Location data can be a powerful tool for measuring the impact of events (grand openings, festivals, customer appreciation events) or changes to a shopping center (renovations, redevelopments). By looking at visitation data before and after the event, dwell time, hourly visits, as well as trade areas, analyze how visitor behavior is influenced.

You’ll be able to answer these questions after reading this article:

1. How do you analyze traffic metrics to gauge the success of an event or change?
2. How do you evaluate the differences between regular visitors and visitors who specifically attended a large event?
3. How can you see if visitors to an event traveled from further away?

Get started with the following steps:

Step 1: Check for quick changes in visits

a. In this example, a center was redeveloped in December 2018. Open the Placer report for the POI^{Point (Location) of Interest.}. Adjust the report dates to encompass the time before and after the relevant event. This example looks at a year before and a year after the redevelopment. The Visits Trend chart clearly shows an increase in traffic following the redevelopment. Pre-renovation traffic was consistently below 100K visits per month, and since the redevelopment, it has not dipped below 100K per month. 

b. For measuring event impact, look at a smaller time frame. Black Friday events are great examples. In this example, we’ve used a 2-week report to clearly see the increase in visits on Black Friday in 2021. The Visits Trend chart clearly shows a great spike in traffic on Friday, November 26, 2021.

Learn about Foot Traffic Metrics

‍Step 2: Use Quick Compare to evaluate differences in draw for events or pre-and post-center changes 

This feature allows you to view the same POI side-by-side, with different filters in place. In this example, you can evaluate the differences between Mall of Georgia’s regular visitors and the visitors who specifically attended a large holiday event.

a. Open the Placer report for the POI, navigate to the three dots in the POI header bar, and click Quick Comparison. Immediately click Go to Report before adjusting any filters - this will open the same POI side-by-side.

b. From your new report view, click Add Filters. Choose Filter per Venue on the right and then choose the custom ranges you want to use. This example shows a normal weekend in November compared to Black Friday weekend. Choose Apply at the bottom of the section.

c. Using various sections in the platform, you can see that Visits and Dwell Time^{Indicates the amount of time, in minutes, that visitors spent at a venue in a given time frame.} increased on Black Friday weekend (Metrics), and Black Friday weekend shoppers were present much earlier and later in the day (Hourly Visits).

Learn about Quick Compare

d. Navigate to Trade Area^{Representation of the dispersion of home and work locations that drive traffic to any venue.} on the left sidebar and scroll to Trade Area Coverage by Distance. Change the metric to Visits and you’ll see that more visits from further away occurred on Black Friday weekend.

e. Navigate to the Demographics page and under Audience Profile, add the second set of dates to make a comparison. The information on the map further supports the fact that holiday weekend shoppers came from a much larger and denser trade area.

Learn about Trade Area Coverage by Distance

Pro Tip: Customers with the Events expansion feature add-on can gain insights into sports games, conferences, festivals, and other events taking place around a property of interest. The new widget includes an interactive map showing historical events dating back to 2017, along with upcoming events scheduled for the next 12 months.

Step 3: For those who have added the Events expansion feature, contextualize visitation trends and fluctuations in foot traffic

a. Navigate to Area Analysis in the left sidebar and scroll to Events. Choose your time period and the distance from the property. Filter for the events you want to analyze and click on the map icons to see more information about each event.

b. Scroll down to see a summary of all the events that took place around your POI according to your parameters.