Using a Captive Portal with your UniFi Guest WiFi Network for Marketing Data Collection
Are you looking for a way to improve your guests' WiFi experience while collecting valuable customer data, such as email addresses and mobile phone numbers, for marketing purposes? Consider using a guest captive portal!
In this post, we'll explain what a guest captive portal is, what features it should have, and why you should integrate it with other platforms to maximize the use of your data.
What is a Captive Portal?
A captive portal, also known as a guest portal, is a web page that your guests see when they connect to your WiFi network. It can be used to present a welcome message, the terms of service, your privacy notice, marketing messages, or redirect guests to a specific page on your website.
It can also require your guests to log in using a social media account or by completing a registration form where they enter information such as:
name
email address
mobile phone number
birth date (for an age check)
The registration form can be configured to contain multiple custom fields to capture the specific information you require.
What Makes a Good Captive Portal?
A good captive portal should be easy to integrate with your WiFi network and other platforms, taking only a few minutes to set up and manage. For a great user experience, it should also offer different ways to log in, like a registration form or social media logins. It should also have clear instructions for the user and a design that matches your brand.
Because you are handling personal information, the captive portal should also offer features to comply with privacy laws like GDPR and CCPA when needed.
Lastly, your captive portal should validate the data provided by your users and verify it when needed. This makes sure that the information you collect is correct and can be used for marketing activities in the future, no matter what application you use.
Integration is Key
Flexibility is essential for a captive portal to be effective and deliver value.
Store and Manage the collected data in the application of your choice
Using our captive portal, you can easily connect to other platforms to get the most out of the collected data by using our integration features. These allow you to integrate with email marketing platforms such as Mailchimp, HubSpot, SendGrid, Constant Contact, Salesforce, or your own preferred solution.
Custom Connectors
If you have a specific application that isn't supported by the above-mentioned providers, you can create a custom "connector." We've already built specific connectors for a number of email marketing platforms, including SendGrid, Tripolis (Webpower), Commerce7, and Mailjet.
Commerce7, for example, is a commerce platform specifically developed for wineries. Our integration with Commerce7 automatically adds new guests to the customer database after they've connected to the guest WiFi network, making the checkout process at the cash register as smooth as possible.
The source code for these example "connectors", is available free of charge.
How to Use Collected Data in Marketing Campaigns
It is recommended to make sure you ask for the user's permission before sending them promotional messages. Our solution offers an opt-in/opt-out option for this.
Once you have permission, you can use the information you collected through the captive portal to make your marketing messages and special offers more relevant.
Promotions for loyal customers
Based on the date and time of the user's first visit and the number of their return visits, you can send personalized messages offering rewards to your loyal customers.
Other potential uses are:
offer incentives in exchange for referrals;
send a message to your customers on their birth date;
Leveraging the collected data can help increase revenue and improve customer engagement. After all, repeat customers are extremely valuable and important to retain.
Privacy concerns?
With the right tools and practices in place, you can also ensure that you comply with any applicable privacy regulations.
Our application can be configured to require users to approve the terms of service and the privacy notice. You can also request marketing consent through the captive portal, if needed.
For companies in the EU, our captive portal has a number of extra features that help them comply with GDPR. Please contact us for further details on these GDPR compliance features.
Why Use the Art of WiFi Captive Portal for your UniFi network?
Using our captive portal solution can help you create a great user experience for your guests while also collecting valuable customer data for marketing purposes.
With our customizable registration form, you can ask your customers for specific information that is useful for your marketing campaigns.
Our captive portal can integrate with almost any email marketing solution, ensuring your customer data is always accurate and current.
In conclusion, we hope that this post has given you a better understanding of our captive portal solution, its value for your marketing campaigns, and how it integrates with other platforms.
If you have any questions or need further assistance, please feel free to reach out to us.