How E-Commerce Sites Can Remain Competitive in a Rapidly Accelerating Digital Age
Customer experience isn’t anything new, but new ideas can be applied here, especially in the digital space. The question now revolves around how to create the same welcoming environment you’d create in a physical store online. It can be as simple as choosing colors for your website to elicit certain moods or using certain tech features like a chatbot to welcome customers as they “enter” your store. And it’s about making sure that customers can find your store — and this is where our affiliates become a key part of our strategy.
How Accurate Geolocation Data Fosters a Better Customer Experience
Having the most reliable data the first time you ask for it is a no brainer for the consumer, but its obvious importance is often overlooked by the provider. Data quality should be a dominant component to support a business’ reputation. But what if the data were slightly off? What implications does that have?
Rebuilding Retail with Customer-First Experiences Online and In-Store
There’s so much discussion around returning to the old normal, but retail’s future depends on getting as far as way from normal as it can. Retailers need to seize the opportunity and reimagine the experiences they provide—and create the next normal.
What would this look like? As a guiding principle, retailers should be finding ways to put the customer first in the experiences we provide.
Location Weekly: Education Apps Sell Location Data
In this episode of Location Weekly, the Location-Based Marketing Association covers InMarket acquiring NinthDecimal, Google Chrome announcing Orion WiFi, Burger King unveiling a COVID-friendly restaurant design, and education apps selling location data.
Triangulating Apple Maps: The Tech Angle
Apple surprised the local search world last month when it announced local business reviews in Maps. Similar to its other search-based efforts, Apple formerly relied on partners like Yelp for local listings and reviews. But now, as part of its broader data-driven Maps overhaul, it will phase in original content.
Much has been written about this within the local search publishing world and analyst corps, including my colleague Stephanie Miles’ article on how brands can prepare for Apple Maps reviews here on Street Fight. So in the interest of treading new ground, what less-discussed clues lie in Apple’s recent mapping moves that can triangulate its direction?
The One Where Adtech and Martech Get Married
It’s impossible to have any certainty about the de facto cookieless targeting solution of the future or what solutions will emerge from Google’s privacy sandbox. But what is clear is that the ability to precisely target audiences in adtech without cookies will likely have very similar applications for personalization use cases in martech.
In order words, the data used to show a targeted ad to a person without cookies could simultaneously power the way a digital experience is personalized for that same person.
iOS14 and Privacy: What it Means for Advertisers, Especially on Facebook
The latest in the tug of war between consumer privacy and effective digital advertising pits Apple against Facebook, Google, and others. At stake for ad tech: significant revenue for ad publishers and app developers, effective ad results for advertisers, and more relevant ads for consumers. At stake for users: consumer privacy protection, the use of their behavioral data for marketing, and possibly, the future of “free” software.
Apple’s pending release of iOS 14 is a strong consumer-privacy-first stance and a potential disruption to digital marketing as we know it. But what is the real impact for targeted digital advertising?
Standardizing the Definition of Data Quality
Now that companies are using data to drive marketing strategies, product development, and other key business decisions, stakeholders need to know more. They need to know whether data represents an intent signal or an interest signal. They have a right to know the honest origins of the data they’re using — whether it’s been pulled from bidstream or it’s truly opt-in data from a reliable publisher. They deserve to know that the data they’re using has been collected in a privacy-safe manner and if permission has been ethically obtained. Furthermore, business users should have some transparency around modelled data and declared data. They should have visibility into what’s inside each segment.
Despite Covid-19 Environment, Brick-and-Mortar Retailers May Have an Edge
A new survey of more than 1,400 U.S. consumers indicates that more than half are shopping less often and three-quarters are spending less at their favorite stores. That’s not surprising. What is surprising is what the research showed regarding opportunities for retailers to compete against the sheer competitive threat Amazon represents, and that includes the positive impact mobile couponing can have not just for online purchases but to drive in-store traffic as well.
Location Weekly: Google Maps Enables Parking Payments with Passport
In this episode of Location Weekly, the Location-Based Marketing Association covers Colorado artists selling their wares in refurbished vending machines, Google Maps enabling parking payments with Passport, Reveal Mobile looking at average CPMs for location-based audiences, and Amazon going big on AR with Room Decorator.
