In Placed Insights’ first U.S. rankings, based on visits measured in March 2013, McDonald’s was first and Walmart was second. GeekWire reported that Walmart had nearly three times as many visitors as Target. The article’s headline also names Subway, but its text does not state Subway’s rank or visitor share.
What the March 2013 rankings said
Taylor Soper’s May 1, 2013, report for GeekWire described Placed Insights’ first rankings of U.S. businesses by visits. Placed reported McDonald’s at the top, followed by Walmart. The account gives no exact visitor percentages or counts, and it does not specify Subway’s position in the article text. Read the GeekWire report.
The clearest numerical comparison in the story is that Walmart had nearly three times as many visitors as Target in the March 2013 ranking. That is a comparison reported by Placed through GeekWire, not a current estimate or a claim about sales, revenue, or customer spending.
How Placed said it measured visits
GeekWire reported that Placed processed more than 70 million location measurements per day from more than 70,000 U.S. users who had opted in to share location. The company said it measured around 1,000 businesses each day across 130 categories, then combined those observations with metadata and proprietary modeling intended to normalize results to represent the U.S. population.
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The article does not explain how Placed recruited or weighted its sample, how it defined a visit, or how uncertain the rankings might be. It also gives no independent validation. These omissions mean the figures should be read as Placed’s modeled ranking as reported in 2013, not as a fully documented census of shoppers.
What else the report observed
Seasonal and monthly patterns
Placed’s analysis compared business categories over time. The report associated shifts in visits to pizza and fried-chicken businesses with the end of football season and said Buffalo Wild Wings visits increased during March Madness. It also reported that financial planning and investment businesses, along with travel and tourism lodging, had some of the largest increases from January; the article connected those changes to tax season and spring break. These are the report’s interpretations of patterns, not proof that those events caused the changes.
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Age and other demographic comparisons
The article said In-N-Out and Buffalo Wild Wings attracted late teens and people in their early twenties, while Caribou Coffee and Culver’s often attracted visitors over 55. It also described differences involving Kohl’s, Sears, and Macy’s. GeekWire did not provide the underlying chart values or detailed definitions for these comparisons, so they do not support precise audience profiles or claims about every customer.
Placed also said its comparisons covered age, gender, income, ethnicity, whether a household had children, and education. The story does not provide enough detail to quantify those differences reliably.
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How to read the findings today
These rankings answer a historical question: what Placed’s modeled data suggested about U.S. visits in March 2013. They do not establish which retailers are most visited now, and visits are not interchangeable with purchases or financial performance. The report is useful as a snapshot of location analytics at the time, with its conclusions bounded by the methodology and detail GeekWire published.
Placed’s then-CEO David Shim described the release as “everything that Placed has been working on these past two years,” according to GeekWire. The story also mentioned Placed Affiliate, a location-data monetization offering for app developers; it does not establish whether that offering remains available or what its terms were beyond the 2013 description.
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