News and Analysis

Party On! Bankruptcy for Party City May Not Be the End

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The media is filled with stories these days of MULO (multi-location) retailers closing stores and doors and declaring bankruptcy. Our BUST series covered Bed Bath & Beyond, Jenny Craig, Christmas Tree Shops, and others.  But before you start ringing the death knell on one more MULO brick-and-mortar retailer or restaurant, be aware that the party […]

Mailchimp Launches GenAI-Powered Marketing Assistant for SMBs

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The email marketing and newsletter giant Mailchimp is at it again. Earlier this week, the company launched its latest game-changing solution for SMBs — a marketing assistant powered by generative AI. Intuit Assist for Mailchimp is expected to help businesses generate content, personalize their marketing, and learn faster from their marketing mistakes. Rather than being […]

Head of the Class — Back-to-School Marketing Language Trends

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Very few seasons connote change the way the back-to-school season does. Even for those of us who are no longer in school, the shorter days and cooler mornings mean that a new school year (and, by default, autumn, if you live somewhere lucky enough to experience it) is soon upon us. And every time summer […]

Commentary

Where Location Intelligence Stands as Foursquare Founder Steps Back

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The story of Foursquare reflects what the evolution of smartphones and location technology allowed marketers to achieve — unprecedented awareness of where consumers are and how to cater to them on that basis. But data privacy concerns are pushing the narrative into new territory.

No One Solution Will Dominate the Cambrian Explosion of Digital Identifiers

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Over the past year, many solutions have emerged as a means to fill the niche left behind by the third-party cookie – and while not all solutions in this space take the form of newly minted digital identifiers, the population of upstart cookieless IDs continues to grow in size, features, and wide-ranging industry support. This raises the question of just how we’ll identify the ultimate cookieless ID.

How a Brand-First Approach Builds Customer Loyalty

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When every step of the buyer journey reflects your brand, from the time shoppers enter your website to the time they make a purchase, you improve your ability to forge deep and lasting connections with your customers. These customers will become loyal brand ambassadors who will advocate for your business and drive meaningful improvements in revenue and loyalty — metrics that will ultimately determine your business’ success.

Latest Posts

Retailers Turn to AI to Assist with Forecasting Challenges

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With machine learning and AI, retailers have been able to navigate the continued imbalance between supply and demand. This is especially true for digital-first retailers and on-demand businesses. The number of online grocery shoppers increased by 35 million during the pandemic. That opened the door to new opportunities, but it also opened the door to certain logistical challenges that grocers never experienced previously. For example, online grocery shoppers expect the items in their mobile apps to be in-stock and available for delivery immediately, which is different from a shopper who casually browses store aisles to see what’s available at a brick-and-mortar location.

Street Fight’s May Theme: Payment Power

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This month, we change focus to payment innovations with a theme we’re calling Payment Power. Most digital marketing aims, however indirectly, to drive transactions. But what a transaction looks like is rapidly evolving today, and that’s true not just of the technologies that power the point of sale but also of the way brands and retailers are leveraging the point of sale itself to increase revenue, collect data, and differentiate themselves from the competition. The upshot is that payments are powerful, and this month, we investigate the innovations driving that power.

4 Ways Video Management Systems Are Disrupting Retail

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Surveillance cameras, typically associated with theft-prevention and security, not only help stores enforce social distancing regulations but also improve the customer experience. Here are four ways retailers can capitalize on video management technology.

Locations Are Pointing the Way Forward After Third-Party Cookies

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When marketers store and analyze location data on the device, they reap the benefits of location-based marketing without running afoul of privacy standards. They are able to marry real-world insights with other types of data such as app behavior and online interactions while keeping all the consumer’s data on their phone.

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Expert Roundup: How Will Location Intelligence Transform This Year? Part II

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To define the current state and future trajectory of location intelligence, we’ve rounded up top industry voices and thought leaders. Executives at GroundTruth, Blis, and Stirista weigh in.

LBMA: Amazon Opens a Hair Salon

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In this episode of Location Weekly, the Location-Based Marketing Association covers Amazon opening a hair salon in London with magic mirrors and AR, Japan’s Mitsubishi and Unerry partnering on a smart city project in Jakarta, CVS rolling out digital audio messaging with In-Store Audio Network, and Gentle Monster creating experiential retail with robots and donkeys.

Verizon Provides FLoC Alternative. Will It Work?

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Verizon became the latest player to compete against Google’s FloCs this month with the launch of its new Next-Gen Solutions tool. The move marks a broader shift in ad tech toward contextual ads.

Private Ad Marketplaces Pave the Way for Post-Cookie Advertising

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Private marketplace ad programs (PMPs) are becoming more and more popular with advertisers. In 2020, eMarketer announced that programmatic ad spending on private marketplaces will exceed open exchanges for the foreseeable future. Let that sink in for a minute — the exchanges that have long underpinned the way we way buy digital media are no longer the most popular tactic for media buyers.

The Era of Zero-Click Consumer Engagement Is Here

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Location marketing has now had its testing moment, a moment that Google and its contemporary alternatives have been priming themselves for, whether knowingly or not, for quite some time. The era of zero-click consumer engagement has arrived; if that had been apparent to local SEOs prior to this year, it’s now clear to consumers and everyone else concerned with the business of local commerce.

Fanplayr Allows Advertisers to Do More with First-Party Data

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With 88% of marketers citing the collection and storage of first-party data as a “high priority,” a startup called Fanplayr is stepping in with a solution.