The document discusses beacon technology and its potential applications for market research. Beacons are small devices that transmit Bluetooth signals to nearby smartphones, allowing location-based actions like push notifications. They can be used to track customer behavior in stores through foot traffic analysis and trigger post-visit surveys. Example use cases described are implementing satisfaction surveys and queue time tracking at quick service restaurants and matching survey answers to foot traffic patterns across departments in a store.

1. Understanding Beacons
The market research perspective
(c) Squawk Surveys

2. © 2015 Squawk Surveys Inc. USA
Table of contents
Beacons
Why should researchers care
Technical details
Adoption of the technology
Research feasibility
Research applications
Case study
About Squawk Surveys

3. © 2015 Squawk Surveys Inc. USA
Beacons
A beacon is a tiny battery-powered device which
can be fixed to a wall or any physical object. It
transmits a Bluetooth Low Energy signal that
carries the beacon’s unique ID as far as 50 meters.
When a compatible smartphone receives the signal
it derives the distance to the beacon from the signal
strength. The app doesn’t have to be active,
triggering actions can be performed in the
background.
An app can be programmed to trigger a number of
beacon-specific actions upon detecting this signal:
push notifications, position fixes, and so on.
Kontakt.io Smart
Beacon
Estimote Beacons

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Why should researchers care
The two most obvious research applications
of the beacon technology are:
1. In-store footprinting
2. Post-transaction surveys

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Technical details
It takes a smartphone
The functionality of beacon-enabled indoor
location systems may vary depending on the
smartphone hardware and the OS version. It
requires Bluetooth 4.0 and above, which has to
be enabled by the user. The phone needs to be
running iOS 7 or later, or Android 4.4 or later.
Beacon vs GPS
GPS can be very accurate outdoors but
is virtually useless indoors: on the store level,
e.g. in a mall or in the aisle of a store.
Unfortunately, this is precisely where most
interactions happen that have tangible market
research value, at least for brick and mortar
businesses.
It takes an app
In order to receive relevant indoor location data
and push notifications, the phone has to have a
corresponding beacon- enabled app installed.
Range and accuracy
A typical effective transmission range of
a beacon is limited approximately to 50 meters
(150 ft). On the phone side, the algorithms
calculate proximity, rather than exact distance:
far, near (<15 ft. approx.), or immediate (<1-3 ft.
approx.)

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Technical details
Walls and other objects
Physical objects including walls, shelves, and
even human bodies can dramatically impact
beacon signal propagation and, consequently,
beacon proximity readings. Beacon allocation
has to be planned separately for each venue,
depending on the store layout and research
goals. Large stores and malls with complex
layouts may require additional on-site
calibration.
Outdoor usage
Beacons may also make sense in certain
outdoor scenarios, like open air events and
restaurant drive-throughs. A good example to
look at is Touch Beacons from Kontakt.
Battery
Beacons have to be autonomous by design, so
most manufacturers promise years of use on a
single battery. Realistically, you can expect
about a year on one battery, depending on the
battery size and settings.
Security
Although beacons only transmit, not receive
information, they nonetheless bear certain
security risks. For example, they are susceptible
to cloning, facilitating spoofing attacks. To
mitigate these risks, some manufacturers are
developing complex algorithms that enable fleet
wide ID swapping between remotely
configurable beacons.

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Technical details
Installation
While planning indoor beacon coverage may
require certain skills, a deep understanding of
both the technology and the research
objectives, installing them is much easier. All
you need is a plan, a number of beacons, and
some double-sided tape. This is something
regular retail personnel are definitely capable of
figuring out. The beacons should come pre-
configured, with unique IDs set up.
Fleet management
Installation is just the first step of the process.
Since beacons are supposed to help achieve a
wide range of research and marketing
objectives, a need may arise to reconfigure
them by changing their identifying parameters.
There should be a way to track their status,
presence, and battery charge, and there’s no
way all that can be done manually when there’s
a large-scale, distributed system. Certain
beacon suppliers, e.g. Kontakt, offer so called
Cloud Beacons that can be remotely configured
and monitored via WiFi.
Kontakt.io
Cloud Beacon

