What’s Ahead for Last-Mile Delivery in 2020
Delivery is emerging as a competitive advantage for local retailers. In fact, in September 2019, Onfleet surveyed 1,000 US consumers to gather their impressions on online versus local store shopping and delivery expectations. Seventy-six percent said they would be more inclined to order from local stores rather than from Amazon if they could get same-day delivery.
With that in mind, here are some delivery trends we’re expecting for 2020.
LBMA Vidcast: Quotient Technology to Acquire Ubimo; UPS and CVS Team Up on Drone Delivery
On this week’s Location-Based Marketing Association podcast: Quotient Technology to acquire Ubimo, Fortnite and Royal Canadian Legion, Pepsi to pay it forward for the holidays, Groundlevel Insights + Gathr Lab, UPS and CVS team up on drone delivery of prescription drugs, and Wirecard buys the majority stake in AllScore.
Should Small Businesses Participate in Black Friday?
The total amount spent by shoppers on Black Friday in 2018 was $715.5 billion, according to The Balance. What’s even more noteworthy is the average amount spent per shopper, at $1,007.24. This represents an increase of approximately 4.3% over Black Friday 2017 sales. The numbers show that shoppers are ready and willing to spend on Black Friday. So, rather than leaving it to large-scale retailers, if you’re a small business owner, why not consider joining in?
The truth is, you still might be wondering whether the additional time and investment are worth it. Below, we present some pros and cons of participating in Black Friday you may not have considered.
The Rise of First-Party Data: Why Quality Matters Over Quantity
For years, digital marketers have paid hand over fist in the digital gold rush for data. Instead of a tangible product, tech companies earn millions in revenue from the data they collect on previous, current, and future digital consumers. But digital marketers seeking to gobble up as much data as they can for their campaigns — while not stopping to consider the source of or methods used to collect it — are taking the wrong approach. The age-old mantra of “quality over quantity” has never been more relevant in online advertising, and marketers must quickly and fully embrace first-party data or risk their digital campaigns (and bottom lines) falling flat.
GDPR Implementation Spurs New Industry Offering Compliance Services
A year and a half after GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) was passed into EU law, Kantar has found there is a vibrant industry in the United States dedicated to helping US companies comply with the new rules, as evidenced by paid search advertising activity throughout 2019.
Kantar analyzed US Google desktop and mobile text ad clicks on ads displaying for 10 GDPR-related keywords from January through September 2019, including gdpr, gdpr compliance, gdpr requirements, and what is gdpr. During the nine-month period, we found 283 advertisers in a wide range of industries sponsoring GDPR keywords, including IT companies, online security firms, software manufacturers, and business consultancies.
Are Google’s Many Broken Features Reflections of Google’s Style?
Mike to David: To some extent, the Google “method” of release quickly, break often, iterate, and finally reject or accept a change collides very directly when it interfaces with the much slower-moving real world.
David: This speaks to our ongoing antitrust discussion and whether business harm is a justifiable prong on which to spear Google. Volatility is one thing, but a broken utility is another. And realistically, because of Google’s market position, small businesses have nowhere to turn when that utility is flat-out failing on fundamental levels.
Finding New Audiences: How To Win with the Next Generation of Consumers
The youngest generation of consumers is not only ad-averse, but also prefers to consume content when and where they want. With 71% of Gen Z claiming to prefer streaming services over traditional TV, the formula for successful content platforms is simple — provide consumers the content they want to see on the devices they use outside of the house.
It’s equally important for platforms to cut through the noise and remove commercials and ads if they want to secure Gen Z support moving forward. While we all have specific tastes in what shows we watch, older generations of consumers were perfectly content sitting through commercials and ads. Gen Z is not of this mindset.
Is Uber Local Advertising’s Duopoly Killer?
While Amazon is challenging the duopoly, when zeroing in on local advertising and commerce — Street Fight’s hallmark — as opposed to driving eCommerce, another challenger may loom: Uber. In fact, we have a longstanding prediction that it will blitz local advertising by strategically building from the Trojan Horse that is “in-ride mode.”
This theory is based on the fact that Uber has your captive attention during rides, given in-app utilities like mapping and ETA. Furthermore, it knows where you’re going (think destination-based promotions). In the aggregate, it has lots of behavioral data for a richer mosaic of audience-targeting gold.
Revamping Your Strategy and Audiences for the Latest “Safe & Civil” Facebook Advertising Update
Your social advertising strategy and audiences may need a bit of an overhaul to align with updates to Facebook’s “Safe & Civil” Advertising Policies, especially if they fall within particular categories.
If your customer is running a campaign that does fall within one of the three categories upended by recent Facebook policy changes, it’s best to launch your campaign with a Special Ads Category applied prior to publishing. This will save you time and a headache resolving errors during the length of your campaign.
