Definitions
What is FootFall?
FootFall helps organizations trend and compare visits to locations and competitors across Canada. It provides weekly and monthly visitation insights using mobile movement data derived from cellular network signals and Environics Analytics' proprietary geofence library. Results are available through ENVISION and Power BI.
What is cellular network mobile movement data?
Cellular network data are generated as mobile devices communicate with the cellular network during everyday use. These interactions occur when a device is actively used, such as making a call, sending a text, or accessing the internet, as well as during routine background activity, like periodic network updates or movement between coverage areas. These data are generated continuously, day and night, whenever a device is within reach of the cellular network, even if it is connected to WIFI rather than exclusively using cellular data. Data are not generated only when a device is outside of network coverage, such as in very remote areas.
The cellular network data feeds models that produce aggregated estimates of population-level visit patterns and are subject to rigorous privacy-by-design compliance protocols.
What are visits?
Visits are the estimated number of unique daily visits to a FootFall location (i.e. geofence), banner or category by the household population aged 15+ within a specified time frame. For example, if a person visited a store once a day for 1 week, 7 visits would be reported. If a person visited a store twice in 1 day, 1 visit would be reported.
Visits reflect individuals living in Canada and can originate from anywhere in Canada. Attempts have been made to exclude any residents or employees of the specified location, banner or category from visit data.
What is a geofence?
A geofence is a virtual boundary drawn around a real-world location such as a store, restaurant, shopping centre, or park. FootFall provides an estimate of visits to the boundary.
What is PRIZM filtering?
PRIZM is Environics Analytics' proprietary system that classifies Canadian neighbourhoods into 67 lifestyle segments based on demographics, spending habits and interests. If you license our PRIZM product, you can filter FootFall visit data by any of these segments to understand which audiences most often visit a location.
What is a banner?
The chain name (i.e. banner) associated with a location. This field is populated for any location (i.e. geofence) that is part of a chain; for any location that is not part of a chain, this field is left blank.
What is a category?
The categories in FootFall (e.g. hospitals, mass merchants) are subclassifications of major industries (e.g. Healthcare, Retail).
What is a Census Subdivision (CSD)?
Census subdivision is the general term for municipalities (as determined by provincial/territorial legislation) or areas treated as municipal equivalents for statistical purposes (e.g., Indian reserves, Indian settlements and unorganized territories). Municipalities are units of local government.
What is a Census Metropolitan Area (CMA)?
A census metropolitan area (CMA) is a grouping of census subdivisions comprising a large urban area (the "urban core") and those surrounding "urban fringes" and fringes" with which it is closely integrated. To become a CMA, an area must register an urban core population of at least 100,000 at the previous census. CMA status is retained even if this core population later drops below 100,000. CMAs may cross census division and provincial boundaries, although the Ottawa-Gatineau metropolitan area in Ontario and Quebec is the only one that currently crosses a provincial border.
Data and Methodology
What data sources are used?
FootFall uses mobile movement data derived from cellular network signals, enriched with modelled consumer behaviour variables and contextual information.
How does FootFall estimate visits?
Cellular network signals are processed through advanced statistical models that calibrate observed activity to represent the Canadian household population aged 15 and older. The resulting outputs provide estimates of visitation trends at location, banner and category levels while maintaining privacy protections.
What is the benefit of FootFall being built with cellular network data?
FootFall uses cellular network data as the primary source for estimating visit volumes. These data cover a large share of the Canadian population and provide consistent representation nationwide. A large, stable sample reduces day-to-day volatility and increases confidence in the results.
What time period can I access data for?
Data are available from January 2023 onward. Environics Analytics maintains data for the current year and the three prior years. During each annual vintage update, the oldest year is retired. Data are updated and released weekly.
How many locations are included?
FootFall provides summarized visit data for more than 100,000 locations across Canada, including retail stores, businesses, business improvement areas and recreational locations.
What's new in the 2026 version of FootFall?
The 2026 vintage includes a redesigned data engine and a new dashboard experience available in both ENVISION and Power BI.
