Introduction¶
At Pointr, our analytics transcend conventional reporting tools. We aspire to provide you with more than a mere overview of your customers’ activities – our goal is to empower you with a profound understanding of their thoughts. We aim to equip you with the capability to harness this invaluable information, fostering a data-driven approach to both customer interactions and development strategies. Our platform is designed to facilitate your business growth by seamlessly integrating insights into your operations.
We are focusing our analytics journey around the concept of “Events” which we define as anything a customer may be doing such as performing a search, wayfinding or just casually browsing a map. These events tell us where a customer went, what they did but more importantly it tells us how they got to where they wanted to be
Knowing where a customer went or what POI they interacted with is good information but learning what intent the customer had before getting there is GREAT information because this is where it becomes actionable information.
Let us consider for a moment:
- A customer walks into your site
- The customer pulls up your app and starts searching for clothing
- The customer started wayfinding
- The customer ends up visiting a bunch of clothing stores
- The customer searches for “pizza”
- The customer goes on to have dinner at an Indian restaurant
What can we gain from this?
- Information on what the customer searched for
- Information on where the customer went*
- The time they spent doing what they were doing
- We know that the customer’s intent was to shop for clothes
- We know the customer fulfilled what they wanted to originally do
- We know what the customer wanted to eat
- We also know the customer went on to eat
What can we act on?
- Because we know where the customer performed the search: maybe the signposting could be improved in that area?
- Because we know the customer used wayfinding: maybe the layout was too confusing?
- Because we know the customer also went on to eat: maybe we consider where the food court would be compared to types of shops?
- Because we know the customer did not find somewhere for pizza: maybe if this is a common occurrence then your site is missing somewhere for people to get pizza
*Subject to location permissions and app usage
Available Events¶
Category | Data | Express/Mobile SDK | Web SDK |
---|---|---|---|
Usage Analytics | Unique Devices Sessions Language | ✅ 8.9 ✅ 8.9 ✅ 8.9 | ✅ 8.6 ✅ 8.6 ✅ 8.6 |
Search Analytics | Search History Successful Searches Unsuccessful Searches | ✅ 8.10 ✅ 8.10 ✅ 8.10 | ✅ 8.7 ✅ 8.7 ✅ 8.7 |
POI Analytics | POI Interacted How the user found the POI Where the user was when they interacted with the POI | ✅ 8.9 ✅ 8.9 ✅ 8.9 | ✅ 8.6 ✅ 8.6 ✅ 8.6 |
Map Interaction Analytics | Display Map Time Spent interacting with the map Interaction with Quick Directory | ✅ 8.9 ✅ 8.9 ✅ 8.10 | ✅ 8.6 ✅ 8.6 ✅ 8.7 |
Wayfinding Analytics | Type of wayfinding Time spent wayfinding Popular destinations Popular starting points Time spent | ✅ 8.10 ✅ 8.10 ✅ 8.10 ✅ 8.10 ✅ 8.10 | - - ✅ 8.7 ✅ 8.7 ✅ 8.7 |
App Download Analytics | Downloads from banners Dismissed banners | ✅ 8.10 ✅ 8.10 | - - |
What does the future of analytics look like for us?¶
Base Data¶
The following base parameters apply to each analytics event that is captured:
- | Pointr Mobile SDK | Pointr Web SDK | Description |
---|---|---|---|
Device ID | ✅ Device-specific | ✅ Browser-specific | A device-specific ID* is saved |
Session ID | ✅ | ✅ | A session-specific ID** is saved |
Platform | ✅ | ✅ | Mobile/Web/Express |
Client ID | ✅ | ✅ | A Client Identifier |
User Agent | ✅ | ✅ | More detailed platform information with SDK Version |
App ID | ✅ | ✅ | The Application ID information |
Phone Make | ✅ | N/A | Make of the phone used |
Phone Model | ✅ | N/A | Model of the phone used |
OS Version | ✅ | N/A | OS of the phone used |
Base URL | ✅ | ✅ | The URL the visitor has accessed the SDK via |
Country | ✅ | ✅ | Country of the device |
Language | ✅ | ✅ | Language of the device |
Current Location | ✅ Site* Building* Level* Lon Lat Location Type | N/A | Location information of the visitor *Building information only available on bluetooth |
Timestamp | ✅ Timestamp of event | ✅ Timestamp of event | When the event occurred based on device time |
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See section “Device ID explained” for further information.
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See section “Session ID explained” for further information.
Device ID explained¶
Pointr respects data privacy and as such, all device IDs are anonymous by design. Developers are able to couple our unique and anonymous device IDs with existing user IDs on their end (eg. “email”, “loyalty number”) to know the actual user. However, Pointr does not have access to this information.
- | Pointr Mobile SDK (iOS) | Pointr Mobile SDK (Android) | Pointr Web SDK |
---|---|---|---|
How is it generated | identifierForVendor https://developer.apple.com/documentation/uikit/uidevice/1620059-identifierforvendor | (Google API) Note: For devices where this is not supported, Pointr generates a globally unique ID upon SDK initialization. | Generated on the fly using Javascript’s built-in crypto library https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Glossary/UUID |
How does it get reset | - New device - Clearing App Data - Reinstalling App | - New device - Clearing App Data - Reinstalling App | - Changing Browser - Clearing browsing data - Incognito mode |
Format | 16 character GUID | 16 character GUID | 16 character GUID |
Session ID explained¶
Tracking and defining Sessions is an important part of usage analytics and at Pointr we have put significant thought into how we approach this.
- | Pointr Mobile SDK | Pointr Web SDK | Pointr Express |
---|---|---|---|
When does a new session Start | - Closing the app - Background app with no activity for 30 minutes* | - Closing the browser No Activity for 30 seconds* (This was set as the default configuration to cater for Kiosks which can have a rapid turnover of users) | - Closing the app - Background app with no activity for 30 minutes* |
*Configurable