Loyalty in the Time of “Near Me” Searches, Omnichannel, and Covid-19
In addition to the opportunities and challenges that come with an omni-channel commercial ecosystem, 2020 brings to businesses the challenge of mobile search, which leads people on the go to search for “X near me” and pick the closest possible option. The new year also brought, as hardly anyone would’ve predicted months ago, an impending recession as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.
I caught up with Nicole Amsler, vice president of marketing at loyalty tech firm Formation.ai, to garner her insights on loyalty strategy this year.
4 Mobile and Location Trends for Brands to Keep an Eye On
Believe it or not, this is the smartphone’s third decade. When it comes to mobile apps and location-based marketing, so much has changed since the advent of the iPhone in 2007.
While it’s hard to predict what will become of mobile and location-based media in the next 10 years, it’s fair to prognosticate what we can expect for the rest of this year and beyond. Here are four mobile and location trends brand marketers need to watch.
Google Disables Reviews and Q&A, Yelp Announces New Features Amid Outbreak
Important announcements were posted Friday by Google and Yelp as part of the effort to contend with coronavirus and its impact on businesses.
Google has published a new help page titled “Limited Google My Business functionality due to COVID-19.” Before diving into the details in the announcement, I’ll mention the most important headline. Due to a rapid reorganization of priorities, Google has determined that at this time, they will disable the ability to leave new reviews, reply to reviews, and post new Question and Answer content.
These Chatbots Are Helping Brands Respond to Covid-19 Queries
Chatbots could help fill the gap in business-to-customer communication capacity during the Covid-19 outbreak. Although there will always be a need for human customer service agents, even when chatbots with AI are deployed, the coronavirus outbreak is demonstrating just how valuable this automated technology can be for brands working in a time of crisis. Already, chatbot companies like LivePerson say they’re seeing significant increases in volume on their platforms. As the pandemic widens, even more companies are likely to start integrating chatbots into their customer service systems.
Here are six chatbot solutions that brands can start using right away.
Location Weekly: Google Partners with Burberry on AR Shopping, Amazon Delivers Covid-19 Tests
In this episode of Location Weekly, the Location-Based Marketing Association covers Amazon delivering Covid-19 test kits to residents in Seattle, Wirecard partnering with Klarna, Signify releasing “snap-in” IoT sensors for luminaries, Burberry partnering with Google for AR shopping, Cibo Express bringing Amazon cashierless tech to airports, and Wingstop shifting OOH budget to hoodies.
Local Advertising in the Time of Social Distancing
Many of us are facing a reality in which #QuarantineLife is the new normal — at least for the foreseeable future. Even with offices temporarily shutting their doors and the worldwide workforce moving to a remote-based culture, the tools provided by local social advertising can help businesses, perhaps especially those dealing with store closures, drive their goals forward.
Heard on the Street, Episode 47: Header Bidding and Rapid Growth, with Freestar
As ad tech continues to advance and programmatic becomes de rigueur, you’d think managing advertising would be easier for publishers. But in some ways, it’s gotten more difficult for publishers to monetize content and optimize ad placement through complex tech stacks while focusing on their primary function: content.
This is where Freestar comes in. As we heard from company president Kurt Donnell on the latest episode of Street Fight’s Heard on the Street podcast (listen above), Freestar frees up publishers to do what they do best while it takes care of ad monetization, especially through its speciality, header bidding.
Treat the Economic Symptoms of Coronavirus with Proactive Brand Management
In the midst of this uncertainty, your business’s online visibility probably isn’t top of mind—rightfully so.
Nevertheless, communication is key to your brand management strategy in times like these. It’s important to make your customers aware of any changes in your business operations. Below are three tactics you can use to bolster your brand management as the coronavirus sends shockwaves through the global economy.
Tech Companies Respond as Workers, SMBs Face Covid-19 Pressure
Google’s sister site Verily launched a site, albeit with logistical difficulties, to help Bay Area residents find testing options, and Verily isn’t the only tech company facing or alleviating coronavirus concerns. As a possible recession looms, consumer spending dips, and employees are sent home for public safety, some vendors are stepping in to help workers weather the storm. Others are boosting small businesses, hiring and increasing pay for workers, and suspending precarious services.
Do Your Data Relationships Have a Real Future?
Brands and publishers seem to be getting the short end of the stick amid recent cookie and privacy regulation changes. In the absence of cookies, brands may feel undue pressure to go to walled gardens for scale. Meanwhile publishers will have to bet on first-party data collection and monetization, along with its inherent scalability challenges and slim view of the customer. What’s happening with our data relationships?
Computers Without Boundaries: A Deep Dive Into Ambient Computing
“Ambient computing” is actually a catch-all term for several new technologies. These include Internet of Things (IoT) devices, AI-driven devices, and cloud storage solutions that allow previously impossible amounts of data to be stored and processed.
