Outdoor Advertising, a Media Anomaly, Knocks on the Digital Door

Share this:

Billboards, like most things in our lives, are getting smarter. A report released this morning by PQ Media estimates that digital out-of-home advertising in the U.S. generated $2.37 billion last year, or 32% of the $7.4 billion of the total outdoor advertising market…

Daily Voice Expands Into Roger Ailes’ Territory

Share this:

The Daily Voice has expanded to Putnam County in the Lower Hudson Valley, creating the regional corporate network’s 42nd site in the affluent suburban New York-Connecticut market. Tucker said Putnam Daily Voice’ was launched “with zero expansion” of staff, which includes eight reporters covering a number of communities in the New York-Connecticut suburbs…

Street Fight Daily: Andrew Mason’s Next Big Thing, Square Bets on Chips

Share this:

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technologyGroupon Founder’s Next Big Plan: Audio Walking Tours (Businessweek)…Square Bets Big on Next-Gen Credit Card Tech (Wired)… Payments Giant First Data Acquires Gyft in an Effort to Bring Digital Gift Cards to the Masses (Pando)…

10 Years in, Yelp Turns a Profit

Share this:

Yelp is now in the black. The company beat analysts’ expectations, reporting better-than-expected revenues Wednesday with strong top-line growth and a million dollars in profit for the first time in its history…

The Impact of Google’s Local Update Is Still a Developing Story

Share this:

Google seems to be experimenting with driving more traffic to its local competition, meaning that it’s more important than ever for a business to secure its presence across a broad base of directories. The value proposition of local SEO does not change in a fundamental way, given that Google has long used citation consistency as a prominent local ranking signal…

Study: Consumers Increasingly Receptive to Mobile Ads

Share this:

A new study released by xAd and Telmetrics finds that consumer engagement with mobile ads has increased dramatically over the past few years. Nearly 50% of mobile shoppers said that they found mobile ads informative/helpful — up from 22% in 2013. In addition, nearly half of respondents who clicked on mobile ads said they went on to take secondary actions (like viewing a website or searching for additional information)…

Street Fight Daily: GoDaddy Targets Small Business, Amazon Expands Grocery Delivery

Share this:

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technologyRadioShack is Running Out of Cash (CNBC)… GoDaddy Rolls Out New Spot Targeting Small Businesses (AdAge)… Amazon Fresh Grocery Delivery Business Expands to San Diego (Recode)…

The Data, Apps, and Science of Successful Marketing

Share this:

VentureBeat’s inaugural event on the future of marketing tech — is gathering the industry’s biggest names at the Hotel Nikko in San Francisco on Aug. 5-6 to uncover new case studies, insights, and strategies designed to help companies more effectively acquire and retain customers and grow revenue. Click for more info and a discount code…

Apple Will Beef Up Privacy in iOS 8 — Here’s What It Means for Local

Share this:

When Apple unveiled iOS 8 last month, only brief mentions were made of iBeacon, the company’s much-hyped proximity messaging protocol. But early versions of the software released to developers in July suggest that the forthcoming operating system could include changes with implications for stakeholders across the commerce, advertising, and retail technology industries…

5 Tools for Cross-Device Ad Targeting

Share this:

Ad targeting was relatively straightforward back when consumers relied exclusively on their desktops to consume online content. But as the number of gadgets owned by consumers has increased over time, ad targeting has become considerably more complicated. Here are five companies that offer cross-device tracking for advertisers…

Street Fight Daily: Zillow Buys Trulia for $3.5B, Yelp Adds Videos to Reviews

Share this:

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technologyZillow to Buy Trulia for $3.5 Billion in All-Stock Deal (New York Times)… Yelp’s Newest Feature Adds Videos To Your Restaurant Reviews (BusinessInsdier)… Startups Uber and Airbnb Court Business Travelers (Wall Street Journal)…

The Sharing Economy Goes Behind the Counter

Share this:

We tend to think of the sharing economy as a consumer movement that helps us hail a ride or find a place to stay. But the basic logic driving the shift will soon start to impact the more mundane aspects of small business, allowing merchants to enjoy some of the advantages of scale that their larger competitors do…

How Customer Retention Plays a Key Role in SMB Marketing

Share this:

Approximately 60% of SMBs spend the majority of their annual marketing budgets on customer retention, because it delivers such a strong return on investment. Within customer retention, email marketing is considered the most effective digital marketing tactic, followed by social media and content marketing…

Street Fight Daily: Google’s Local Algorithm, Amazon’s Square Competitor

Share this:

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technologyGoogle “Pigeon” Updates Local Search Algorithm With Stronger Ties To Web Search Signal (SearchEngineLand)… Amazon Set to Launch Square-competitor in August as it Develops Biometric Payment Solutions (9to5Mac)… Car-Hailing Service, Lyft, Reaches Deal to Operate in New York City (New York Times)…

5 Ways to Increase Redemptions of Mobile Coupons

Share this:

Mobile coupon usage is on the upswing, with 75% of mobile shoppers having redeemed a coupon from their smartphones last year, and 80% saying their perceptions of a retailer would improve if that retailer offered mobile deals. Despite the obvious consumer interest in mobile coupons, however, many retailers — and particularly, smaller merchants — are still struggling to get their footing in this new marketing world…

LBMA Podcast: Bonnaroo’s Beacons, Autograph’s Henry Lawson

Share this:

Top stories of the week include: Heineken’s @wherenext twitter service; Clear Channel launches its “Connect” platform; Petpace tracks the health of your pet; AdNear teams up with Mindshare for location targeting in Asia; Samsung launches “CentreStage” in BestBuy; Marriott launches LocalPerks; and Birchbox opens up a real-life store in SoHo…

Street Fight Daily: Zillow Eyes Trulia, Facebook and Uber Discuss Partnership

Share this:

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technologyZillow Seeking to Buy Rival Property Site Trulia (Bloomberg)… Facebook and Uber Discuss Integration of Car Service Into Messenger (Recode)… LivingSocial’s Losses Narrow in the Second Wuarter (Washington Post)…

Three Months After IPO, Grubhub is Growing — And Profitable

Share this:

Shares of the company rose 4% Thursday morning as the online ordering firm reported solid revenue growth, and a stronger-than-expected jump in profit during its first full quarter as a public company…

WPP Mobile Exec: Location Already ‘Not Special’ in Ad Tech

Share this:

In a conversation this week, Michael Lieberman, chief executive North America at WPP’s Joule, discussed the copy-cat syndrome among mobile-local ad tech, how brands have ditched geo-fencing, and why influencing consumers’ impulse purchases might be the next big growth market for digital marketing dollars…

How Community Involvement Can Pay Off for Local Publishers

Share this:

Commuter traffic tie-ups and convenience store holdups can’t be the heart of a community news product. “Duty” coverage is still part of many sites’ content menu, but, by itself, it can’t build a solid relationship with community. The trick is to empower users “to take action to improve their communities”…