Foursquare continues to lead the way in a key subset of local media & marketing: location intelligence. It’s been at it for about 15 years, and continues to innovate and advance the state of the art. What’s the latest in its endeavors? We had the chance to catch up with CTO Vikram Gundeti to find out.

Here’s the exclusive interview for Localogy Insider readers…

Localogy Insider: First let’s contextualize the challenge. Digital media and marketing are great at measuring outcomes and ROI via clickstreams and digital conversions. But when the path to purchase veers offline – as it does in most cases given offline transaction volume – the feedback loop is broken. How has this presented challenges for marketers to accurately measure marketing effectiveness?

Vikram Gundeti: For years, there was a clear divide between digital and real-world interactions, with marketers treating online and offline channels as separate entities. Digital marketing was focused on driving online actions such as clicks, website visits & online purchases while in-store interactions were measured through traditional metrics such as foot traffic, loyalty cards, and POS data. However, this separation has dissolved significantly in recent years as consumers now move fluidly between digital and physical experiences throughout their purchase journey. While digital platforms excel at measuring online interactions, they struggle to track what happens when customers move offline to make purchases or visit stores. This creates a significant blind spot for marketers in understanding the true impact of their omnichannel campaigns and connecting their digital advertising investments to real-world outcomes. The challenge extends beyond just tracking visits – it’s about connecting all the dots in a customer’s journey and understanding which specific advertising touchpoints actually drove changes in customer behavior, from initial awareness to final purchase.

Localogy Insider: In your experience, what types of businesses or verticals are most impacted by this inherent online-offline attribution challenge?

Vikram Gundeti: The online-offline attribution challenge most significantly impacts businesses with substantial physical footprints and those dependent on in-person transactions. Quick-service restaurants, retail chains, and brick-and-mortar stores face particular challenges as their customer acquisition often begins online but culminates in physical locations. These businesses invest heavily in digital marketing but struggle to connect these investments to in-store sales. The challenge is especially acute for businesses with longer consideration cycles or those where customers typically research online before making in-store purchases, such as automotive dealerships, furniture retailers, and department stores.

Localogy Insider: This challenge isn’t new of course, as the location intelligence sector including Foursquare has been tackling it for years. But it continues to evolve (and has room for evolution), given the complexity of the underlying challenge. Where are we now in terms of that innovation lifecycle, and what’s the current state of the art in attributing offline conversions?

Vikram Gundeti: The state of online-offline attribution has evolved significantly. Moving beyond simply measuring foot traffic, the technology now connects advertising exposure directly to sales outcomes through a modernized data processing pipeline handling several billions of impressions, visits, and transactions. By providing near real-time insights into how campaigns drive both store visits and purchases, marketers can finally bridge the gap between digital marketing and physical world behaviors. The next frontier is SKU-level attribution, which will reveal which specific products experienced increased sales as a result of advertising exposure.

Localogy Insider: That brings us to geospatial AI, which brings several of the recent inflections in AI to the art of location intelligence. First, for those unfamiliar, tell us what geospatial AI is and how it advances the field of location intelligence.

Vikram Gundeti: Geospatial artificial intelligence, Geospatial AI, or GeoAI is the combination of geospatial data, technology, and science with artificial intelligence (AI) techniques. GeoAI enhances the ability to analyze and interpret complex spatial data by integrating advanced AI methods, including machine learning and deep learning, with traditional geographic data. GeoAI offers significant benefits for businesses, including:

– Speeding up data processing and automating workflows to drive efficiency and cost savings;

– Anticipating trends and future behaviors, improving strategic planning with predictive modeling and forecasting; and

– Increasing the accuracy of spatial analyses, reducing human errors. This technology is being increasingly adopted across industries—such as retail, transportation, real estate, insurance, government, and more—elevating a wide range of applications, from personalized marketing to smart city development and environmental management.

Localogy Insider: Going deeper into geospatial AI, what are the ways that Foursquare has applied and integrated it, and what are the tangible outcomes for businesses that use it?

Vikram Gundeti: Geospatial AI refers to the application of artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies to location-based data – a field where Foursquare has been a pioneer for over a decade. While the term might be new, the practice of applying sophisticated algorithms to spatial data has been fundamental to Foursquare’s technology stack across its product suite. In the era of generative AI, while new opportunities are emerging in the geospatial domain, it’s crucial to maintain a balanced approach and not force-fit these technologies where traditional methods might be more effective. A prime example of thoughtful AI integration is Foursquare’s new Places Engine. This innovative system represents a first-of-its-kind approach that combines AI agents with human validation in a crowdsourcing model, maximizing the accuracy and currency of POI (Point of Interest) data. This hybrid approach amplifies the impact of human verification while maintaining automated, scalable data updates to keep pace with real-world changes.

Localogy Insider: To show rather than tell, any examples or mini-case studies to point to? Foursquare brand customers/partners who have used geospatial AI and the quantifiable results they’ve seen?

Vikram Gundeti: Jack in the Box partnered with Vistar Media to enhance the effectiveness of its campaign using Foursquare’s marketer’s solutions. By leveraging Foursquare’s robust location intelligence, Vistar Media could identify and target high-potential audiences near Jack in the Box locations. Results:

– The campaign saw a 27% lift in store visits compared to the control group.

– This outcome demonstrated the value of precise geospatial targeting in driving tangible, foot-traffic results for QSR (quick-service restaurant) brands. This example showcases how Foursquare’s products empower brands to drive measurable business outcomes through location-driven insights and targeted advertising.

Localogy Insider: Stepping back, offline attribution has been around for a while as noted, but continues to innovate and advance given the size of the challenge. In that light, what are some of the unsolved problems that Foursquare is still working towards, and what you’re excited about in terms of the challenges and innovations still to come?

Vikram Gundeti: While Foursquare’s attribution solution enables real-time campaign optimization, its capabilities extend well beyond traditional advertising measurement. The attribution engine can analyze the impact of any customer touchpoint – from physical changes like store layouts to digital interactions like mobile app push notifications – on customer behavior patterns. This versatility in measuring both offline and online events demonstrates the technology’s broader potential in understanding customer behavior. Looking ahead, Foursquare is leveraging its years of attribution insights to develop advanced planning tools that will help marketers optimize campaigns before launch. Combined with ongoing improvements in processing speed, geographical coverage, and measurement capabilities, these advancements position Foursquare to better serve increasingly complex omnichannel customer journeys.