Passive Wi-Fi visitor analytics and food truck engagement: a feasibility study

Purpose This paper aims to test whether passive Wi-Fi visitor analytics is a useful and effective method to measure consumer engagement towards food trucks located within an outdoor activation area at an Australian metropolitan university. Design/methodology/approach Using passive Wi-Fi visitor analytics to ping and track smart devices, data was collected over 90 weekdays capturing data from 522,548 unique smart devices. Findings The data collected in this feasibility study was able to identify the most and least popular food trucks by displaying the differences in both bounce and engagement rates, suggesting that passive Wi-Fi visitor analytics are feasible and useful in this context. Furthermore, the results also demonstrate that food truck vendors and marketers should not engage in random rotation, but instead remain static to try and increase familiarity. Originality/value Current visitor tracking technology (i.e. ticketed sales, sales data and survey) is limited as it may not provide an accurate measurement of foot traffic, identify engaged patrons who passed by but did not complete a purchase and be available due to commercial sensitivity and confidentiality. Thus, the current research is the first to examine customer engagement (i.e. unengaged walk-by vs engaged but bounced vs engaged sales) with food trucks within an activation area by using passive Wi-Fi visitor analytics.