A traditional people counter tells you how many visitors came in and went out. Zone-based insights tell you what happened in between. By defining zones within your location, stores, malls, and airports can measure how visitors engage with specific areas, how they move between them, and where engagement is high or low — giving you the data to make decisions about layout, staffing, product placement, and tenant strategy that a single entrance counter can never support.
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Example of how zones can be configured
What zones measure
A zone is any area within your location that you want to measure — your entire location, a product section, a wing, a gate area, or any defined space. Each zone tracks the following metrics:
- Total footfall: The number of visitors entering and exiting the zone. Identifies peak times and overall interest in specific areas.
- Dwell time: How long visitors spend in the zone. Indicates engagement level and highlights areas that attract or lose interest. Read more about Dwell Time.
- Bounce rate: The percentage of visitors who leave the zone quickly after entering. A high bounce rate signals low engagement and points to areas that need improvement. Read more about Bounce Rate.
- Drop-in rate: The ratio of passersby to those who actually enter the zone. Measures how effectively a display, entrance, or zone attracts visitors. Read more about Drop-in Rate.
- Crowdedness: The number of visitors present in the zone at the same time. Helps manage congestion and optimize staffing.
- Movements between zones: How visitors move from one zone to another. Reveals popular pathways, cross-visitation patterns, and areas where visitors drop off.
Movements between zones are visualized through Sankey charts (visitor flow from entry to exit), cross-visitation analysis (how many visitors move between two specific zones), cross-conversion (how many visitors visit both Zone A and Zone B in a single visit), and average zones per visit (how broadly visitors explore your location).
Stores
For a store, zone-based insights shift the question from "how many people came in?" to "which parts of the store are working?" A product section with high footfall but a high bounce rate is attracting visitors but not holding them — a signal to look at layout, product placement, or signage. A section with long dwell times and high cross-conversion to adjacent zones is a natural anchor for complementary products.
Combining zone data with sales figures reveals the conversion picture at zone level, not just store level. A zone with strong footfall and dwell time but weak sales points to a product-market fit problem, not a traffic problem. Crowdedness data combined with bounce rate identifies when a zone is losing customers because it is too congested rather than too unappealing — a staffing and layout problem with a different solution.
For multi-store retailers, zone benchmarking identifies which stores are applying layouts, promotions, and product placements most effectively — and surfaces the best practices worth replicating.
Malls
A mall's value to tenants depends on how well it moves visitors through the property and into stores. Zone-based insights give mall managers visibility into exactly that. Sankey charts show where visitors flow after entering, where they drop off, and which zones are bypassed entirely. Low cross-visitation between adjacent zones points to a wayfinding or signage gap. Low drop-in rates at specific tenant units give mall managers data to support tenant conversations and justify investment in entrance design or promotional activity.
For lease negotiations and tenant placement decisions, zone performance data replaces anecdote with evidence. A zone with consistently high footfall, strong dwell time, and growing cross-conversion to neighbouring tenants is demonstrably more valuable than one without that data. Tenants can see how their unit performs relative to the rest of the property, and mall managers can make data-driven decisions about where to place new tenants and how to structure rent.
Zone-based event planning becomes possible when you can see which areas need a footfall boost. Scheduling an activation in a low-traffic zone and measuring the before-and-after change in cross-visitation gives a clear read on whether the event drove the intended behaviour.
Airports
In an airport, the commercial zones between security and the gate are where retail and F&B revenue is generated. Zone-based insights measure the qualification rate into those commercial areas, how long passengers spend in them, and how they move between concessions, restaurants, and gate areas. This data is the foundation for commercial strategy decisions that previously had to rely on passenger surveys or manual observation.
Crowdedness and movement data at security checkpoints, boarding gates, and transit corridors supports operational decisions about staffing levels, queue management, and layout changes that reduce congestion and improve the passenger experience. A bottleneck identified in movement data between two zones — say, the security exit and the first commercial zone — is an actionable finding with a direct revenue implication.
For concession contract negotiations and retail strategy, zone performance data gives airport commercial directors the evidence to set benchmarks, compare performance across terminals, and evaluate the impact of changes to the passenger environment over time.
Getting started
Zone-based insights are available on all Indivd plans. A single camera per entrance creates a zone covering your entire location. Measuring specific areas within your location requires cameras at the entry and exit points of each zone — Indivd can assist with planning camera placement using a 3D map of your floor plan, typically taking about an hour. To set up zones, see How to configure zones and zone settings. For questions, contact support@indivd.com.
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