Street Fight’s August Theme: The Next Normal
As we roll into August, it’s time to establish Street Fight’s monthly editorial focus. After our standard ritual (no animals harmed), we’ve settled on “The Next Normal.” Forced to adopt new technologies just to survive, some local businesses have experienced a decade of evolution in just a few months.
So the question is, how will newly elevated local businesses transform the local commerce landscape? If a large share of the local business universe has raised its game, what will be the new “bar” in local media, advertising, and commerce? How should tech providers adjust to new demand signals?
Why You Need to Build a Data Governance Team Right Now
In today’s climate in which consumer and regulatory expectations change so quickly, data governance is increasingly becoming a necessary function for all businesses leveraging consumer data.
GDPR, CCPA, and future state and federal privacy laws force brands, agencies, tech vendors, and data providers to either comply or face fines and other legal action. Without a data governance team to operationalize and manage their consumer data assets, they put themselves at extreme risk of losing competitive advantage or of being put out of business altogether.
5 Ways to Use Location-Targeted Ads During a Pandemic
Savvy brand marketers are finding ways to take advantage of location-targeted advertising to inform consumers about shifting variables such as store hours of operation and social distancing requirements. Despite some apprehension among advertisers worried about seeming to capitalize on a catastrophe, surveys show that consumers are OK with being targeted with ads right now. More than 90% of people surveyed say they think brands should continue advertising during the crisis.
Here are five examples of ways that brands can start using location-targeted advertising to more effectively connect with consumers during the pandemic.
How Advertisers Can Pursue Brand Safety without Avoiding Sensitive News Content
Advertisers blocking all potentially sensitive content is a raw deal for advertisers and publishers, says Rachel Tuffney, EVP of US operations at Dianomi. Publishers need advertiser support for serious stories. Advertisers need to be able to tell their own stories without avoiding 50% of serious news platform content and without blocking stories that may actually resonate with the brands they want to build.
Tuffney spoke to Street Fight to elucidate the trade-offs on this issue and explain how brands can be safe without blocking all sensitive content.
Why SMBs Are Flocking to Martech to Combat Covid Slump
The old way of doing business isn’t working anymore. As restaurants, retailers, and other businesses work to keep customers updated about shifting hours of operation and in-store social distancing requirements, they are opening up to outside-the-box ideas and becoming more comfortable trying location-targeted marketing platforms.
Data show that digital adoption among businesses and consumers jumped forward at least five years in the first eight weeks of the pandemic. Small restaurants and retailers are eagerly adopting the same tools now that they were hesitant to try back in 2019. That push is leading technology providers to expand their offerings and develop new tools for a growing market.
Mediaocean Acquires 4C Insights. What’s Next for Ad Tech?
The coronavirus pandemic and ensuing recession have forced tech vendors to step up their games and make a stronger case to advertisers as to why their products and services are essential amid tightening budgets. The year of Covid-19 is also fostering a favorable environment for mergers and acquisitions, as solo players team up to emerge stronger on the other side of a stormy season.
Last week, ad tech got a fresh acquisition, as Mediaocean acquired 4C Insights. I checked in with Aaron Goldman, CMO of 4C Insights, to find out what the acquisition portends for the two companies and how it matches up with broader trends in ad tech.
The All But Inevitable Outcome of the Facebook Advertiser Boycott
The boycott may yet exert some meaningful pressure on Facebook to change its ways, but that outcome is unlikely. This is partly due to the dynamics of the advertising market itself but also to the global scale of Facebook’s business and the essential role end consumers must play in any boycott. It’s worth examining each of these factors in turn.
Retail Prepares for a Covid-Inflected Holiday Season
The coronavirus pandemic has accelerated the shift from brick-and-mortar commerce to digital transactions. It has also forced brick-and-mortars resisting the hybridization of their own businesses to adopt digital methods, turning restaurants and apparel stores alike into both brick-and-mortar establishments and online sellers.
Against that backdrop, retail’s biggest quarter will present novel challenges this year. Retailers will need to optimize for online transactions and contend with fragmented national and global landscapes where it may be safe to go to stores in New York but not in Los Angeles.
Changing Behaviors Are Influencing Targeting Tactics
Online actions such as a person’s search history or the brands they like on social media platforms fall short in telling the full story of genuine consumer behavior. Offline behaviors, however, prove to be more indicative of a consumer’s likes, dislikes, and hobbies. During a time when people go fewer places, where they go tells us even more about who they are.