Dashboard Use and Features
Why do totals sometimes shift when I switch Date Type?
Date ranges are different across Month, Week - Monday, and Week - Thursday. The same date can fall into different grouped periods.
Which Date Type should I use for leadership meetings?
Use Month for headline trends, then validate unusual movement with weekly views.
Which Date Type should operations use?
Use the weekly type that matches your operational calendar, then keep that choice consistent across meetings.
Why are there caution messages about a partial timeframe?
The selected date range may start or end mid-period, or latest data may not yet complete the current period.
What should I do before sharing a screenshot?
Always include:
- Date Type,
- date range,
- View By,
- Top N value.
This way recipients can reproduce the same view.
Why do I see blanks after changing filters?
Some combinations have no qualifying visits in the selected period and filter context.
Why does Top N look different when I change View By?
Top N is recalculated inside the currently selected grouping (Area, Category, Banner, Geofence, or PRIZM Segment).
Why do my weekly numbers not match someone else's export?
Confirm both users are on the same Date Type. Week - Monday and Week - Thursday produce different weekly groupings.
Why does a visual get slower after I drill down?
High-level visuals may use pre-aggregated paths. Detailed drill levels may use detailed query paths, which are slower on large data volumes.
Why can I see the Top 5 PRIZM visual but not use PRIZM as View By?
The Top 5 PRIZM visual is an all-time summary. PRIZM trend comparison is a licensed feature and requires PRIZM access on your account. If you do not license PRIZM, the PRIZM View By option may not be available or PRIZM trend results may not be provided.
How often are FootFall visit counts updated?
Weekly, on Fridays.
Why does my geofence count change by page?
Different pages may use different visual-level filters, Top N settings, or View By logic.
Are custom geofences supported?
No, custom geofences are not available in the FootFall Dashboard.
Why do I see different geofences than another user?
Geofence access is controlled by the province or territory coverage associated with your account. Provincial coverage limits results to that province or territory; national coverage allows all Canadian provinces and territories included in the data. Users with different license coverage can therefore see different geofence counts and totals with the same report filters.
Use Cases
How can retailers use FootFall?
Retailers can monitor store performance, compare visitation across locations, identify growth and declining markets, evaluate the impact of promotions and renovations, and understand seasonal traffic patterns.
How can FootFall support customer profiling?
Organizations can use PRIZM® segmentation to analyze visitor profiles, understand audience composition, compare customer characteristics across markets, and support targeted marketing initiatives.
How can FootFall be used for competitor analysis?
FootFall helps organizations measure share of category visits, compare visitation trends across competing brands, monitor market share over time, and identify regions with stronger or weaker competitive performance.
How can marketers use FootFall?
Marketing teams can establish visitation baselines, measure changes during and after campaigns, identify which customer segments respond most strongly, and assess long-term impacts on traffic trends.
Privacy and Security
Is FootFall privacy-compliant?
Yes.
Environics Analytics is proud to be among the first Canadian organizations certified to the ISO/IEC 31700 Privacy by Design standard. Privacy-by-design is embedded throughout the development and delivery of our FootFall product, which uses de-identified, aggregated and/or anonymized mobile data to provide population-level insights on the movement patterns of Canadians.
We work exclusively with trusted data sources (both cellular network signals and GPS locations) who meet our strict privacy, security and ethical standards. This is supported by rigorous assessments to ensure lawful collection, use and disclosure, along with transparency and compliance with applicable privacy laws and best practices. Our technology and processing environment are further supported by independent, third-party security certifications, ensuring strong protections for data at every stage.
Can I identify individual visitors using FootFall?
No. FootFall uses de-identified, aggregated and/or anonymized mobile movement data to provide population-level insights. The product is designed to protect individual privacy and does not identify specific people.
What privacy certifications does EA hold?
EA is proud to be one of the first Canadian companies to receive the ISO Privacy-by-Design (PbD) certification, which guides the development, design and delivery of our mobile movement data products. EA is SSAE SOC1, SOC2 and HIPAA compliant, among the highest standards for data processing, security and privacy.