At I/O, Google Offers a New Vision for Local Search
The notion of “helping you get things done,” emphasized by Sundar Pichai in his I/O keynote, provides a through-line for many of the event’s announcements. It struck me watching the presentations how thoroughly Google has become a consumer electronics company, a marketer of devices where search is more a central feature than a standalone product. Google, in other words, has become thoroughly dedicated to marketing its famous search capabilities in the context of devices that help you perform daily tasks. In the process, it is transforming local search and how we relate to the world with electronic devices.
LBMA Vidcast: Factual, Walgreens, Burger King
On this week’s Location-Based Marketing Association podcast: Factual partners with Airship & Braze, Class action against all 4 U.S. mobile operators, Decathalon opens first U.S. store, Burger King delivers in Mexico City traffic jams, Para’Kito goes AR with Georgia Pacific, Walgreens teams with Narvar.
Twitter Time: Responsible Writing in Today’s Media Landscape
If criticism of Twitter and the news media is ubiquitous, it is largely because content on those platforms so often fails to rise to the challenge of responsibility. It aims to produce outrage and push partisan narratives without interrogating its assumptions and all the facts in play. It lacks thought at a time when the endless and rapid reproduction of content in digital space demands we be more thoughtful than ever because we never know where and in how many places our words will reappear.
Chrome Cookie Changes to Affect All—Not Just the Top Line
Google’s latest Chrome changes may sound abstract to those of us who are on the ground doing digital ad work, but they will soon come to dominate our industry. If you work in display advertising at a brand and read the announcement, I’m sure you know at some point the dynamics of the ecosystem will change. But this is going to be big — your entire set of knowledge will soon be different. You’ll need to learn how first-party data looks, is captured, and how to connect first-party data that represents intent to first-party stable identifiers like email.
Visual Search and Local: A Match Made in Mountain View
Though visual search challengers such as Snapchat and Pinterest could shine in niche use cases such as fashion items, Google will rule as the best all-around utility for visual search. It has the deepest tech stack, and the substance (knowledge graph) to be useful beyond just a flashy novelty for identifying things visually.
The name of the game now is to get users to adopt it. Google Lens won’t be a silver bullet and will shine in a few areas where Google is directing users, such as pets and flowers. But it will really shine in product search, which happens to be where monetization will eventually come into the picture.
Single-Use Coupons: A Multi-Pronged Strategy for Each Phase of the Customer Journey
A savvy marketer can select a solution that enables her to launch personalized promotions that perfectly suit a target customer for a given phase. For example, an offer designed to acquire new customers should differ from the one that goes out with a view to retaining lapsed customers or further engaging the loyal customer. This is where single-use coupons provide immense potential to deliver personalized promotions, allowing marketers to segment their customers into the appropriate marketing phase—acquisition, engagement, or retention.
The 10 Commandments of Location Intelligence Marketing
The amount of location data can be overwhelming, making it difficult to understand when to use what information. Even the most experienced marketer can lose sight of the basic principles that guide successful use of location intelligence tools.
Based on our 11 years of experience helping mobile apps leverage the context of their users, we offer the following 10 commandments that every marketer working with location intelligence should keep top of mind to drive a successful marketing strategy.
Beyond SEO: How to Reframe the Local Marketing Conversation
“I am looking for a language framework that helps business understand that the idea of ranking only makes sense in the context of not just getting more customers but also keeping them. While businesses might want a floodgate of leads, there are many things that they could be doing that would be cost-effective and productive,” Mike Blumenthal tells David Mihm in their latest Street Fight discussion.
LBMA Vidcast: Kroger, UberEats, MoviePass
On this week’s Location-Based Marketing Association podcast: MoviePass goes PreShow, Sainsbury test cashierless stores, Let’s Bab for social recommendations, Kroger’s QFC launches DogSpots, UberEats tests food delivery at Toronto Pearson Airport.
