Better Understand Your Customers Through Mall Visit Frequency Data

Frequent mall visitors partake in leisure activities (coffee, desserts, and entertainment) on the same day they go to the mall. Occasional mall visitors focus on errands and specialty shopping for hobbies, gifts, or electronics.

Online shopping is convenient and booming, but that doesn’t mean that all malls are facing decline. The prediction that malls will die out has been debated in recent years, but Coresight Research found that malls have experienced an annual revenue growth rate of 5-9% from 2020 to 2022.

This growth not only benefits the stores within but also significantly impacts the surrounding commercial areas by:

• increasing consumer spending
• improving property value
• stimulating tourist attractions
• fostering expanded property development

A thriving mall means an influx of visitors to surrounding retailers, and an opportunity to capture more local economic activity.

So the question then, is how can marketers capitalize on this growth and capture market share among shoppers?

Digging into the Data: Mall Shopper Experiences

To effectively target the millions of mall visitors every year, it’s important to understand shopper motivations.

For a closer look, we conducted an analysis of mall shoppers from July – September 2023, examining the cross-shopping habits of two groups: frequent and occasional visitors. The frequent group is in the top quartile of visit frequency, while the occasional shoppers make up the remaining portion of visitors.

It became clear that visit frequency was a key differentiator. And investigating the same-day cross-shopping habits of each group allowed us to discover the other locations that these shoppers visit. Pairing visit frequency with cross-shopping metrics produces a strong indicator of consumer behavior and intent:

• Frequent visitors are more likely to indulge in leisurely activities like getting coffee or partaking in entertainment on the same day they go to the mall.
• Occasional visitors, on the other hand, run errands and purchase products including arts and crafts supplies, electronics, and sporting goods.

Cross-Shopping Index: Frequent Visitor to Occasional Visitor

Day-of-week and regional trends provide targeting with even greater pinpoint accuracy for both frequent and occasional mall shoppers:

• Occasional visitors are more likely to visit malls on weekends, giving them ample time to go to the mall and complete their errands
• Eastern and upper Midwest regions of the US have the highest share of frequent shoppers, making these areas ideal targets for cafes, sweet shops, and entertainment.

Understanding these day-of-week and regional metrics can help you determine the best “when” and “where” for reaching your customers.

Supplementary Chart: Share of Frequent Devices per State

Stronger Data-Driven Targeting for More Successful Campaigns

If you’re a marketer, mall traffic deserves your attention.

The visitation growth in recent years presents an opportunity to reach these customers in a variety of ways, and you can better tailor your marketing campaigns by understanding the motivations of mall visitors based on visit frequency and cross-shopping habits.

With various Mall Visitor audiences from Precisely PlaceIQ, you’re able to target those who are more likely to engage in leisure activities, or visitors with a long shopping checklist.

To get even more tactical, use our proximity targeting to reach the right devices when messaging is most relevant, or overlay geographies with our frequent mall visitors, recent mall visitors, and holiday top-spender audiences.

These capabilities help you make better decisions that capture the attention and wallets of mall shoppers today, so you can unlock new possibilities for the future.

To learn more, read our Precisely PlaceIQ Syndicated Audience Handbook and explore real-world audiences to discover new and innovative ways to reach high-value consumers.