New Year, Same Challenge: Content is the Key to Another Digital Holiday Season for Retailers
With the Delta variant bringing a second unwelcome wave of apprehension and disruption, the vision we all looked forward to a year ago — the return to a normal holiday season — is dissipating before our eyes. Online shopping will be the main go-to again this time around, with businesses and consumers facing many familiar, and a few unfamiliar, factors this year.
Privacy versus Paid Content: What Are We Willing to Sacrifice?
To the naked eye, technologies and laws allowing consumers more control are absolutely and unequivocally good. Who would oppose privacy protection laws and self-imposed regulations apart from those who are exploiting the lack of privacy, right? But what is the end goal we are trying to achieve, and what is the price we are “paying” in the process?
Snap Scan Shines New Light on the Company’s Local Discovery Ambitions
Snapchat’s ambition to become a socially fueled local discovery engine recently got a boost with Snap Scan, a visual search tool that makes the world searchable and shoppable. Connecting dots over several years, Snap’s geo-local efforts include Geofilters, Snap Map, Local Place Promote, and Local Lenses.
3 Steps Brands Can Take to Build First-Party Data Practices
Brands must ensure that the first-party data they are assembling is properly permissioned, meaningfully collected across channels, unified, and organized. Getting started comes down to breaking down these goals into manageable projects and timelines that ensure first-party data sets are unlocking all the doors by 2023.
Agency Relationship Status: It Doesn’t Have to be Complicated
Your new agency relationship can blossom into a true partnership if you’re transparent and set clear expectations. As someone who’s worked on the client and agency side, I’ve seen firsthand how a partnership can lead to success. Like many situations in life, doing this right involves managing the people and numbers side of the equation with deftness and clarity.
Personalization is Transforming as Privacy Forces a Consumer Data Drought
Facebook’s strategy change points to a much broader shift in digital marketing. The disappearance of third-party cookies and mobile IDs — and the granular customer data they supply — is forcing businesses to rethink how to ‘personalize’ marketing strategies. Facebook’s strategy suggests the future of personalization in marketing could hinge more on customer experience and less on ads.
LBMA: Smart Shopping Carts and DOOH Measurement
In this episode of Location Weekly, the Location-Based Marketing Association covers Facebook rolling out birthday gifting, India’s Neareo releasing a suite of tools for digital engagement, Talon and MadHive partnering to link DOOH and OTT audiences, and Singapore’s Cellarbration using government digital IDs to verify alcohol purchases from vending machines.
Google Local Search Trends II: Verticalization
This is the second in a series of four articles covering the themes behind many of Google’s recent local search feature releases and interface updates. In the first installment, I discussed Google’s increasingly personalized or customized search results, marked by content pulled from GMB profiles, the business website, and Google users, and matched to specific queries so that each SERP is unique. In this second installment, I’ll be talking too about interfaces that differ according to what you’re searching for, but in this case the differences are verticalized.
How Not to Grow Your Brand’s Social Following
While establishing your brand across multiple social media platforms is an investment, in both time and resources, it’s typically at a lower cost than almost all other marketing tactics. The key to success, of course, is to use it correctly. Social media cannot and should not be an afterthought: To realize the full value of this game-changing tool, companies should make it a priority—and stay active.
LBMA: Talon and MadHive Link DOOH and OTT audiences
In this episode of Location Weekly, the Location-Based Marketing Association covers Facebook rolling out birthday gifting, India’s Neareo releasing a suite of tools for digital engagement, Talon and MadHive partnering to link DOOH and OTT audiences, and Singapore’s Cellarbration using government digital IDs to verify alcohol purchases from vending machines.
Why Marketing Is Here to Stay — Headed by CMOs or Not
While some high-profile companies that eliminated the CMO role delegated the responsibilities to the division level and/or divided oversight among other company leaders at the corporate level, all of these functions remain vital to business success. Someone still has to be making the decisions, and someone still has to be responsible for marketing performance, regardless of title.
How Tech-Enabled H2H Can Boost Hyperlocal Marketing
Marketers do not need to see H2H as at odds with data-driven advertising. Marketers can leverage tech to activate brand ambassadors in target communities, foster local connections, scale to multiple trade areas, and collect data on the back end that allows for customer relationship management and marketing measurement. This is H2H marketing for the digital world, and it’s better than retargeting without a human touch and human touch with no data to back it up.
Ad Tech Isn’t Dying amid Privacy Changes. It’s Transforming
The types of adtech companies receiving funding will shift. Winning the post-cookie identity race offers an enticing multibillion-dollar opportunity. Anxiety is high among publishers and tech firms around profound change happening quickly. But companies have been preparing for this day for years, and have devoted extensive time, research, and resources to developing next-gen solutions.
Now’s Not The Time To Cut Back On Marketing. Here’s What To Do Instead
Businesses that withdraw from marketplace visibility have a much harder time, and find it far more expensive in the long run, to regain customers once they start re-engaging, with market share declining even after they resume advertising. So, while cutting back marketing spend can help address some short-term bottom-line issues, it will create significant challenges to long-term sustainability.