News and Analysis
Scorpion Pushes MULO Advertising Earlier in the Journey
Scorpion is expanding its Google Ads offering with Demand Gen, giving multi-location brands another way to reach consumers before they actively search for a nearby service provider. Paid search has long been a cornerstone of local customer acquisition. A consumer searches for a nearby home-services provider, attorney, pest-control company, or other service, and brands compete […]
Arrivalist, Digital Remedy Push Attribution Toward Real-World Spend
Digital Remedy and Arrivalist are connecting media exposure with GPS-verified visitation and consumer spending, giving travel marketers a clearer view of what happens after an ad is served. Clicks, impressions, and website visits can tell marketers whether advertising generated digital activity, but they are considerably less useful for answering the question that matters to businesses […]
Independent Agencies Get a New Buying-Power Benchmark
Agency scale has traditionally been associated with greater media buying leverage. A new partnership between Guideline and Tinuiti is putting that independent agencies assumption to the test, using verified market intelligence to compare negotiated media costs against broader benchmarks. For brands evaluating media agencies, buying power has long been one of the arguments favoring the […]
Commentary
The Strongest Brands Don’t Copy Their Competitors
In crowded markets, it’s tempting to follow the strategies, messaging, and tactics of fast-growing competitors. But as AI increasingly influences how brands are discovered and recommended, sustainable growth belongs to organizations with a distinctive market position, clear differentiation, and expertise that competitors can’t easily replicate. Copycats may grow, but they rarely lead. When another brand […]
Why MULOs Need Local AI Visibility Intelligence
National AI visibility metrics can hide the markets where multi-location brands are winning, and the ones where they’re quietly losing customers. As AI search becomes more local, brands need market-level intelligence to prioritize GEO and improve AI recommendations. Multi-location businesses have always known that local search performance can’t be managed from a national-level dashboard. Each […]
In-App Messaging, the Most Undervalued Channel in Modern Marketing
As AI-driven personalization becomes central to customer engagement, in-app messaging is emerging as one of the biggest untapped growth opportunities for brands with mobile apps. When I started MoEngage in 2014, it was born from a real problem. My co-founder and I had built an earlier mobile app, DelightCircle. We had a good understanding of […]
Latest Posts
SOCi Links Restaurant Growth to AI Visibility
Restaurant expansion and contraction are often explained by consumer demand, labor costs, menu innovation, or access to capital. New research from SOCi suggests another metric deserves attention: local AI visibility. Analyzing eight restaurant chains expanding in 2026 alongside eight brands reducing their footprints, SOCi found a consistent performance gap across every major local discovery channel. […]
AI Agents Making Conversational GBP Management Possible
Managing a single Google Business Profile well takes consistent effort. Managing dozens or hundreds of them well has traditionally taken a team, a lot of hours, and a tolerance for repetitive work that rarely gets easier or less time-consuming, no matter how much practice you put in. For multi-location businesses and the agencies that manage […]
Brand Learnings From StackAdapt’s Political Ad Platform
Political advertising has long served as an early proving ground for advertising technology. The need to identify audiences quickly, optimize campaigns in real time, and measure performance under fixed deadlines has consistently accelerated innovation that later finds its way into commercial marketing. StackAdapt’s new Political Targeting and Measurement Suite is the latest example. While designed […]
Inside the Dutch Bros National Expansion Strategy
Opening more coffee shops may be the most visible part of the Dutch Bros growth strategy. Behind the scenes, however, the company is building something just as important: the marketing infrastructure needed to acquire customers more efficiently, personalize engagement, and increase customer lifetime value. As Dutch Bros expands nationally, that infrastructure may prove to be […]
Vevo Brings Premium Music Videos to MULO Brands
Vevo is bringing its premium music videos into brick-and-mortar businesses through a new partnership with Rockbot, giving MULO brands another way to create more engaging and consistent in-store experiences For multi-location brands, the in-store experience is becoming an increasingly important competitive differentiator. While digital channels continue to dominate customer acquisition, what happens inside a physical […]
The Strongest Brands Don’t Copy Their Competitors
In crowded markets, it’s tempting to follow the strategies, messaging, and tactics of fast-growing competitors. But as AI increasingly influences how brands are discovered and recommended, sustainable growth belongs to organizations with a distinctive market position, clear differentiation, and expertise that competitors can’t easily replicate. Copycats may grow, but they rarely lead. When another brand […]
Thryv Adds Revenue Intelligence for Franchise Brands
For franchise brands, generating leads is no longer the primary challenge. The bigger opportunity is understanding why some locations consistently convert demand into revenue while others struggle despite receiving similar marketing support. That shift is reflected in Thryv’s latest integration with Breesy AI, which combines customer acquisition, engagement, and operational intelligence into a unified view […]
Broadcast TV Is Becoming Performance Media
The line separating broadcast TV from connected TV is beginning to blur. As advertisers demand the same audience targeting, measurement, and accountability across every premium video channel, local broadcasters are responding with capabilities once considered exclusive to digital platforms. The latest example comes from Viamedia.ai and Hearst Television, which have introduced household-level addressability for local […]
Customer Retention, Marketing’s Competitive Advantage
For much of the past decade, digital marketing has been dominated by customer acquisition. Brands invested heavily in paid search, social media, retail media, influencers, and performance advertising, all with the goal of finding the next customer more efficiently than their competitors. That equation is beginning to shift. As consumers discover brands through an expanding […]
Why MULOs Need Local AI Visibility Intelligence
National AI visibility metrics can hide the markets where multi-location brands are winning, and the ones where they’re quietly losing customers. As AI search becomes more local, brands need market-level intelligence to prioritize GEO and improve AI recommendations. Multi-location businesses have always known that local search performance can’t be managed from a national-level dashboard. Each […]
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