Yelp, the company that crowd-sources and publishes consumer reviews about local business, has acquired a Wi-Fi marketing company, Turnstyle Analytics, which provides free Wi-Fi to business to connect with their customers. According to the purchase agreement, Yelp acquired all of Turnstyle’s outstanding capital stock for approximately $20 million.
Yelp states that by acquiring Turnstyle, it will be able to strengthen its position as a leading customer acquisition platform for local businesses, expanding its offering to include simple, effective tools for customer retention and loyalty.
“We’re excited to expand our product offering for local businesses through this acquisition. Turnstyle helps connect businesses to consumers through free public Wi-Fi, and is an effective retention and loyalty program that helps businesses be more successful,” said Jeremy Stoppelman, Co-Founder and CEO, Yelp.
Canada based Turnstyle was founded in 2012 as a location-based marketing and analytics platform that provides Wi-Fi as a digital marketing tool to retain and reward customers. The company currently claims to have nearly 3,500 business locations worldwide.
Post acquisition Turnstyle will help Yelp offer businesses tools harness its guest Wi-Fi as an easy way to keep in touch with customers who visit their locations in order to drive repeat visits and in-store sales.
“Since our founding, Turnstyle has focused on building the best Wi-Fi marketing service to help businesses. This is an exciting opportunity to expand and leverage Yelp’s resources and capabilities; together we’ll be able to help even more local businesses improve their customer retention, driving more repeat business,” said Devon Wright, Co-Founder and CEO, Turnstyle.
Turnstyle’s core technology allows consumers to tap into free guest Wi-Fi while helping businesses re-engage those customers in the future via email. Businesses can build highly targeted customer contact lists and access powerful analytics that provide insight into visit frequency and duration.
Combining this offline data with Yelp’s extensive online and mobile search data will deliver a comprehensive intent-based marketing resource to local businesses.