What is a captive portal and how important is it to you as a business.
Surely not long ago you have been connected to a public network and have started displaying advertisements on your devices that have to do with the business you have visited, or maybe it has started receiving promotions in your email. So it is very likely that you have connected to a captive portal. It is much more used than you think.
A captive portal is a login tool commonly used by many businesses, such as hotels, shopping malls, restaurants, etc. It is used to collect information from users in exchange for allowing them to access the Wi-Fi environment.
So what is a captive portal?
A captive portal is a software that monitors the traffic of a WiFi hotspot, forcing users interested in using it to go through a web page, where they are informed of the steps they must follow to connect to the network and thus have access to the internet. .
The captive portal is then in charge of controlling and managing user access to networks, both public and private in an automated way. However, its most widespread use is in public places in order to facilitate Internet access via WiFi.
Therefore, if you as a business offer free Wi-Fi to your customers, it is important that you have a captive portal installed in your Wi-Fi Hotspot, since it is not advisable to give your Wi-Fi password for security reasons. Therefore, to protect yourself, use a captive portal, which also identifies and saves the traceability of connections if required by the security forces under judicial requirement. The importance that resides in it is no longer simply due to security and legal issues, but the potential that this alternative has for your business in advertising and marketing issues.
With the use of the captive portal, you will be able to identify all the people who connect to your Wi-Fi, through the registration they make when logging in, being able to ask part of the name and email for data that are relevant to your business strategy, such as age, sex or country.
One of the great advantages of using a captive portal is that users will accept the conditions of use of your WiFi network before connecting, and you can send them commercial notifications complying with all the regulations of the data protection law, using the software as a marketing tool, which will help you to know the type of customer you have, how they behave and will be a new channel for the entry of leads for your business strategy.
Blue Octopus is a company of professionals specialized in the sector and with experience, who offer “Octopus Platform” as a business solution, as a tool to control these user accesses to the network in a secure way and adding value to your business by being able to use the software as an automated marketing tool.