# Foot Traffic and Brand Rankings

Foot traffic data transforms site analysis from theoretical to empirical. Instead of assuming how busy a location might be, you can see actual visitor patterns—both for the site you're evaluating and for the businesses surrounding it.

GrowthFactor integrates foot traffic intelligence throughout the platform, helping you understand not just *what* businesses are nearby, but *how well* they're performing.

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**Beta Feature:** Foot traffic rankings are currently in beta. Data accuracy continues to improve as we refine our models. Please contact support if you encounter unexpected rankings.
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### Foot Traffic Heatmaps

Enable the **Foot Traffic** layer from the Layers panel to visualize visitor density. The heatmap displays warmer colors (reds, oranges) in high-traffic areas and cooler colors (blues, purples) in lower-traffic areas.

**Use foot traffic heatmaps to:**

* Identify high-activity zones within a market
* Validate that a site sits within the traffic flow
* Compare relative activity between potential sites
* Spot emerging retail corridors or declining areas

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### Foot Traffic Trade Zones

Foot Traffic Trade Zones show *where visitors come from* using anonymized mobile location data to map home and work locations of people who visit an area.

#### Coverage Percentages

The percentage slider (50–100%) controls how much of the visitor population to include in your trade zone boundary.

| Coverage   | What It Shows                                                                  |
| ---------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| **50%**    | Core zone—most concentrated, frequent visitors. Your primary customer base.    |
| **60–70%** | Balanced view capturing regular visitors while excluding pass-through traffic. |
| **80%**    | Broader catchment including most customers. Useful for demographic analysis.   |
| **100%**   | Full extent of all observed visitors, including outliers.                      |

#### Visitor Origin Types

Toggle between two views:

**Home Locations** — Where visitors reside. Best for evening/weekend retail, grocery, restaurants serving dinner.

**Work Locations** — Where visitors are employed. Best for lunch-driven restaurants, convenience retail near offices, weekday daytime traffic.

Comparing both views reveals whether a site serves local residents, the daytime workforce, or a blend—critical for understanding peak hours.

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### Brand Rankings

Brand Rankings show how individual business locations perform relative to others in the same chain, based on foot traffic.

#### Reading Brand Rankings

Rankings appear as percentiles with color coding:

| Ranking        | Color  | Meaning                                         |
| -------------- | ------ | ----------------------------------------------- |
| **Top 25%**    | Green  | Strong performer; outperforms 75%+ of the brand |
| **Top 26–50%** | Yellow | Average performer for the brand                 |
| **Bottom 50%** | Red    | Underperforms compared to most locations        |
| **N/A**        | Gray   | Insufficient data to calculate ranking          |

**Small chains:** For brands with fewer than 5 locations, rankings display as "X of Y" (e.g., "2 of 4") instead of percentiles.

#### Ranking Levels

Click any business to see performance across three geographic scopes:

| Level        | Comparison Set                               |
| ------------ | -------------------------------------------- |
| **Local**    | Other brand locations within \~15 miles      |
| **State**    | All brand locations within the same state    |
| **National** | All brand locations across the United States |

A location might rank Top 10% locally but only Top 50% nationally—strong for its market but average compared to the brand's best nationwide.

#### Why Rankings Matter

Rankings provide context that raw visit numbers cannot:

* **A Starbucks with 8,000 monthly visits** in the Bottom 25% suggests something about that site is underperforming.
* **A cluster of Top 25% performers** nearby signals strong retail fundamentals.
* **Multiple Bottom 50% competitors** may indicate location challenges worth investigating.

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### Category Performance

Category Performance compares a location against *all businesses in its category*, not just its own brand.

| Comparison Type | What It Tells You                                             |
| --------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Brand**       | How this location performs vs. other stores in the same chain |
| **Category**    | How this location performs vs. all businesses in the category |

**Example:** A Target ranking Top 45% within Target but Top 30% in Department Stores nationally indicates an average Target but a strong department store—the location has solid fundamentals.

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### Tracked Businesses Panel

The **Tracked Businesses** section lists competitors and complements with foot traffic intelligence.

**Features:**

* **Unique Brands Only** toggle shows one location per brand (nearest)
* **Rankings** display with color-coded badges
* **Distance** shown for each business
* **Click any business** to highlight on map and see full details

**Quick interpretation:**

| Pattern                      | Signal                                           |
| ---------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------ |
| Multiple green badges nearby | Strong retail corridor, proven customer draw     |
| Mixed colors                 | Typical market with varied performance           |
| Predominantly red badges     | Potential warning sign; investigate site factors |
| Several N/A rankings         | Smaller chains or newer locations without data   |

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### Best Practices

**Combine heatmaps with rankings.** A site in a high-traffic zone surrounded by underperforming competitors is worth investigating further.

**Check both brand and category performance.** Weak brand ranking but strong category ranking suggests the brand struggles while the location has merit.

**Use visitor origin data to validate demographics.** If your trade zone shows visitors from high-income areas, demographics data should confirm this.

**Look for patterns.** One underperforming competitor doesn't condemn a site; a pattern of weak performers across multiple brands suggests systemic issues.