Another Canadian company has begun testing location-based offers, with news that Air Miles has introduced beacons into Rexall locations in Toronto, and Staples stores in Edmonton and Calgary.

The beacons, which send a signal to nearby mobile phones, are pushing offers to customers who have the Air Miles app and have opted in to receive push notifications from the company. Currently the company has about 1.6 million downloads of its app in Canada.

Introductory tests have the beacons pushing a welcome message to consumers when they enter the store along with a variety of offers that they can scroll through and select. Emmie Fukuchi, VP of product development, Air Miles, says messages have SO FAR seen open rates north of 90%.

The beacon testing is an evolution of experiments with geo-fencing Air Miles did last year, which reached about 70% of the loyalty co’s opt-in base. Fukuchi says the company expects that number to be smaller with the beacon testing, because it is going out to a smaller area than the up to two kilometre fence of the previous tests.

Unlike the broad messages that saw the highest open rate in the geo-fence testing, offers being sent through the beacon tests are much more targeted, says Fukuchi.

Beacon testing will be in market for the next few months, after which the company will evaluate results, and plan for a potentially larger rollout.

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