Yelp Acquires Wi-Fi Marketing Company Turnstyle Analytics
April 04 2017 - 9:05AM
Business Wire
On-Premises Consumer Wi-Fi to Serve as
Centerpiece of the Company’s Customer Retention and Loyalty
Marketing Service
Yelp Inc. (NYSE: YELP), the company that connects consumers with
great local businesses, today announced it has acquired Turnstyle
Analytics Inc., a Wi-Fi marketing company that is pioneering the
way local businesses use free Wi-Fi to connect with their
customers. The addition of Turnstyle strengthens Yelp’s position as
a leading customer acquisition platform for local businesses,
expanding its offering to include simple, effective tools for
customer retention and loyalty.
Based in Toronto, Canada, Turnstyle was founded in 2012 as a
location-based marketing and analytics platform that provides Wi-Fi
as a digital marketing tool to retain and reward customers. The
service currently supports nearly 3,500 business locations
worldwide. As part of Yelp, Turnstyle’s service offers businesses
tools to harness their guest Wi-Fi as an easy way to keep in touch
with customers who visit their locations in order to drive repeat
visits and in-store sales.
Turnstyle’s core technology allows consumers to tap into free
guest Wi-Fi while helping businesses re-engage those customers in
the future via email. Businesses can build highly targeted customer
contact lists and access powerful analytics that provide insight
into visit frequency and duration. Combining this offline data with
Yelp’s extensive online and mobile search data will deliver a
comprehensive intent-based marketing resource to local
businesses.
“We’re excited to expand our product offering for local
businesses through this acquisition. Turnstyle helps connect
businesses to consumers through free public Wi-Fi, and is an
effective retention and loyalty program that helps businesses be
more successful,” said Jeremy Stoppelman, Yelp co-founder and chief
executive officer.
"Since our founding, Turnstyle has focused on building the best
Wi-Fi marketing service to help businesses," said Devon Wright,
Turnstyle’s co-founder and chief executive officer. "This is an
exciting opportunity to expand and leverage Yelp’s resources and
capabilities; together we’ll be able to help even more local
businesses improve their customer retention, driving more repeat
business.”
Acquisition Details
Under the terms of the purchase agreement, Yelp acquired all of
Turnstyle’s outstanding capital stock for approximately $20
million, paid in cash.
About Yelp
Yelp Inc. (http://www.yelp.com) connects people with great local
businesses. Yelp was founded in San Francisco in July 2004. Since
then, Yelp has taken root in major metros in more than 30
countries. Approximately 24 million unique devices1 accessed Yelp
via the Yelp app, approximately 73 million unique visitors visited
Yelp via desktop computer2 and approximately 65 million unique
visitors visited Yelp via mobile website3 on a monthly average
basis during the fourth quarter of 2016. By the end of the same
quarter, Yelpers had written approximately 121 million rich, local
reviews, making Yelp the leading local guide for real word-of-mouth
on everything from boutiques and mechanics to restaurants and
dentists.
1 Calculated as the number of unique devices accessing the app
on a monthly average basis over a given three-month period,
according to internal Yelp logs.
2 Calculated as the number of “users,” as measured by Google
Analytics, accessing Yelp via desktop computer on a monthly average
basis over a given three-month period.
3 Calculated as the number of “users,” as measured by Google
Analytics, accessing Yelp via the mobile website on a monthly
average basis over a given three-month period.
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements relating
to, among other things, the anticipated benefits of Yelp’s
acquisition of Turnstyle, Yelp’s strategy, plans, objectives,
expectations and intentions with respect to Turnstyle, including
with respect to offering Turnstyle products to Yelp-listed
businesses, Yelp’s ability to deliver a comprehensive intent-based
marketing resource to local businesses, the future performance and
market position of Yelp and its subsidiaries, and other statements
that are not historical facts. These forward-looking statements are
based on Yelp’s current expectations, forecasts and assumptions,
and inherently involve significant risks and uncertainties. Actual
results and timing of events could differ materially from those
predicted or implied in such forward-looking statements as a result
of these risks and uncertainties, which include, without
limitation, risks associated with the acquisition, such as the risk
that the businesses will not be integrated successfully or that
such integration may be more difficult, time consuming or costly
than expected; risks related to future opportunities and plans for
the combined company, including whether Turnstyle’s customers will
continue to use the service following the acquisition, whether Yelp
will be able to leverage its large distribution network to increase
the customers using the service and whether the acquisition will
drive customer acquisition on Yelp; risks related to the potential
disruption of both businesses in connection with the transaction;
and the competitive and regulatory environment while Yelp continues
to expand and introduce new products as new laws and regulations
related to Internet companies come into effect. The forward-looking
statements in this release do not include the potential impact of
any acquisitions or divestitures that may be announced and/or
completed after the date hereof.
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Yelp Inc.Shannon Eispress@yelp.com
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