Yelp Buys Wi-Fi Marketing Firm Turnstyle Analytics

Local crowdsourced review site Yelp has acquired Turnstyle Analytics, which helps local businesses use Wi-Fi to connect with their customers. Yelp purchased all Turnstyle's outstanding capital stock for around $20m in cash.

Based in Toronto, Canada, Turnstyle offers a location-based marketing and analytics platform that provides Wi-Fi as a digital marketing tool to retain and reward customers. The firm's core technology allows consumers to tap into free guest Wi-Fi while helping businesses re-engage those customers in the future via e-mail. Businesses can use the resulting data to build targeted customer contact lists, and then access analytics on visit frequency and duration.

Yelp says combining Turnstyle's off-line data with its own online and mobile search data will deliver an intent-based marketing resource to local businesses. Co-founder and CEO Jeremy Stoppelman (pictured) comments: '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'.

Web sites: www.yelp.com and www.getturnstyle.com .