How WiFi marketing works, step by step

The loop in one picture

1. Connect

It starts with a phone. A guest at a corner table joins the network called Harbour Guest. The access point accepts the connection, but the controller holds the phone back and sends it to the login page instead of the internet. If you want the detail of that redirect, read what a captive portal is.

For VoqadoWiFi, the network has to be TP-Link Omada or Ubiquiti UniFi. Those are the only two vendors that work, and there is no VoqadoWiFi hardware. The venue pastes the portal address into its controller once, and every guest who joins from then on sees the login.

2. Sign in and consent

The login page carries the venue’s name and asks for an email and a first name. The venue can switch on a last name, a phone number or a birthday (month and day), and can put an age gate in front of the form if it serves alcohol or hookah.

On the explicit consent form, the default for venues created from now on, then come two separate boxes. One accepts the WiFi terms; the guest needs it to get online. The other starts unticked and reads “Email me offers and news from” the venue. A line underneath says the venue may send one message about this visit, for example a request for a review.

Each choice is stored with the exact wording the guest saw, a version number for that wording, the time and where it came from, in a log that is only ever added to. When the guest taps the button, VoqadoWiFi asks the controller to let that device on, and the guest is online.

3. The guest list

The guest now appears in the venue’s guest list with the permission they gave. The list is searchable and exports as CSV on every plan, including the free one.

Visits sort guests into simple groups: New after one visit, Returning after two, Regular after five and VIP after ten. That is what lets a venue write to its regulars without writing to everyone who ever passed through. On the Growth plan each guest also has a profile with visit history, and the list can sync to Mailchimp, where only guests who said yes to marketing are added, tagged by venue.

4. The review request

This is usually the first message a guest receives, and for most venues the one that matters most. By default it is an email sent 3 hours after the guest connects, and never between 21:00 and 09:00 venue time. A venue can change that delay. For a breakfast café 3 hours may land after the guest is back at work; for a long dinner it may arrive while dessert is on the table.

• It goes only to guests who gave email consent at the login.
• Every rating sees the same public review destinations in the same order, Google first. Nobody is filtered away from the public link because they gave a low score.
• A private note to the venue sits underneath for every rating, in addition to the public options.
• A rating is recorded only when the guest taps Send or a destination, never just because the page loaded.
• No guest gets more than one request per venue in 90 days, and none if they rated the venue in the last 180 days.

For timing and wording, see the post visit email templates.

5. Follow up after the visit

After the review request come the messages that bring people back. VoqadoWiFi plans several kinds, each with its own moment:

• Thank you after a first visit, within 48 hours.
• Review reminder three to seven days after a request that went unused.
• Return messages when the last visit was 30 to 45 days ago, or 60 to 75.
• Birthday and anniversary on the venue’s local date, from 09:00.
• Campaigns the venue writes itself, such as a new menu or a live music night.

When several are due at once, one wins: the review request first, then birthday and anniversary, then campaigns, then the rest. Limits apply across everything: at most one message per guest per venue in 7 days and four in 30 days, and return emails at most once in 90 days. A venue can make these stricter, never looser. Anything due between 21:00 and 09:00 venue time waits until morning rather than being dropped.

Every email links to a page where the guest can stop messages from that venue with one tap, unsubscribe from every venue of that business, or ask for their data to be deleted.

The honest status: campaign sending is rolling out. It is being switched on account by account while the sending domain is verified, and drafts and schedules save today. If you need email flowing this week, export the CSV or use the Mailchimp sync on Growth.

6. The return visit

Three weeks later the same guest walks back in. Within the auto login period, 30 days unless the venue changes it, a recognised device goes straight back online without the form. A returning guest who does see the login gets a welcome back card instead of the same form, and that card never records consent again.

The visit counts. Two visits make a Returning guest, five a Regular. One caveat: many phones now use a private WiFi address, which changes what the controller sees and so can affect whether a device is recognised next time. The login still works; the guest may simply be asked to sign in again.

7. Measure what came back

The VoqadoWiFi dashboard shows WiFi logins, new and returning guests and marketing opt ins for each venue over time, with a comparison across locations for groups. Those are different numbers and worth keeping apart: a login is a device, a guest is a person who signed in, and an opt in is a person who said yes.

Worked example with assumed numbers, not measured VoqadoWiFi results: 600 guests sign in at a café for the first time in a month, and 180 of them tick the email box. Its marketing list grew by 180, an opt in share of 30 percent. If 40 of those 180 come back within 45 days, that is a return rate of about 22 percent among guests it can reach. Compare that to the same window before you started sending, not to a figure from another venue.

VoqadoWiFi has no POS or hotel PMS integration, so it cannot tell you what a returning guest spent. It can tell you that they came back.

Where the loop usually breaks

The login never appears

If phones join and nothing opens, nobody reaches step two. This is almost always a controller setting, such as an extra entry in the walled garden. The troubleshooting pages go through each symptom on Omada and UniFi.

The form asks for too much

Every extra field is one more reason for a guest with cold coffee to give up and use mobile data. Start with email and first name, and add a field only when a message depends on it. The guest data guide goes field by field.

The first message is a discount blast

A guest who ticked a box at lunch expects to hear about that lunch. A review request or a thank you is a natural first message; a generic offer to everyone on the list is not. Keep promotions for the guests who chose them, and let the limits do their job.

Questions

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