Borrell: Promotions Will Dominate Local Media Ad Spend in 2013
Local advertisers are set to spend 81% more on promotions than media-based advertising this year, according to a new study by Borrell Associates. The report forecasts that growth in digital promotions will outpace digital advertising by 65% over the next four years, jumping from $32.2 billion in 2012 to over $80 billion in 2017…
Street Fight Daily: Pinterest Buys Livestar, Starbucks’ Shoddy Square Rollout
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.… Pinterest Acquires Local Recommendation App Livestar (AllThingsD)… Starbuck’s Shoddy Square Rollout Baffles Baristas, Confuses Customers (Fast Company)… Yelp: Study Says Our SMB Advertisers Make $23K More per Year (Screenwerk)…
Conference Notebook: Location Data Takes Center Stage
Scaling access to a small business’s customer data, and using that data to drive marketing, is quickly becoming a differentiating asset in the industry. Data should play a key role in not only defining the audience to whom a message is delivered, but in shaping the content of that message as well…
Local Companies Reluctant to Add New Jobs
Just a couple of years ago, local companies like Groupon and LivingSocial (and many others) were expanding rapidly and staffing up — eager to put hundreds of salespeople on the street as quickly as possible and grab share of their new market. But in 2013 those boom times have faded a bit, as local companies have adjusted to a period of economic uncertainty and are reluctant to add new positions to their cost structure…
Street Fight Daily: Mobile Payments Lack Winner, Groupon’s Temp Leadership
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.… Mobile Payments Still Lack Clear Winner (Media Post)… The Reward for Fixing Groupon? Not Much (Wall Street Journal)… Square’s Launch in Canada v. US: Higher Adoption Rate and Larger Transaction Size (The Next Web)…
5 Tips for Building a Smarter Geofence
The number of advertisers using “geo-aware” technology in their mobile ad campaigns jumped from 17% in 2011 to 36% in 2012, according to a report by Verve Mobile, and yet there is still confusion in the marketplace over what makes a geofencing campaign useful, and when location targeting is necessary to achieve a high ROI. Here are five strategies for creating a smarter, more strategic geofencing campaign…
Going Beyond Standard Location Targeting to Reach Mobile Audiences
It’s important to focus on not just the reach of a geofence, but also on effectively targeting your business’s relevant mobile audiences. A little extra strategic effort goes a long way, and there is much to gain from leveraging the variety of data currently available and layering it appropriately to suit your campaign’s specific strategies and tactics…
Conference Notebook: Foursquare CRO Sees ‘Off the Charts’ Engagement With Native Ads
In describing why Foursquare chose to build a native advertising product, the company’s chief revenue officer Steven Rosenblatt yesterday pointed to the difficulties with some mobile ad formats, like pop-ups, saying that it was really easy to screw up the mobile user’s experience with poor ad delivery. As a result, the company has instead moved ahead with its “promoted updates” native advertising product, which launched in August. Rosenblatt said that over 52% of the people who engage with ads are checking in within 24 hours…
Street Fight Daily: SMB Spend Still Offline, Factual and TripAdvisor Hook Up
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.… Small Business Web Ad Dollars: Still Way Too Small (AllThingsD)… Factual and TripAdvisor to Scratch Each Other’s Backs With Global Restaurant Data Partnership (PandoDaily)… Uncovering the Buffett Equation for Newspaper Survivability (Ebyline)…
What SMBs Need to Know About Facebook’s News Feed Redesign
In the hopes of creating a better user experience (and ultimately more monetization opportunities), Facebook recently overhauled the design and functionality of its news feed — aiming to become the “personalized newspaper” of the digital age. The redesigned layout will include bigger photos, maps and news articles and users can now sort through feeds based on interests — so SMBs currently managing a page should definitely adjust the way they approach their Facebook marketing and creative strategy…
Alt-Weeklies Struggling — Can They Leverage SMB Relationships to Connect Online?
While alt-weeklies really used to own the market for irreverent commentary and events listings in cities around the country, the introduction of online competition over the past decade has really degraded their snarky monopolies. Tiffany Shackelford, executive director at the Association of Alternative Newsmedia (AAN), spoke to Street Fight recently about how alt-weeklies need to evolve their strategic thinking…
Study: Brands’ Spend in Mobile-Local Media to Eclipse Online in 2017
National advertisers will spend more local dollars on mobile than online media in 2017, according to a new study by BIA/Kelsey. The report projects that national spend on local-mobile media will increase six-fold over the next five years, jumping from $1 billion in 2012 to $6.4 billion five years later…
Street Fight Daily: Directories File for Bankruptcy, Foursquare Searches for Funding
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.… Directory Firms Dex One, SuperMedia File for Bankruptcy (Reuters)… Foursquare Aims At A Moving Target As It Tries To Close Another Round Of Funding (TechCrunch)… Flashlight Apps, Location and Why Consumers Still Don’t Understand Privacy (The Next Web)…
How Media Buyers Buy Hyperlocal
In a Street Fight webinar sponsored by YP Thursday, Mitch
Bernstein, the director of client strategy at Neo@Ogilvy, and YP’s
Onil Gunawardana discussed the value of hyperlocal from a media
buyer’s perspective, highlighting its ability drive conversions in
a still-nascent mobile space and provide marketers with deeper
insights into their consumer’s path to purchase…
Openings & New Hires at Angie’s List, Topix, Google, Signpost and more…
One hyperlocal publisher expands (Topix) while another contracts (The Daily Voice). Angie’s List moves on from its CFO, JiWire hires a former Yahoo exec, and the head of The Local Search Association decamps (after 25 years) to head up The Association of Directory Publishers. Plus, gigs at PayPal, comScore, AOL, LinkedIn, Newsle, Amazon and more…
Street Fight Announces Second Annual West Coast Summit
Following up on a January event that gathered over 400 hyperlocal industry professionals in New York City, Street Fight is pleased to announce that we will be bringing our trademark conference to the West Coast again on June 4th, 2013. Street Fight Summit West 2013 will be held once again at the Bently Reserve in downtown San Francisco…
Village Soup Shows ‘Native’ Ads Can Work on Local News Sites
With the recent push toward “native” advertising, we’ve learned (if we hadn’t known already) that ads can be “news.” In terms of local information value, ads-as-news may never trump the apartment-house fire that leaves several families homeless — but it has become clear that there’s room for both, especially in the local digital space…
Patch: Here’s Ten Things We’re Doing RIGHT
Anyone paying attention to this column knows I’ve dedicated plenty of thought to AOL’s efforts in local, primarily via its Patch effort. Some at Patch/AOL were unhappy. Others mailed me with even more colorful complaints, or “can-you-believe-this” vignettes. So I wanted to turn the tables on myself a bit and challenge Patch to sell us on what is going right…