Believe the Hype: The Pragmatic Value of Location-Based Analytics, Audiences, and Attribution
After 25 years of framing technologies by level of maturity and adoption, the Gartner Hype Cycle has finally placed location intelligence for marketing where it belongs — in the trough of disillusionment. Sounds like a lousy place to be, but it’s actually the opposite. Why? The trough of disillusionment is the stage right before the slope of enlightenment. Let me back up and explain.
Combating Ad Fraud with Cutting-Edge Tech
It’s no secret that ad fraud is a major hurdle for digital advertisers, sapping billions annually from marketing budgets. As digital advertising continues to receive higher cuts of marketing budgets, the pressure on ad platforms to deliver legitimate and high-quality campaigns to their customers has never been greater. At the same time, marketers must be increasingly aware and choosy in how and where they run their digital campaigns in order to avoid the perils of ad fraud.
There are plenty of ad traps out there, but savvy marketers and publishers alike can implement a number of digital checkpoints to not only keep ad fraud at bay, but also optimize what is working and maximize profits for both parties.
Building Customer Loyalty: Is Texting the Answer?
In today’s fast-paced world, we depend on our phones to help us get things quickly and easily. So, is texting the answer to building customer loyalty? Short answer: yes. Long answer: also yes, but it matters how you use it.
For appointment-based businesses, efficiency and simplicity are key to keeping customers engaged and coming back for more. Integration with online booking, improving gift card sales, and managing scheduling requests are three simple avenues that can have a big impact on building your business’ customer loyalty program.
The Trust Crash: How Our Platforms Are Failing Us At Every Level and What We Can Do About It
It doesn’t have to be this way. There are the seeds of a new generation of open platforms and technologies aimed at evolving the platform paradigm to one of transparency, value share, and universal governance representation. Sharing value with users via data revenue share; allowing users access to insights generated about them and their peers and help to understand who is trying to engage with them and why; rev share and benefits for service providers; collaborative governance; and abolition of unilateral platform expulsion or rule changes are just several of the major changes on the table. A whole host of new open platform operating protocols is emerging.
LBMA Vidcast: Walmart Launches Alcohol Pick-Up; Salesforce Teams with Neura
On this week’s Location-Based Marketing Association podcast: Neura + Salesforce, do it outdoors media partners with BlueBite, NinthDecimal adds Inscape TV data, Eatigo (Thailand) matches restaurant deals with customers, Yoplait using facial detection for free offers with JCDecaux, Walmart launches alcohol pick-up in 2,000 US locations.
How CPGs Can Score a Touchdown This Fall by Emulating Spiked Seltzer’s 2019 Summer Splash
In a way, local football fandoms are microcosms for the communities they represent. Each franchise fandom possesses a deeply rooted culture — the kind of loyalty and camaraderie marketers strive to inspire among their own consumers. From high school matchups and college games to the national stage and beyond, the opportunity to tap into local sports to forge meaningful connections with consumers is conspicuous. The strategies and tactics to go about creating those connections, though, is far from obvious.
To home in on a seasonally relevant, hyperlocal strategy for tailgating and football, brand marketers can look to the strategies hard seltzer brands implemented that resulted in the overwhelming successes of the past summer.
Google’s Fitbit Purchase: Peek into Next-Level Local Dominance and Healthcare Hacking
Prescriptions by Google, then? The company indeed lacks Amazon’s delivery capabilities but has a stranglehold on search and therefore on consumers’ connections to local businesses. It is not hard to imagine a world in which Google appears to keep its privacy promise by refusing to sell ads directly based on Fitbit user data but still capitalizes on the data by using it to connect Fitbit users with local health care service providers, pharmacists, and even gyms. That would just constitute one more way Google is edging out the digital middlemen that once closed the loop from Google search to a local service provider.
Defining Your Purpose: 4 Ways to Optimize Purpose-Driven Marketing
Ultimately, ensuring the success of purpose-driven campaigns comes down to building meaningful connections using all the technology, data, and creativity at one’s disposal to reach the elusive double bottom line. Here are four tips that can help marketers tap into data and technology to optimize their purpose-driven campaigns:
The Power and Shifting Meaning of Local
Urban, suburban, and rural residents have different shopping habits in their “local” areas. Many marketers are investing in mobile location-based ads — BIA/Kelsey predicts US spending will top $26 billion this year — yet as a retailer your goal isn’t just to reach consumers but to connect with them by acknowledging their different perspectives.
Talking to your customers requires a customized strategy that prioritizes location and takes their everyday lives into consideration. Harnessing the power of local starts with knowledge: where your customers live, what they want, and how to deliver it on behalf of your brand.
The Path to Agency Scale: Product, Sales, or Both?
David: I’ve been thinking quite a bit about our product mix at ThriveHive recently. And in particular the segmentation of the various offerings of our newly combined GateHouse/Gannett company by customer budget.
It has surprised me, frankly, that so few agencies seem to go to market with the essential digital marketing bundle for local businesses you and I proposed exactly two years ago. In re-reading that article, I’d still give the same advice today and with even more urgency based on the rollout of Local Service Ads.