News

QSR location data use: It's a matter of loyalty

July 5, 2018

More than two-thirds of QSR marketers — 69 percent — plan to increase their use of location data over the next two years, mostly to enhance their loyalty programs, according to research commissioned by location intelligence company, Cuebiq and performed by 451 Research, a news release said.

"Detailed knowledge of competitor interactions and customer behavior provided by location intelligence will drive the next generation of loyalty program," Cuebiq CEO Antonio Tomarchio, said in the release. "Loyalty programs have rarely gone beyond reward points based on purchases. However, knowledge about what other services customers value opens the door to more effective loyalty programs that can vary by locale and merge with co-branding, shopper marketing and other partnership arrangements."

The top reason for using location data was to gain competitive intelligence, cited by 58 percent of the North American QSR marketers and CRM managers. A little less than that — 56 percent —  of QSR marketers said they were already using or evaluating the use of location data, higher than other industry segments, which came in at about 43 percent. Nonetheless, QSR professionals were generally less confident they could successfully measure the overall impact of the location intelligence they obtain than their counterparts in other industries. 

A significant 64 percent of QSR brand respondents said they were starting to create marketing campaigns that actually link online and offline behavior. In fact, 66 percent said their brands had the knowledge and maturity to measure each restaurant location's performance now.

As far as the overall marketing effectiveness of using location-based data, this was a hands-down win, with 69 percent of QSR marketers reporting that location is key to understanding why and how customers interact with businesses. Additionally, 62 percent said they've found location-based data useful for improving marketing performance.

"Being able to quantify desired outcomes (eg. more visits, higher sales per visit, etc.) is one of the key markers of success, especially among brick and mortar businesses like QSR," Tomarchio said.  "Marketers should slowly integrate location intelligence into a single application and expand gracefully. By allowing for the creation of demonstrable results on a smaller scale, it will make it easier for marketers to pull resources in support of programs that use data in more context down the road."