Restaurant POS System Trends to Look Out for in 2019
2019 is all about connectivity when it comes to POS systems. The role of the POS system, used primarily for billing, has evolved into an operations hub that connects all your online order sources, guest-facing technology, and your kitchen (via Kitchen Display Systems). It’s the foundation of a technical system that helps you manage your restaurant operations better on the whole. Here are the cutting-edge trends.
The Promise of XR and 5G
As we approach the 5G era, the dramatic quantum leap of 5G service enhances many creative capabilities in XR, providing richer user experiences and giving marketers and developers a larger digital playground to expand their creative talents.
Still, there’s confusion in the market over how these innovations work and, critically, how they can work together. Let’s take a closer look.
Will Google Ask Businesses to Pay for Listings?
Google recently sent surveys to a number of Google My Business (GMB) users, asking a range of questions about their local marketing activities and their level of interest in certain paid features within GMB. The survey suggests that Google is at least thinking about a paid version of the GMB feature set. For the local search industry, a paid GMB product offered to businesses of all types could be quite disruptive, especially if it ended up gradually degrading the value of organic listings.
Voice Marketing Starts with Smart SEO
How can enterprises better leverage voice search for brand marketing? To start, winning in voice search demands many of the same strategies as search engine optimization (SEO), as the goal in both cases is to get your content to rank position zero on search engine results pages (SERPs) by focusing on authority.
Brand Building Beyond Reviews: Is the Local Marketing Ecosystem Ready?
“I think it makes more sense for a small business to buy ‘brand building’ that includes some community events and link building than for that same business to buy SEO,” Mike Blumenthal tells David Mihm. Find out what tech tools can build a local brand and why David disagrees partly with Mike’s suggestion.
The Power of Micro-Location Technology
The location market has matured beyond push. The value of micro-location technology is now built on hyper-accurate analytics on where users go in the physical world, allowing advertisers to re-target them with a variety of omnichannel marketing efforts. Here are a few exciting use cases that highlight the power of hyper-accurate location-based marketing technology.
How Emerging Technologies Allow Businesses to Merge Their Digital and Traditional Marketing
New technologies (and new spins on old ones) are the modern company’s ally in merging digital and traditional marketing. The brands that find a sensible balance between the two are the brands that will outperform the competition. Let’s take a look at four major examples of innovation in this arena.
4 Game-Changing Influencer Marketing Trends to Boost Your ROI in 2019
Many brands have decided to establish dedicated budgets for their influencer marketing campaigns. In fact, 79% of brands surveyed by marketing tech firm Relatable indicated they will have a dedicated budget for influencer marketing campaigns in 2019. Brands are catching onto the power of this medium.
Looking to get in on the action? There are four game-changing trends in influencer marketing that will help you boost the ROI of your influencer marketing campaign in 2019.
Location Data Confidence in an Exploding Data Universe
Location intelligence, sourced securely and used in the right way, is an extremely powerful tool to craft precise targeting, predictive modeling, and creative media that drive meaningful marketing moments, massive ROI, and brand growth. Unfortunately, the location intelligence sector has also become a jungle of data fraught with fraudulence and insecurity.
Location intelligence is powerful, but in today’s highly scrutinized world, you have to challenge every resource you engage to ensure confidence in its quality. There are three critical questions you should ask data partners before you engage them.
How Rising Public Concern Around Facebook Privacy Impacts Everyone’s Bottom Line
How do Facebook’s problems affect the rest of us? Good question. At Clever Real Estate, our effectiveness as a real estate technology company depends on our ability to connect with customers online, so we surveyed 1,139 Americans about their feelings regarding online advertising and the internet at large. Some of our findings might surprise you.
Omnichannel or Multichannel? Which One And Why
Omnichannel creates a smarter shopping experience that benefits both consumers and brands. Data is shared across all channels, enabling stronger engagement and moving the consumer toward a purchase. For the customer, it creates an easier shopping experience and a stronger brand connection.