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Guest Analytics

Understand your venue's WiFi guest data with CaptiFi's analytics.

Overview

CaptiFi captures detailed analytics every time a guest connects to your WiFi. Analytics live in four places on the dashboard:

PageWhat it's for
Dashboard (home)At-a-glance KPIs and trend charts
My Venues → AnalyticsDeeper analysis: busiest hours, device breakdowns, venue comparisons, footfall heatmap
My Venues → Guest VisitsThe full guest log: search, filter, export, GDPR tools
My Venues → ReportsBranded monthly PDF summaries to download or email

Guest analytics are included on all plans: visits, unique guests, opt-ins, the guests trend chart and your sign-up funnel.

The deeper reports (busiest hour of the day, device and platform mix, dwell time, the footfall heatmap, popular access points and return-visit gaps) are Advanced analytics, included on Growth and above. Comparing venues side by side (the Top Venues table and the all-venues view) is on Pro and above; below Pro the dashboard shows one venue at a time, chosen with the venue picker.

Where a report is not on your plan, the card explains what it shows and offers the upgrade rather than simply hiding:

A locked analytics card: the chart is blurred behind a panel naming the report, what it tells you, and an Upgrade to Growth button

The page also carries one prompt at the top listing exactly what unlocks:

A banner reading Advanced analytics is on the Growth plan, listing the reports that unlock, with an Upgrade to Growth button

The Analytics page showing visit KPIs and the guests trend chart

Dashboard KPIs

The home screen (and the Analytics page) shows KPI cards for the selected date range:

CardWhat It Shows
Total visitsAll WiFi logins in the period
Unique guestsDistinct people (each counted once, however many times they connect)
Marketing opt-insGuests who consented to marketing, counted once each
Returning rateShare of unique guests who have visited before
Avg dwell time (Analytics page)How long guests stay connected on an average visit, from live session tracking
Connected nowGuests online right now (updates every 60 seconds) — click through to Connected Guests

Use the date range picker (top right) and the venue switcher (top bar) to change what you're looking at. Click any KPI card to drill through to its detail page.

How CaptiFi decides two visits are the same guest

Anything that counts people rather than connections (unique guests, returning rate, marketing opt-ins, new vs returning, top venues and access points) recognises a returning guest by, in order:

  1. Their email address, ignoring capitals and spaces.
  2. Their mobile number, when your splash page collects a phone instead of an email.
  3. Their device, when the form collects neither.

So a phone-capture splash page counts people just as accurately as an email-capture one, and a guest who connects five times in a day is one unique guest and five visits.

Charts

  • Visits and Unique Guests — trend over time, with a day/week granularity toggle

  • New vs Returning — retention at a glance

  • Opt-In Funnel — how many guests connect, complete the form, and opt in

  • Devices / Device Mix — phone vs tablet vs laptop, and operating systems

  • Busiest Hour of the Day (Analytics page) — when your venue is busiest

  • Top Venues (Analytics page, multi-venue) — compare locations side by side

  • Popular Access Points (Analytics page) — where guests connect inside your venue, ranked by visits, with each access point's average dwell time when session tracking is available. Rename your access points (for example "Front Entrance", "Garden") on the Access Points page and this reads like zone analytics

  • Peak occupancy (Analytics page) — the most guests online at once in the period, when that busiest moment happened (shown in your venue's local time), a day-by-day sparkline of peaks, and the change versus the previous period

  • Avg return gap (Analytics page) — how many days the average guest waits between visits, with the change versus the previous period. The Set up win-back email button opens the campaign builder with a timing tip based on your venue's own number

  • Visit Duration (Analytics page) — how long guests stay connected, bucketed from under 5 minutes to 2 hours plus, with last period's most common length for comparison

  • Guest roaming (Analytics page) — the share of guests who move between access points during a visit, how many zone changes they average, and the change versus the previous period

  • Venue Map (Analytics page) — upload a floor plan of your venue, place your access points on it, and see heat zones showing where guests connect. See Venue Map below

  • Footfall heatmap (Analytics page) — visit intensity by day and hour

Click any row in Popular Access Points to enter zone view: the trend, busiest hour, footfall, peak occupancy, and visit duration charts filter to that access point, with a banner showing which zone you are viewing (click again or use Clear zone to exit). When a single venue is selected, the Busiest Hour and Footfall charts show times in that venue's local timezone. Viewing all venues together falls back to UTC (there is no single timezone to use). The Popular Access Points ranking has an Export CSV button for the selected date range.

Venue Map

Turn your floor plan into a heat map of guest activity:

  1. On the Analytics page, select a venue (single-venue accounts skip this step) and find the Venue Map card
  2. Click Upload floor plan and choose an image of your layout (a photo of a printed plan works fine; JPG, PNG or WebP up to 5 MB)
  3. Click Edit map, click an access point chip, then click its position on the plan. Drag pins to fine-tune; use a pin's x to take it off the map
  4. Click Done editing. The map now shows a heat blob per access point, sized by its share of guest visits in the selected date range. Hover a pin for visits and average dwell time

Heat zones reflect which access point each guest connected through, so they show activity by area, not exact guest positions. Pins also carry a green badge with the number of guests online at that access point right now (refreshes every minute). Removing the floor plan clears all pins.

