name of the report page you are on and the time when you download it. For example, AL_SITEVISITREPORT_2019Mar18-130653. This means when you are saving those CSVs for analysis, they are neatly organized in your Downloads folder and you need not manually rename them for every download.
• Last month we enhanced our show/hide archive capabilities with a new icon. Now we have separated disabled and archived into different statuses on supported pages. Thus, you can disable any campaign or a template without having to archive it.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed the clear button on network filters on demographics page.
• Users will not be allowed to run SMS campaigns if they do not have the provider/number settings configured in organization settings.

The post March 2019 Product Updates appeared first on Aislelabs.

The Challenges with Marketing Associates

Marketing associates focus on adding value to your customers. They take away all segmentation troubles, help you know your customers, progressively update customer information, run marketing communications, and track key customer metrics. They make sure that customers and touchpoints are never forgotten. Therefore, the challenges are very clear: there are too many tasks for a single person to undertake and requires a marketing team to get them done. For retailers, this is an expensive proposition.

The World’s Finest Marketing Associate

Let’s use an example of a single customer journey, conceptualizing what the finest marketing associate in the world could do for them. After a customer enters into your retail location, the marketing associate would brief you about the customer: when, where and how long your last interaction was, along with their interests and preferences. Your customers will love the fact that you remembered all the minute details from the last interaction and are pleasantly surprised with the personalization. In short, you will have made them feel special.

After the purchase, your marketing associate prompts the customer to share their experience and overall satisfaction with your products. When possible, your marketing associate automates various touch points for you through digital and social channels to uncover insights about what your customers would like or respond to. Every morning and at the end of the day, your marketing associate shares reports on newly acquired customers acquired as well as customers who have returned and have been re-activated.

Over the next few months, your marketing associate keeps your customers informed about upcoming events and promotions at your retail location. They’ll also proactively wish your customers the best on special occasions such as birthdays and share educational content tailored to them.

Now, I want you to reread the above three paragraphs and replace the word “marketing associate” with the word “Aislelabs.” This is what we are doing at Aislelabs with WiFi marketing. We allow retailers to create deep, lasting relationships and connections with their customers who will return again and again.

The post Retail Marketing: Reimagined appeared first on Aislelabs.

We are pleased to announce a new migration program to our Connect and Flow platforms from the Euclid ecosystem. Aislelabs, as the leader in enterprise grade WiFi marketing and location analytics, offers an easy-to-use, cloud-based platform with real-time analytics and reports.

We are offering all Euclid customers a free consultation to develop a migration plan. We’ll waive the setup fees for any enterprise Euclid customer when you transfer. With the Aislelabs enterprise-grade suite of products, Euclid customers will be able to easily migrate to the necessary replacement solutions with access to a dedicated Aislelabs transition team at no cost.

All Aislelabs products will be accompanied with account management and a dedicated support team to assist with and configure solutions free of charge. This enables Aislelabs to tailor our solution to your unique needs. Competitive pricing options are also available as well.

Connect allows users to engage customers at a personal level by offering guest WiFi access by logging in via Facebook, Twitter, email and other popular social sites. Once customers sign in, customers gain actionable insights including age, gender, location, interests, and behaviour. With this information clients can create highly-targeted, multi-channel campaigns through email, SMS, and social posts and more.

Flow provides actionable insights on visitors inside and outside client locations and venues. Visualize first time vs. repeat visitors, customer loyalty, dwell times, walking paths, real-time heatmaps, and the complete conversion funnel. Set and compare the performance of your campaigns. Slice and dice metrics across your properties in ways that make sense for your business. Track key objectives across all locations and obtain complete visibility on shopping behaviour. Contact us too learn more.

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