News and Analysis
As AI Changes Local Discovery, Scorpion Bets on Scale and Technology
The future of local marketing may depend less on generating leads and more on connecting marketing activity directly to business outcomes. The Scorpion acquisition of 1SEO reflects a growing industry shift toward AI-powered platforms that help businesses compete in an increasingly complex discovery environment. Artificial intelligence is rapidly changing how consumers discover, evaluate, and choose […]
What Political Campaigns Can Teach Marketers About Hyperlocal Media Strategy
Political advertising has long served as a testing ground for innovations that eventually make their way into mainstream marketing. Campaigns operate under compressed timelines, face relentless pressure to prove effectiveness, and often have only a single opportunity to influence behavior before Election Day. As a result, many of the strategies developed in political media—from audience […]
Yext Wants to Be the Infrastructure Layer for Agentic Marketing
For most of the last decade, local marketing technology was built around helping brands rank in search engines. That model is beginning to change as AI-powered search experiences, agentic marketing, recommendation engines, and conversational assistants play a larger role in how consumers discover and evaluate businesses. According to Yext’s recent Consumer Search Behaviors report, 28% […]
Commentary
The Local Media Paradox: Turning Community Trust into Measurable Confidence
Despite commanding some of the highest levels of consumer trust in media, local media continues to lose brand advertising budgets to platforms with far weaker audience relationships. The problem isn’t reach or relevance, but an inability to measure and communicate the value of trust in terms brands can buy. Local media owns something the rest […]
Google’s New AI Search Rules Create a Challenge for MULO Brands
Google recently published its first official guide to optimizing websites for generative AI Search features. For single-location businesses, the guidance is fairly straightforward. For multi-location brands (MULOs), the same principles apply, but the complexity of executing them scales dramatically with every location you add. Here’s what the guide says, and what it actually means if you’re […]
Why MULO Brands Are Investing More in Creator-Led Marketing
Creator-led marketing is rapidly evolving from an experimental tactic into a core component of many brands’ growth strategies. As consumers spend more time with creator-generated content and place greater trust in peer recommendations than traditional advertising, marketers are increasingly turning to creators as a scalable channel for customer acquisition, engagement, and brand building. The trend […]
Latest Posts
As AI Changes Local Discovery, Scorpion Bets on Scale and Technology
The future of local marketing may depend less on generating leads and more on connecting marketing activity directly to business outcomes. The Scorpion acquisition of 1SEO reflects a growing industry shift toward AI-powered platforms that help businesses compete in an increasingly complex discovery environment. Artificial intelligence is rapidly changing how consumers discover, evaluate, and choose […]
The Local Media Paradox: Turning Community Trust into Measurable Confidence
Despite commanding some of the highest levels of consumer trust in media, local media continues to lose brand advertising budgets to platforms with far weaker audience relationships. The problem isn’t reach or relevance, but an inability to measure and communicate the value of trust in terms brands can buy. Local media owns something the rest […]
What Political Campaigns Can Teach Marketers About Hyperlocal Media Strategy
Political advertising has long served as a testing ground for innovations that eventually make their way into mainstream marketing. Campaigns operate under compressed timelines, face relentless pressure to prove effectiveness, and often have only a single opportunity to influence behavior before Election Day. As a result, many of the strategies developed in political media—from audience […]
Yext Wants to Be the Infrastructure Layer for Agentic Marketing
For most of the last decade, local marketing technology was built around helping brands rank in search engines. That model is beginning to change as AI-powered search experiences, agentic marketing, recommendation engines, and conversational assistants play a larger role in how consumers discover and evaluate businesses. According to Yext’s recent Consumer Search Behaviors report, 28% […]
Basis and Cint Want Brand Metrics to Matter Before Campaigns End
Digital advertising has long operated with two separate measurement systems. On one side sit performance metrics such as clicks, conversions, cost per acquisition (CPA), and return on ad spend (ROAS). These indicators provide near real-time visibility into campaign activity and allow marketers to optimize media while campaigns are running. On the other side are brand […]
Google’s New AI Search Rules Create a Challenge for MULO Brands
Google recently published its first official guide to optimizing websites for generative AI Search features. For single-location businesses, the guidance is fairly straightforward. For multi-location brands (MULOs), the same principles apply, but the complexity of executing them scales dramatically with every location you add. Here’s what the guide says, and what it actually means if you’re […]
The Goddard School Is Changing How Franchise Marketing Gets Done
Growth creates a unique challenge for franchise organizations. Every new location expands revenue opportunities, but it also adds complexity. More locations mean more local marketing channels to manage, more reviews to monitor, more business listings to maintain, and more customer interactions that require attention. At a certain point, growth itself begins to change how marketing […]
What Yelp’s Fastest-Growing Brands Reveal About Consumer Behavior
Every year, lists of the fastest-growing brands offer more than a snapshot of corporate success. They provide insight into what consumers increasingly value, how preferences are evolving, and where demand is moving next. Yelp’s 2026 Fastest-Growing Brands report does exactly that. Based on growth in consumer engagement across the Yelp platform, the rankings highlight brands […]
Why MULO Brands Are Investing More in Creator-Led Marketing
Creator-led marketing is rapidly evolving from an experimental tactic into a core component of many brands’ growth strategies. As consumers spend more time with creator-generated content and place greater trust in peer recommendations than traditional advertising, marketers are increasingly turning to creators as a scalable channel for customer acquisition, engagement, and brand building. The trend […]
Why the World Cup Is Really Thousands of Local Marketing Moments
The biggest mistake brands make when approaching the FIFA World Cup is treating it as a single media event for local marketing. In reality, the tournament is thousands of simultaneous local moments unfolding across cities, neighborhoods, bars, restaurants, transit hubs, streaming platforms, and cultural communities. For agencies, media companies, and multi-location brands, that distinction may […]
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The Local Media Paradox: Turning Community Trust into Measurable Confidence