Coronavirus Boosts OTT Viewership and Opens New TV Ad Opportunities
To be sure, kids are not the only ones spending more time staring at the TV screen. The coronavirus has catalyzed a golden age for TV viewership and non-traditional formats such as over-the-top viewing in particular, said Sean Buckley, COO of global video advertising platform SpotX.
SpotX announced a strategic investment in CTV and OTT-focused ad serving platform SpringServe Monday. I checked in with Buckley to find out how the partnership will benefit both companies and how the coronavirus year has affected TV viewership as well as video advertising.
A Call for Brand Safety: Using OOH to take Ownership of Advertising Environment
Brands today are spending valuable time assessing and understanding the environments in which they exist and the communities they impact. I expect that more brands will turn to OOH as we move closer to the election; it is a one-of-a-kind medium that provides a safe platform to share messaging while fostering conversations and shaping a local environment.
Most importantly, the tangible IRL impact of OOH provides a level of authenticity that amplifies voice and connects with people as they safely enjoy some much-needed time outside of their homes.
Hyperlocal Device Targeting Should Be Part of Your Advertising Strategy
True hyperlocal advertising revolves around mobile location data. The intersection among time, place, device, and creative is the sweet spot that we’re aiming for here. By harnessing mobile location data, digital marketers can employ smarter audience targeting, deliver more timely and relevant ad messaging, generate more foot traffic, and measure the offline results of online marketing efforts.
If you’re looking to add location-based advertising to your digital marketing mix, here are some effective tactics that can help you boost in-store visits.
Can a Pandemic Inflect Local Commerce Tech? Part II
What about the tech adoption accelerants happening on the supply side? Tech giants who provide marketing and operational tools for local businesses have been in hyperdrive over the past few months to roll out new Covid-era features.
Here are three areas where we’re seeing the most activity … and where we could correspondingly see the most local business evolution.
The Essential Data Requirements for Successful Developers
Leading brands and local businesses alike rely on innovative business and consumer data to market their products, sell directly, and advertise through multiple channels, including social media, display, email, and direct mail.
Tech companies rely heavily on data to support search and navigation, location analytics, risk assessments, and more.
While use cases might be different, here’s what all companies and their product developers should look for when evaluating the data that will fuel their solutions.
AI’s Promise and Challenges for Martech
In this article, we will discuss the ways artificial intelligence is changing marketing and why this marks a positive change. This article will also discuss how metadata can be more revealing than event data itself when collected and analyzed in aggregate, and why making all this data functional is the main strength of AI technology.
As Delivery Market Consolidates, Affiliate Marketing Gets Sophisticated
Uber’s recent decision to acquire Postmates for $2.65 billion was just the beginning. As the delivery market consolidates, there will almost certainly be rising demand for pay-for-performance marketing products that help these companies strike a balance between volume and profitability.
One of the latest examples of this is the launch of Actionable Intelligence, a product by Button that gives marketers the ability to target and test high-value audience segments with personalized offers.
The Problems with a Band-Aid Approach to Data Governance and Compliance
As more privacy laws pop up, blanket policies and compliance band aids could result in brands cutting away 20% to 40% of the data they would have previously collected. A big portion of that data is likely usable in different scenarios, but a failure to operate at the edge means that brands are cutting away portions to be on the safe side.
Rather than jettison huge chunks of data because it may not be compliant, the industry needs to adopt granular data governance controls that provide a view into the circumstances of every piece of data.
How Advertisers Can Turn the Facebook Boycott into a Transformative Moment
It would be helpful if about 20 of the large brands boycotting Facebook put their money where their mouth is and invested in the establishment of a data and publisher sharing network.
The next step would be identifying the media publisher outlets as partners. The co-op would need to negotiate a performance-based publisher relationship, which would effectively increase content monetization for publishers’ content channels.
Location Weekly: Walmart’s Grocery Partnership with Yahoo Mail
In this episode of Location Weekly, the Location-Based Marketing Association covers Walmart partnering to let people buy groceries through Yahoo Mail, Iceland’s Airport using sensors and AI to streamline passenger flow, a project between Trident and Instagram that can get you to the Grammy’s, and MUJI taking their products to the mountains.