Retailers across nearly every category are facing the same challenge: foot traffic is declining… fast. According to Placer.ai and NRF trend reports, U.S. retail foot traffic has dropped roughly 17% year-over-year, with some categories (like apparel and big box stores) seeing even sharper declines.
But the story isn’t as simple as “people stopped coming.”
The real issue is this:
Retailers don’t know who should be walking through the door or how to reach them.That’s where data, geofencing, streaming TV, and smart targeting from partners like Thumbvista are transforming the game.
Let’s break down the decline, what’s causing it, and how data-driven marketing can help retailers not just recover — but grow.
Why Retail Foot Traffic Is Down
1. Consumer habits have permanently changed
Post-pandemic behavior now favors convenience:
- Online shopping has grown 56% since 2020
- Same-day delivery usage has increased 3x
- Mobile shopping now influences 70% of in-store purchases
- Customers still shop in-store — but their decision is made before they visit.
2. Competition is everywhere
Retailers aren’t just competing with local stores anymore. They’re competing with:
- Amazon
- Direct-to-consumer brands
- Discount retail
- Marketplace apps
- Second-hand platforms
3. People are simply visiting fewer stores
A recent McKinsey retail study found:
- Shoppers visit 5–7 fewer stores per month than they did in 2019
- 46% say they’re prioritizing “needs over wants”
- Meaning: Retailers must win every potential visit.
4. Marketing hasn’t kept pace
Many retailers still:
- Use broad targeting
- Spend money on channels without attribution
- Rely on outdated demographic assumptions
- Miss real-time shifts in buyer behavior
- Today’s customers expect personalized, timely, relevant engagement — not generic ads.
How Data Can Fix the Foot Traffic Decline
To win in this environment, retailers need three things:
✓ Better targeting
✓ Better timing
✓ Better attribution
Here’s how modern data + Thumbvista solve all three.
1. Geofencing: Bring Shoppers Back With Precision
Thumbvista’s geofencing allows retailers to:
- Target customers who physically visit nearby areas
- Reach people who shop at competitor locations
- Build custom audience segments based on real-world behavior
- Serve ads across mobile, display, and apps
- Drive measurable foot traffic back to stores
Example:
A national apparel retailer used geofencing + retargeting to bring in shoppers from nearby malls and saw a 22% increase in store visitation month-over-month.
2. Geoframing: Understand Who Your Shoppers Really Are
While geofencing influences behavior, geoframing reveals insights:
You can learn:
- Where customers go before/after visiting
- How often they return
- Their category affinities
- Demographic and household attributes
- Daypart patterns
- Event-driven spikes in visits
- This helps retailers answer questions like:
- “Who are my most valuable shoppers?”
- “Where should we open our next location?”
- “Which competitor is stealing foot traffic?”
A home goods retailer recently learned through geoframing that 40% of their customers also visited a local competitor within the same week — changing their entire messaging strategy.
3. Streaming TV (OTT/CTV) With Household-Level Data 
- Retailers are shifting brand storytelling to connected TV because:
- 95% of U.S. households now stream content
- CTV ads are 100% viewable
- Targeting can be matched to in-store movement
- CPMs are more efficient than broadcast
Thumbvista uses OTT/CTV combined with behavioral + location data to reach:
- Families
- Holiday shoppers
- High-intent buyers
- Competitor shoppers
- New movers
This builds brand visibility before the consumer arrives on the doorstep.
4. Contextual Advertising: Reach Customers Based on Intent
Contextual targeting places ads where and when shoppers are reading:
- Gift guides
- Product reviews
- DIY blogs
- Seasonal trends
- Retail inspiration pages
Contextual ads outperform standard display and earn 35–70% higher engagement because they’re delivered when intent is already high.
5. First-Party & CRM Audiences
Retailers sit on mountains of customer data they aren’t using.
Thumbvista turns:
- past purchases
- loyalty programs
- emails
- phone numbers
- POS data into privacy-safe, high-converting ad audiences across programmatic, social, and streaming.
- CRM-based audiences consistently deliver 2–5x higher ROAS compared to broad targeting.
6. Foot Traffic Attribution: Prove What Works
Retailers can now measure:
- How many people saw an ad
- How many visited the store
- Which creatives drove the most walk-ins
- Which days delivered highest lift
- How ads impacted competitor shopping behavior
This means:
No more guessing.
No more wasted spend.
No more “we think this channel is working.”
With data, retailers know exactly what drives store visits.
Where Retail Goes From Here
Foot traffic isn’t gone — it’s simply shifting.
The retailers winning today are the ones who: Use data instead of intuition and target shoppers who show real-world behavior
Measure every visit, adapt to seasonality and intent signals. As visits decline, data becomes the multiplier.
It helps retailers spend smarter, personalize messaging, and bring the right customer back at the right time.
Retail foot traffic may be down 17%, but the retailers using AI, geofencing, geoframing, streaming TV, contextual, and data-driven targeting aren’t struggling they’re outperforming the market.
If you want to understand your customers, influence their journey, and measure every step along the way, Thumbvista is built for this moment.