Guest Visits (the Full Log)

The Guest Visits page: an arrivals feed with New and Returning badges, filters and CSV export

Go to My Venues → Guest Visits:

  • Every arrival is a row, the list is a live feed: the newest arrival sits at the top, and a guest who comes back gets a row for that visit as well. The Visit column badges each row New (their first sign-up) or Returning (they have been before). Imported contacts show a dash, because they have never visited
  • Tabs — Today, Last 7 days, All time, or a custom date range
  • Search — by name or email
  • Filters, visit type (all arrivals, new sign-ups only, or returning visits only), subscribed / not subscribed to marketing, and where the contact came from (your WiFi, or an imported list)
  • Columns — the table automatically matches your splash page form: custom questions (a phone number, for example) get their own column, and the Email column only appears when at least one of your venues collects email. Use the Columns menu to override any of it; your choices are remembered.
  • Last visited and Visits, the Last visited column moves every time a guest comes back (returning guests are recognised automatically and skip the sign-in form), and the Visits badge shows their running total. A guest showing 1 visit is new; a green badge means a regular. Imported contacts show a dash here because they have never visited
  • Bounced emails, any address that could not receive mail is marked with a red Bounced badge (a warning icon on the classic dashboard), so fake or dead emails stand out at a glance. CaptiFi stops emailing these addresses automatically, and they can never be used on a splash page again
  • Export all (CSV) — download the complete log for the selected venue, including a column for every custom splash question plus an Email Status column (ok or bounced), handy for cleaning lists you keep in your own CRM. The export is one row per guest even when they have visited many times, so an address is never repeated in a list you feed to your own tools
  • Click a guest, their full profile: visits and rhythm, spend at the till when Toast or Square is connected, marketing reachability, reviews, bookings, your private notes and tags, plain-English prompts for your team, and the buttons to kick or block their device (below). See The Guest Profile. Tags can be added by hand there, or automatically by a Planner "Tag guests" automation, and either way you can use them to build an audience segment later
  • Bulk GDPR actions — anonymise or delete selected guests (see Account Settings)
  • Import contacts, upload a contact list you already have (see Import Existing Contacts). Imported contacts appear here marked Imported and are excluded from the visit metrics below, because they never visited

The classic dashboard at app.captifi.io shows the same feed: its guest list has the same Visit column and a Visit type filter, and its CSV downloads stay one row per guest.

Kick or Block a Guest Device from Their Profile

If one guest is causing a problem, you can act on their device without hunting for them in the live list:

  1. Go to My Venues → Guest Visits
  2. Search for the guest, then click their name to open their profile
  3. At the top right of the profile, choose:
    • Kick off WiFi, the device is disconnected straight away. The guest can sign in again through your splash page whenever they like
    • Block device, the device is disconnected and refused every time it tries to join that venue again, until you unblock it
  4. Confirm in the dialog that appears

CaptiFi then checks with your WiFi hardware that the device really has gone, rather than taking the command's acknowledgement on trust. On UniFi it reads the client back from your controller; on CaptiFi access points it reads the access point's list of authorised devices. The result appears in the notice that follows:

  • A green Device kicked or Device blocked notice means the check confirmed it: your network no longer lists the device as authorised (and, for a block on a UniFi controller, reports it as blocked)
  • An amber notice means the command was accepted but the check could not confirm it yet. The notice says why: the device still showed as authorised at the time of the check, or your controller or access point could not be read. Try again in a moment, and check Connected Guests if the device stays online
  • A red notice means the command itself failed, for example because CaptiFi could not sign in to your controller. Nothing has changed for the guest

A kicked guest stays kicked even if the check could not confirm it straight away; the check only tells you what your network reported at that moment.

A blocked guest's profile shows an Unblock device button instead, so you can lift the block at any time.

The buttons only appear when CaptiFi has a current connection for that guest's device and your WiFi hardware supports the action (UniFi controllers and CaptiFi access points do). The same actions are on the classic dashboard at app.captifi.io, on the guest's record in Guest Registrations.

Block device needs a direct connection to your UniFi controller. If your UniFi site is linked through the UniFi cloud (Site Manager) account instead of a local controller API key, Kick off WiFi works but Block device reports that blocking is not supported: the UniFi cloud API has no block command. Reconnect the site with a local controller API key to block devices.

Who can do this

Team members need the Manage devices permission, the same permission the block action needs on Connected Guests. See Team Members.

Monthly Reports

My Venues → Reports generates a branded PDF summary of how your venue performed each month — download it, or email it straight to stakeholders.

Key Metrics to Track

MetricWhat to Look For
VisitsIs footfall growing week on week? Unexpected dips?
New vs returningAre you attracting new guests, retaining existing ones, or both?
Busiest hoursUse for staffing and promotion timing
Opt-in rateBelow ~30% suggests your splash page copy needs work
AP healthOffline access points mean missed data

Using Analytics for Business Decisions

InsightAction
Tuesday afternoons are quietRun a targeted email campaign with a Tuesday-only offer
Opt-in rate dropped this monthReview your splash page welcome message and consent copy
High new guests but low return rateSet up a welcome automation with a return-visit incentive
One venue outperforming othersCompare splash designs and campaigns across your venues

For benchmarks and frameworks, see WiFi Analytics for Business.

CaptiFi — Guest WiFi Marketing Platform