NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Following years of expectation around beacons and proximity technology, brands are starting to see strong results from their investments. This success is fueling continued strong industry growth of 20% in the last quarter.
These findings and more are shared in Proxbook, the world’s largest proximity directory, which has brought together brands and retailers, including Elle, House of Blue Jeans, Woolworths and Heineken to reveal the full outcomes of proximity marketing campaigns, including previously unreleased figures, for the first time.
Compiled by proximity data aggregator Unacast, which operates the world’s largest network of beacon and proximity data, the Proxbook Q1 2016 report reveals the latest trends, facts and figures from the global proximity industry. Covering over 90% of the global market and data from all major players, this quarter the report also features a focus on retail as the most important vertical in proximity marketing. With little shared information on ROI, it has been challenging for brands and retailers to allocate marketing budget for proximity technology. The Q1 2016 Proxbook Report finally sheds light on the issue through several use cases from around the globe. Insights include:
- One third of the top 50 US retailers plan to invest in major beacon projects this year, deploying over one million beacons between them
- Retailers and PSPs are using proximity solutions, not just for push notifications and offers, but to enhance customer experience, service, efficiency and loyalty
- Nine best in class retail cases (out of a total 100 in Proxbook) span a variety of georgraphies and business challenges. Exclusive findings include:
- Hearst’s Elle Magazine, ShopAdvisor, RetailMeNot and beacon provider Kontakt.io’s high profile ShopNow! Programme drove an estimated $439,950 revenue for participating stores
- Smart mirrors, RFID readers and Kontakt.io beacons working together to suggest complementary clothing resulted in customers trying on 90% more items in House of Blue Jeans
- Prominent New York retailers and shopping app, Notify Nearby, leveraged taste and location to notify shoppers of anything from new lines to special offers when they passed a store stocking their favourite brands, resulting in 52% of passers-by going into store, 28% making a purchase
- London’s luxury retailers achieved 1.5x increase in purchase frequency via beacon-enabled app KNOMI, which based on expressed interest in designers, products, influencers and stores notified shoppers of relevant nearby stores and once in store, of product highlights
- Leading UK shopping centre in Norwich and Proxama mapped consumer behaviour to explain dwindling footfall with beacons. Realising consumers parked for free and shopped elsewhere, they optimised the beacons for engagement resulting in 50% increase in dwell time
Other key findings from the report include:
- Proxbook now includes 293 members from 45 countries up 20% since Q4 2015
- The number of proximity sensors deployed globally has increased 17% to 6,201,000 from 5 103 500. The number of beacons stands at 4,988,500, a number which continues to track ABI Research’s forecast of 8 million beacons deployed by end of 2016 and 400 million by 2020
- A spike in industry growth is expected with the recently launched native support of Google’s Eddystone beacon format on Chrome, liberating proximity interactions from the App by triggering URL’s directly. 80% of smartphones are now passively beacon-enabled and 45% of the industry now supports Eddystone (up from 5% nine months ago)
- The leading six investments into proximity totalled $115.7M and were mainly dedicated to improving data accuracy and location analytics to understand customer behaviour in physical locations
Thomas Walle, Unacast co-founder and CEO said: “Proximity marketing is about to explode. Across our 100 use cases in Proxbook, we are now seeing deployments go straight to commercial launch, skipping the pilot phase. The results they're getting, alongside developments in technology and a maturing industry, are fuelling strong growth."