The advantage of looking at these technologies under one term, though, is that it allows us to see the future of marketing more holistically. And that’s what we’ll look at in this article.
Social Selling Helps Boost Sales
I define social selling as the process of researching, connecting, and interacting with prospects and customers on social media networks. It focuses on nurturing leads, building brand authenticity and building trust with your prospects.
Leading firms have taken advantage of social selling and have begun reaping the benefits it offers. Research has shown that 70% of sales professionals are active on LinkedIn for business purposes, 89% believe social networking platforms such as LinkedIn are important in closing deals, and 64% of sales reps who invest time in social media are hitting their sales quota.
What California’s Gig Economy Law Means for Worker Flexibility
We can expect continued pushback to AB5 from companies across the gig economy. But regardless of whether the pushback leads to legislative changes, we’ll begin to see even more innovative approaches for managing flexible labor pools and flexible schedules. In the meantime, though, how can companies stay compliant, provide stability, and still preserve the flexibility that appeals to gig workers?
How Local Businesses Should Prepare for Coronavirus
A quick Google search on this column’s headline reveals a large number of sites offering recommendations to businesses large and small about how to prepare for the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak as it moves into pandemic territory. Articles on Inc., Fast Company, and the World Economic Forum echo a common theme: Businesses need to develop a plan of action for containing the spread of the illness, as well as contingencies that allow normal operations to continue as smoothly as possible.
In the sphere of digital presence management, key players like Google, Nextdoor, and Facebook are offering recommendations to help businesses develop plans and communicate effectively with consumers who need to access their products and services. The advice comes at a time when business operations may be modified or interrupted by multiple factors such as quarantines and supply chain interruptions.
Freckle, AdSquare Team Up on Privacy-Compliant Geo-Contextual Advertising
For years, geo-contextual advertising focused on targeting consumers for specific products or services at specific locations. The strategy has delivered impressive results for many brands and agencies. But with privacy restrictions on the rise, the time has come to start reimagining geo-contextual advertising in a way that brings brands together with on-the-go consumers in a privacy-safe way.
While many vendors are looking at how to expand into privacy-safe geo-targeting, Freckle and AdSquare are getting out ahead of the pack. Just this morning, Freckle and AdSquare announced a collaborative effort to improve geo-targeting capabilities for brands and agencies across North America. Through the collaboration, Freckle will layer its privacy-safe visitation data into AdSquare’s platform.
Location Weekly: Grocery Delivery in the Time of COVID-19 Alarm
In this episode of Location Weekly, the Location-Based Marketing Association covers Instacart’s doorstep grocery delivery amid the coronavirus scare, Papa Johns enjoying success with AR, 7Eleven opening an “Evolution” concept store, TapAd partnering with Gimbal, and Pandora launching interactive voice ads.
SMB Resellers and Agencies: How to Make the Most of the Conversions Objective
ROI is, of course, the ultimate goal of any advertising effort, so one might naturally ask, “Why would I ever choose an objective that’s not conversion optimized?”, or even “Why would I choose to optimize towards anything but purchase conversions?” It turns out the latter is the more complicated question, but one you can answer when armed with the right information.
It all has to do with how Facebook’s ad bidding works, which involves a combination of factors: your advertiser bid, estimated action rates (i.e. how your target audience responds to the ad), and overall ad quality. As Facebook notes, “together, estimated action rates and ad quality measure ad relevance. In fact, we subsidize relevant ads in auctions, so more relevant ads often cost less and see more results.”
Amazon’s Just Walk Out Cashierless Solution Is an Antitrust Signal
It’s well established that Amazon dominates at dominating industries adjacent to retail. But that’s what makes its Just Walk Out solution more suspect. By doubling down on retail as a service, Amazon is courting enterprise customers in the very industry — brick-and-mortar retail — that its main e-commerce business gutted. The Seattle behemoth is asking firms like Walmart and Macy’s to pay it for the chance to meet the same Amazon-driven standards that put some of the retail champions of yesteryear out of business.
Beyond the Data Label: The Next Phase of Data Assessment
This past summer, the IAB Tech Lab launched a much-needed transparency initiative in the form of its Data Transparency Standard, establishing baseline statistics on the objective attributes of a given data segment, such as refresh cadence, ID types, and segmentation criteria. The Data Label should be a big relief to data buyers, including agencies and advertisers, that are trying to wrap their heads around audiences, but it’s still only the starting point when it comes to assessing digital audiences.
For as much as the Data Label injects transparency into audience construction, it only addresses objective attributes, and not the qualitative aspects of the data segment. To get the most value out of their data investments, advertisers and agencies need to go further and develop their own standards for evaluating data, especially when it comes to quality.