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Adoption of the technology
If you favourite store or coffeeshop app asks
your permission to be aware of your visits, how
would you react?
An app from your favourite store knows
immediately when you step into the store and
sends you a message with a promo or a
shopping hint. What’s your reaction?
US consumers are wary about being tracked, but they are more willing (60%) to cooperate when the
benefits of stores tracking them are tangible. Full results.
60%

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Research feasibility
You need both and an overlap between them:
1. Potential respondent reach
2. Venue reach
Reach of venues
At $20 to 25 per unit, beacons are affordable and readily available from a
number of vendors. Depending on the venue and research task you will likely
need from 1 to 10 beacons per venue, unless we’re talking about a huge
department store.

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Respondent reach

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Research applications
Post-transaction surveys
Brick and mortar businesses are the most
obvious beneficiaries of the new beacon
technology. Beacons are meant to marry
physical and digital worlds, this is how mobile
research can go really local enabling market
researchers to tie survey data to real world
transactions. Beacons can be used for more
than feedback studies, for example:
• NPS and customer experience studies.
• Purchase occasion based segmentation.
• Customer profile dynamics.
In-store footprinting
The technology gives enough precision to track
events at department, aisle or, to some extent,
even shelf or cashier level. This gives
researchers in-depth understanding of customer
in-store behavior:
• Dwell time.
• In-store footfall pattern analysis
• Queueing time tracking.
Mystery shoppers
If pre-recruited respondents are equipped with a
beacon-enabled app researchers can not only
verify that visits really happened and
automatically track in-store behaviour but also
tie respondent tasks to specific in- store events
thus making visit flow more natural and
improving data quality.

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Case study “Quick service restaurant”
Research objectives
• Track customer satisfaction and queuing time
performance chainwide.
• Better understand customers via transactional
moment-of-experience surveys.
How the respondents are reached
• A QSR branded app.
Beacon allocation plan
• At least one beacon per venue to track visits and
trigger transactional surveys.
• One beacon per entry/exit point (including drive-
through) and per cashier to track queuing time.
Research Scenario
• A short transactional survey (2 to 3 questions on
customer experience, profiling or U&A —
possibly alternating) is triggered immediately
after the visit is completed, and is available for
the next 24 hours. If the survey is not taken, a
reminder is automatically triggered later that day
to increase response rates.
• The sample is targeted by visit frequency
(tracked) and weighted to basic demographics
(asked just once). Frequency capping is in place
so that not to overwhelm the customers.
Results
• Satisfaction and profiling data is updated weekly
and available on an interactive dashboard. U&A
surveys are analysed on an ad-hoc basis.
• Greater sample size is achieved compared to
traditional on the receipt surveys due to higher
response rate. Cost per interview is kept low.

13. © 2015 Squawk Surveys Inc. USA
Case study “Department store”
Research objectives
• Track customer satisfaction performance
chainwide.
• Better understand shopping behaviour by
matching survey answers with real footfall, down
to department level.
Beacon allocation plan
• One beacon per entry/exit point to track visits,
measure dwell time and trigger transactional
surveys.
• One beacon per department to supplement
survey data with granular footfall data.
Research Scenario
• A short 5-10 question long transactional survey
is triggered immediately after the visit is
completed and is available for the next 24 hours.
If not taken a reminder is automatically triggered
in the evening to increase response rates.
Results
• Satisfaction and profiling data is updated weekly
and available on an interactive dashboard. U&A
surveys are analysed on an ad-hoc basis.
• Greater sample size is achieved compared to
traditional on the receipt surveys due to higher
response rate. Cost per interview is kept low.
How the respondents are reached
• A combination of a branded app and a 3rd party
shopping app.

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researchers. It delivers targeted and engaging survey invitations to your
respondents based on their where-when-what context.
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