Local Businesses’ Newest Competitive Edge: Distribution and Delivery Data
To continue delivering products and services to their local communities safely — no matter the fluctuating restrictions — businesses are offering order-ahead, curbside pickup, touchless payments, and sophisticated delivery options, whether through their own operations or through third-party providers such as GrubHub and DoorDash. These flexible distribution options not only help drive continued momentum, they also create a myriad of new valuable customer data points that must be captured and incorporated into rapidly evolving customer engagement strategies.
When It Comes to Winning Over Customers, Transparency Always Wins
Based on recent studies, people crave privacy, especially when it comes to their data. Repeatedly seeing an ad for a pair of shoes you glanced at once online but didn’t buy doesn’t create a warm or trusting feeling of being cared for by a retailer – for many people, it may come across as creepy. There is a way to gain back that trust, and it is all connected to transparency or, to be precise, web transparency.
How to Maximize the Power of DOOH in the “New Normal”
Now is the time for marketers who have spent the past six months on the sidelines, interpreting the signals buried in data and gathering learnings, to put their messages back out where consumers are active and engaged – increasingly, outside the home. As more digital screens become available, brands and businesses need to keep in mind the particularly timely benefits of digital out-of-home (DOOH) as a way to effectively and efficiently deploy their market spend in our “new normal.”
New Study Shows the Impact of Transparency on Consumer Trust
It’s time to start proactively addressing consumer privacy concerns. The data shows that people are becoming more concerned about privacy, and all signs point to the continuation of this trend.
Start with building trust through simple actions like better communication and user experiences. Bake consumer trust initiatives into your corporate strategy by investing in technology, creating formal KPIs, and educating your internal audiences and stakeholders about its importance.
How Local Businesses Can Survive Without a Website
It is hard to imagine operating a business without a website. However, it can be done. In fact, it is already being done by the over 40% of American small businesses that still don’t own a website of any kind. It should be noted that the lack of a website by some businesses isn’t usually due to choice, but rather due to cost.
Even so, local businesses that lack the wherewithal to launch and maintain a website need not despair because there are a host of other viable marketing and communication methods at their disposal to bring awareness to their goods and services.
Location Weekly: Unilever and Orbital Insight Deploy Location Tech for Supply Chain Management
In this episode of Location Weekly, the Location-Based Marketing Association covers Mars/Wrigley getting ready for virtual Halloween trick-or-treating, Unilever and Orbital Insight piloting the use of location tech to monitor their supply chain, Foursquare using location data to increase shopper safety with LinkNYC screens, and CVS rolling out an in-house digital advertising network.
Blocking Third-Party Cookies Will Not Mean the End of Marketing Attribution
The demise of third-party cookies will not mean the end of digital advertising and the ability to assign proper attribution to individuals engaging in various touchpoints along the buyer journey. Several entities are currently hashing out other methodologies brands can leverage to retrieve audience analytics.
Marketing attribution providers will continue to provide reliable data to enterprise marketers on consumers and their customer journeys through the sales funnel. Attribution providers worth their salt will not only make sure they are compliant with the tightened rules around cookies but also ensure their clients are following the letter of the law.
Ditch the Department Store: How DTC Brands Take Back Control
We are anticipating monumental online sales volume for brands with the approaching holiday season. To capitalize on this transition to online shopping, DTC (direct-to-consumer) brands must take back control of their sales channels. DTC brands can’t control whether big-box retailers open their storefronts or the number of consumers they allow inside. They also can’t manage the customer experience with the brand, especially given the many variables Covid-19 has thrown at brick-and-mortar retail.
The one thing brands can control is their online sales channel.
Location Weekly: Burger King and Wawa Innovate for Covid Era
In this episode of Location Weekly, the Location-Based Marketing Association covers Wawa launching drive-through-only convenience stores, Waze launching contactless gas payments at Shell and Exxon Mobil, Burger King printing customer orders on face masks, and Heineken launching its “Star of the Summer” campaign at Tesco UK.
How Brands Can Support the Safe Return of Youth Sports to Communities
As the school year kicks off virtually for many children and families across the nation, all eyes are turning to the possibility that youth sports could help provide much-needed activity, socialization, and emotional support during an otherwise overwhelming and disorienting time. Without a doubt, youth sports in a pandemic must look a lot different than they did in pre-pandemic times, but one thing is truer than ever: Brands can play a valuable role in helping youth sports return safely to the field and enabling the kids who need these activities the most to participate.