Data for geomarketing and location intelligence: microtarget indicators in other countries

Today we conclude our series of articles in which we aimed to provide more detailed information about the dataset encompassed under the microtarget umbrella developed by unica360.

In this final installment, we will talk about the microtarget indicators we have developed for some other countries and the possibilities of carrying out these same developments in new territories.

We begin by summarizing the indicators we have been analyzing throughout these articles, with access to the link of the corresponding article:

• Introduction to microtarget: a global view of the different datasets.
• Sociodemographic indicators: sociodemography, income and expenses
• Property and housing indicators: areas, age, uses, heights, …
• Commercial supply indicators: density of retail establishments, hospitality, public transport, facilities, health, and culture.
• Urbanity-centrality indicators: population density and degree of urbanity
• Accessibility to green areas indicator: proximity to green areas and their size
• Pedestrian presence indicators: pedestrians estimation model at the street segment level
• Vehicle traffic indicators: vehicles estimation  model at the street segment level
• Tourism presence  indicators: tourists at the microzone level by origin and season
• Labor population indicators: model of presence of displaced population due to work
• Neighborhood classification typology: typology of neighborhood according to its characteristics
• Lifestyle indicators: indicators about place of origin, education, income, housing and ownership of a vehicle, professional activity, leisure mobility, level of digitalization, type of family, perception of the environment, and ideology.

All these indicators cover the entire Spanish territory, but are there similar indicators beyond our borders? Can these indicators be specialized in specific territories, such as a municipality or region? The answer to both questions is «YES,» and below we will see some examples.

In which countries is microtarget currently available?

The first step is to see how the leap to other countries has been made, transferring our methodologies beyond the Spanish territory.

In some cases, the need arises from clients with whom we initially undertake projects in location intelligence, geomarketing, and customer intelligence, based on microtarget for Spain, who, after seeing the benefits of the applied methodology and the available dataset, ask us to tackle similar projects in other countries where they have a presence.

In other cases, the need has arisen without having previous experience working with our data in Spain. However, they were aware of our capabilities or had good references regarding the product, and we jointly embarked on developing some of our datasets for another country.

In any case, the selection of unica360 to carry out these international projects is driven by factors such as:

• Statistical robustness of the product, based on the careful design of samples from public sources, free from biases of age, interests, or digital habits.
• Reliability and legality, because of the sources used, which are public and open, the methodology is compliant by design, something that is critical in many economic sectors.
• Spatial precision, as the indicators are modeled natively at the level of 100-meter-sided cells. This is a unique territorial division developed by unica360 that allows for the availability of indicators with a level of granularity that does not exist with other traditional territorial divisions. In any case, the cells can be grouped to higher levels if necessary.
• Affordable cost: the costs of accessing the dataset are very accessible. By working with open data, our contribution is the modeling and the methodology applied to them.
• Scalability: the model is easily replicable in other countries or by carrying out tailored local models with specific data from that territory.

With all this, we have currently developed micro-territorial indicators for the following countries:

Portugal

Many projects have an «Iberian» component that requires having global information for both countries, Spain and Portugal, in a unified way. So far, three datasets have been developed for this country:

• Sociodemographic indicators: indicators regarding types of buildings and housing, types of families that inhabit them, year of construction, average income, and total inhabitants by sex and age.
• Commercial indicators: retail trade, hospitality, public transport, facilities, cultural centers, and health centers.
• Average vehicle traffic: broken down by time slot (morning, afternoon, evening), weekdays-weekend, and winter-summer. Available both in absolute value and in a range between 0 and 1.

The next images shows samples of peopel older than 65 in Lisbon and commercial index in the same portuguese city.

Italy

Italy is another country for which we have developed microtarget indicators for different projects. In this case, two data sets were developed for this country:

• Sociodemographic indicators: 100-meter-square-level indicators about resident population broken down by age and sex, educational level, total foreign population by continent of origin and age, number of households and number of buildings, by year of construction.
• Commercial index: retail, hospitality, public transport, amenities, cultural centers, and healthcare centers.

France

Although with a lower demand in terms of developed datasets (one so far), France is also on the list of countries where microtargeting has arrived:

• Sociodemographic indicators: indicators at the 100-meter-square cell level about population broken down by age and sex, foreign population, educational level, income, and origin.

Mexico

We have also brought microtargeting to Mexico. With a multitude of large local corporations and the presence of Spanish multinationals from various sectors, Mexico is an exceptional candidate to receive our set of indicators. So far, the situation there is as follows:

• Sociodemographic indicators: 100-meter-square-level indicators about housing characteristics, average income, status, employment status, educational level, etc.
• Commercial index: about retail stores, hospitality, public transportation, amenities, cultural centers, and healthcare centers.
• Working population indicators: people who do not live in a specific area but travel there for work.
• Pedestrian and vehicle traffic: These models reflect average pedestrian and vehicle traffic at the street segment level, broken down by time zone (morning, afternoon, evening), weekday-weekend, and winter-summer.

In the next two images we can see two maps with the indicator about people who moves because work and the habitants status level in the city of Puebla, Mexico

United States

We recently began our journey in the United States. Given the complexity of the territory, we started with a local project for a city in the state of Texas, specifically San Antonio.

The project helped develop the vehicle traffic model for this city. As we have seen, the methodology is the same for any country, and the process only requires locating the appropriate sources of information on which to run the model.

But we have already taken the first step toward continuing to grow in this vast territory full of possibilities.

Other countries

Finally, we would like to mention that we have generated certain data sets, especially those related to sociodemographic aspects, for Eastern European countries, as a result of the expansion of a project that began in Spain and has expanded to Portugal, Italy, France, and now these countries. This is further proof of the scalability offered by this product and its modeling.