News and Analysis

Sneak Preview: Holiday Season 2023 Retail Sales

Black Friday and Cyber Monday are behind us.  A lot of shopping and feasting still remains.  But Street Fight wants to glimpse what retail sales have seen so far and what you might expect in the shopping and eating days until the end of 2023. What’s especially interesting is that in-person shopping seemed to take […]

The MULO Dozen: November Brands in Review

The MULO Dozen: November Brands in Review

As we wind down 2023 and head into the holidays, here are some of the latest happenings among MULO (multi-location) brands. Because consumer sentiment and social media buzz can have a huge impact on brand reputation and sales, we’ve added a new section this month — consumer voices. If you have any news to add […]

AxleHire CEO Goes Deep into Delivery Experience

If you think the retail industry is overwhelmed at this time of the year, when the holidays take center stage, try working in the shipping industry. Raj Ramanan is CEO of AxleHire, a last-mile shipping service for e-commerce retailers, touts its “Amazon-like” service experience of next-day and same-day delivery as desired. And satisfaction goes right […]

Commentary

Tools to Address Labor Shortages

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.

How to Strike a Balance Between Personalization and Privacy in Marketing

So, how does one strike the perfect balance between personalization and privacy in terms of marketing? On the path to personalization, there are a couple of key things that businesses should focus on.

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.

Latest Posts

Why More Brands Are Bringing Data Intelligence In-House

Despite implementing many of the same technology platforms and marketing strategies as they did in early 2020, retail brands today are shifting their approach and bringing more data intelligence solutions in-house. The strategy is part of a larger emphasis on first-party within the brand marketing community, particularly as personalization techniques grow more advanced and privacy changes make targeting harder.

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.

Ad Tech and Privacy

Expert Roundup: The New Data Arms Race

A new privacy era is changing the rules of data-driven business. Below, leaders in digital marketing expound on those changes and on what the future of business, especially in digital advertising, will look like.

LBMA: Disney Launches Genie Service

In this episode of Location Weekly, the Location-Based Marketing Association covers Disney launching their Genie service, GroundTruth partnering with No Kid Hungry, Barilla helping the blind make pasta, and United Airlines teaming up with Walmart and Albertsons on Covid testing.

Survey: Interactive Video is the Future

Of course, we might approach a survey by an interactive video platform about the love for interactive video with some caution. But there are other signs that interactive video is the future of online customer engagement, increasingly taking over both online ads and shopping experiences.

Google Local Search Trends I: Personalization

Though it’s not always easy to find the common threads in Google’s complex evolution of the local search consumer experience, some themes do stand out, such as the drive toward increasingly personalized search results, which I’ll be covering in this initial entry in the series. Fortunately for marketers, personalization, along with the other themes I’ll cover, offers numerous opportunities to outpace the competition and convert more searchers into buyers. A better understanding of these emerging trends will help marketers prioritize their efforts.

Concrete Steps to Prepare for a Cookieless Future

The biggest change for digital marketers who’ve grown comfortable with cookies is realizing that the future may not be near as turnkey and automated as it is now. Executing campaigns without cookies will require more hands-on strategizing and monitoring of campaigns, and it will force marketers to be proactive when it comes to culling third-party data providers and ad-tech partners that rely too heavily on cookies for their data and analytics.

Leadferno Launches to Power the Front End of Five-Star Customer Experiences

When Aaron Weiche, CEO and co-founder of Leadferno, started his previous company GatherUp, the goal was to help businesses organize data on customer experiences and boost their reputations. Now, Weiche is onto his next venture, which aims to set up the communications infrastructure that will help businesses kick off those five-star customer experiences.

Local Newsletters Are Good for Covid Information — And Marketing

Publishers are taking advantage of localized media to disseminate Covid information. Those same geo-targeted messages can provide effective audiences for marketers, says Kerel Cooper, CMO at email marketing platform LiveIntent. He elaborated on that view in a Q&A with Street Fight.

Innovation Brief: Facebook, Zoom & Delivery Robots

On a semi-weekly basis, Street Fight’s Innovation Brief series aggregates and analyzes happenings from across the technology and media spheres. This week, we look at Facebook’s latest ad reforms, Zoom’s ‘Focus Mode,’ and delivery robots going to college.