Report: Fake Google Maps Listings Ensnare Consumers, Harm Legitimate Businesses
“Chronic” local listings fraud on Google Maps, where con artists pose as handymen and other local service providers, sometimes stealing the names of legitimate operations, is endangering consumers and sucking business away from viable local businesses, the Wall Street Journal reported.
As Google seeks to prop up its lucrative but “cresting” search business and consolidate its lead in local, the tech giant is struggling to address the fraud issue and perhaps even to care about it.
OOH Emerges as Strong Digital Channel for CPGs
Consumer-packaged goods shoppers trust out-of-home advertisements more than those delivered on any other channel, a new report on CPGs and advertising from Vistar Media and MFour indicates. Fifty-three percent of consumers say they trust the content in OOH ads, more than any other single medium.
B2B Video Marketing Grows Up, Getting Briefer and Garnering More Attention
The standards for B2B video marketing are rising as marketers get the hang of the hottest, no longer so new medium. Marketers are learning to keep things short and sweet, decreasing the average video length from six to four minutes from 2017 to 2018, and audiences are tuning in longer, Vidyard reports in its annual video in business report.
Marketers Prepare for Father’s Day Boom
With just two days to go before the big day, brand marketers would be smart to ramp up their campaigns now. Researchers at the digital advertising platform ZypMedia discovered that shoppers purchasing gifts for Father’s Day don’t plan nearly as far in advance as they do for Christmas and other major holidays. As a result, last-minute campaigns targeting shoppers are much more likely to have a major impact.
After Foursquare Acquisition, Placed Founder David Shim Talks Teaming Up With a Major Competitor
How did a Seattle-based ad tech company move up the ranks to become an industry darling, less than eight years after its launch? And how does the new relationship between Foursquare and Placed, which was previously the biggest competitor to the company’s Foursquare Attribution product, impact the location industry at large?
To find out, we caught up with Placed founder and CEO—and now president of Foursquare—David Shim. Here are his thoughts on what it’s like to go through an acquisition, and how two industry heavyweights who’ve competed for years are finding new ways to work together.
Report: Huge Hole in Location Data Market for O2O Attribution
Good news for the whole location-based marketing industry—a new report from location data firm Factual based on a survey of location data buyers finds the field is getting more effective and better at measuring its results. Nearly 9 in 10 marketers said location data is driving more effective campaigns. Eighty-six percent said it’s growing their customer base, and 84% reported higher customer engagement.
However, while use of location-based marketing is set to grow to 94%, only 24% use it or are planning to use it to establish offline attribution.
5 Privacy-Focused Data Marketplaces
Just 27% of adults feel like they have “some control” over how their personal data is used by mobile apps and services, according to a recent survey by Mobile Ecosystem Forum. The desire to have more say over how personal data is used is leading to a new technology vertical, as next-generation data brokers put together marketplaces where consumers can offer up their own data to brands in exchange for cash and other lucrative incentives.
Here are five examples of services that consumers are using to take control of the data they share with advertisers and keep their private information private.
4 Marketing Use Cases for AR Today
Augmented reality is making the leap from hyped technology of the future to driver of cutting-edge marketing techniques today. To document the state of the field and shine a light on those use cases, the IAB released its AR marketing playbook earlier this month.
In case you’re too busy to peruse the pdf, I’ll detail the major use cases outlined in the report.
Word of Mouth Remains Vital for Loyalty in Digital Age
Pundits have speculated that loyalty is becoming less and less important as mobile and especially voice search drive the consumer toward the most convenient purchasing options. That may be true, but the report indicates loyalty remains a powerful factor, with 53% of consumers saying they are more likely to buy from a retailer they know and trust.
Consumers Still Do Not Understand How Companies Use Their Data
More than one year after the implementation of GDPR in Europe and with CCPA looming, consumers still have no idea how and why companies like Google and Facebook collect their data. That’s according to a global survey by mobile marketing firm Ogury, the largest of its kind to ask consumers about their understanding of marketing and privacy.
Nearly 40% of respondents in both Europe and the US were ignorant of what GDPR is. But more significant is that 52% of consumers report not understanding how their data is used.
Allset Redefines Its Position in the Mobile Ordering Space
Standing out in the mobile ordering space isn’t easy. GrubHub, Uber Eats, Door Dash, and dozens of other mobile ordering platforms are competing for business in what’s already become a tight market. So how does an outsider break into the business, and break away from the competition?
For companies like Allset, the answer is to create entirely new services that competitors aren’t offering.
Foursquare Acquires Placed, Announces $150M in Funding
Foursquare and Placed are location tech’s new power couple.
The location intelligence firm is acquiring Placed, which had previously been bought by Snap for its top-rate online-to-offline attribution solution, and the two will offer one of the most powerful attribution solutions in the location industry, to be called Placed powered by Foursquare.
As ad tech faces tougher times and a privacy-driven crackdown on data collection and ad targeting practices, more mergers and acquisitions are likely to transform the industry’s terrain. Teaming up and stockpiling as much first-party data as possible, thereby eliminating the need for less compliant modes of data harvesting, will boost the longevity of some firms while others flounder.
SMBs Warm Up to New Tech But Are Skeptical of Impersonal Interactions
A freshly released report from SMB software firm Broadly uses data from a survey of 300 SMB leaders to paint a picture of the American SMB in 2019: gradually embracing mobile-first communication, skeptical of innovation that undercuts human connection, and ambivalent toward large digital marketplaces like Amazon and Etsy.
Google Integrates Food Delivery into Search, Maps, Assistant
More or less following the model of Reserve with Google, which has seamlessly integrated the process of reserving a table at a nearby restaurant into SERPs, Google is now integrating food delivery into search, Maps, and Assistant, keeping consumers on Google properties for the entire journey as they make transactions via third-party couriers.
As GDPR’s One-Year Anniversary Approaches, Where Are We Now?
One year in, it’s clear that the full impact of GDPR still hasn’t been felt. The regulation is structured in a way that puts less pressure on large companies than smaller businesses, and that’s something that regulators will have to continue sorting out. But the changes Europe’s law portends are undeniable: Privacy legislation is coming to the United States, and the data collection practices that made many Silicon Valley pioneers rich will never be quite so unbridled again.
5 Visual Marketing Platforms for Brands
Amazon, Alibaba, and eBay are just a few online retailers with new visual search tools, and social media platforms like Snapchat are letting users take pictures of items to buy on Amazon and Pinterest. By using enterprise-level visual marketing platforms, brands can capitalize on their visibility across the web and drive more revenue from the images and other content their customers are creating.
Here are five visual marketing platforms that brands are using right now.