Street Fight Daily: Facebook Adds Calls, Macy’s ‘Digical’ Strategy
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology…
These New Facebook Ads Come With a Call Button to Ring Up Businesses (AdWeek)
Facebook has built a “call” button people can tap to call businesses directly from an ad. More than 30 million businesses have Facebook pages, and now they can add the instant call button or a “get directions” button in marketing campaigns.
Verizon Now Owns an Ad Tech Company — Here’s What It Means for Local (Street Fight)
Verizon surprised the ad tech community earlier this week announcing its $4.2 billion acquisition of AOL. We caught up with a handful of ad tech executives to breakdown the news and evaluate the potential impact of a Verizon-AOL tie-up on the mobile, and particularly, local ad tech sector.
Macy’s Embraces a ‘Digical’ World (AdAge)
Macy’s, one of the nation’s oldest retailers, founded in 1858, has become one of the most innovative when it comes to digital, social and mobile technology. The New York-based department store chain is using technology to connect with consumers on a local and national level.
Report: More Than Half of Mobile Location Data Is Inaccurate (Street Fight)
The growing importance of programmatic buying, where marketers buy media via data not content, has suddenly put an price tag on the data quality problem on mobile exchanges. A new report from Thinknear suggests the problem is only getting worse — at least when it comes to location data.
Google Continues Debranding Local – Google Maps App Becoming Local’s Forward Facing Brand (Blumenthals)
Mike Blumenthal: With mobile now the dominant platform, the future of Google’s focus on local will be as a value added content for the Google Maps App(s) and to a lesser extent browser based mobile search. I don’t think we will see any forward facing “Google Local Brand” any time soon if ever.
Foursquare Returns to Its Roots in Bid to Win Back Users (Fortune)
Jason Cipriani: Foursquare is hoping to regain some of its old magic. The re-gamification of check ins will unlock stickers at venues, or when certain phrases are typed, which is kind of like the digital equivalent of a passport stamp.
Google’s ‘Phantom’ Algorithm Update Hits Websites (CNBC)
HubPages, a collection of more than 870,000 miniblogs covering everything from the “History of advertising” to “How to identify venomous house spiders,” saw its Google search traffic plunge 22 percent on May 3 from the prior week. Of the company’s 100 top pages, 68 lost visitors over that stretch.
A Big Marketing Opportunity Most SMBs and Their Vendors Miss (Local Search Insider)
Earlier this week Google exposed data on the massive growth of “how-to” searches on YouTube. These searches are definitely a content marketing strategy that SMBs can participate in and win with: plumbers, electricians, floor installers, painters and so on.
Samsung Paid Around $250 Million for LoopPay, Its Apple Pay Competitor
(Recode)
What’s the price of competing with Apple, Google and PayPal in mobile payments? For Samsung, about $250 million. That’s about how much the Korean phone maker spent earlier this year to acquire LoopPay, a Massachusetts-based startup whose technology will be used in the Samsung Pay.
SIM Partners and Vibes Add Marketing to Local Searches (PYMNTS)
A new partnership is looking to turn searchers into buyers based on their location. Local search technology company SIM Partners announced that it is collaborating with mobile solutions provider Vibes to integrate mobile wallet campaigns with SIM Partners’ local marketing automation platform.
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