iBeacons in grocery stores leading to more engaged customers

It turns out that getting iBeacon-triggered notifications really does help to increase user engagement. That's the judgement of inMarket, a firm that's been installing iBeacons in grocery stores across the nation. The iBeacons, set to trigger notifications on nearby devices with specific apps installed (including inMarket partners like Epicurious), have led to a 19-fold increase in "interactions with advertised products."

"We now have proof that consumers appreciate this value in a measurable way: They're more likely to keep apps that use beacon messaging, and they're more likely to interact with advertised products in-store thanks to beacons."

inMarket also claims that app usage increased by over 16 times when notifications were received (not much of a surprise), and that iBeacon notifications made a user "6.4x more likely to keep an app on their phone".

So the next time you're walking down the baking ingredients aisle and just happen to get a notification from Epicurious about their most popular pie recipes, it might not be serendipity — it' could be iBeacons. Question is, though, does such targeted advertising reaching straight into your pocket or purse border on boundaries you're not comfortable with?

Source: 9to5Mac