News and Analysis
Vericast Launches Contextual Advertising Solution
The marketing technology firm Vericast is changing its approach to contextual advertising by launching a privacy-centric solution meant to help brands reach relevant consumers in the moments when they’re most likely to be receptive. The proprietary solution bolsters Vericast’s in-house targeting capabilities. It matches ads to the content from consumers’ view or search, and it’s […]
Fire Sale: How Multi-Location Businesses Should Handle Downturns and Fails
This year alone, more than 2,000 retail locations have closed. The major casualties include Party City, Jenny Craig, and Bed Bath & Beyond. Some multi-location restaurants are also slimming down, shuttering locations in markets that aren’t performing well. That doesn’t necessarily mean the beginning of the end for the brands. They may simply reduce expenses to […]
What’s New at the Drive-Thru?
We spend the equivalent of 4.3 years of our lives in our cars. Multi-location restaurants and retailers have known this for quite some time and introduced the drive-thru decades ago. Although the exact date of the first-ever drive-up window is fiercely debated, sources indicate that banks introduced the concept in the early 1920s. The drive-thru […]
Commentary
As Cookies Crumble, Can Location Data Pick Up the Pieces?
One potential and promising alternative to third-party cookies is location data. Captured from mobile users as they move through the physical world, location data can be used for a range of purposes and personalization.
Real-world visitation patterns offer clues to user identity, brand affinities, and purchase intent. Putting aside that Covid-19 has radically upended movement patterns for the time being, regular airport or hotel visitation can identify business travelers, routine presence in a gym suggests health-consciousness, and weekly fast-food visits implies the opposite. Someone visiting car dealerships is probably an “auto-intender,” and so on.
Why Your Business Should Start Incorporating Social Proof
When it comes to marketing your business, social proofing is one of the most critical and yet overlooked strategies in the book. Consumers seeing what others buy influences them to make similar buying decisions. As an example, when your website has reviews or testimonials from well-known figures in the same industry, that’s social proof in action because the reviews will compel many visitors to buy from you.
In this article, we’ll dive more deeply into what social proofing is, how to incorporate it into your business, and some of the pitfalls of social proofing that you would be wise to avoid.
Data Trends for 2021: Overcoming Digital Ad Uncertainty
With privacy regulations on the horizon, email is a known and comfortable identifier that many consumers self-register and that brands can anonymize in a digital environment with hashed emails for privacy compliance.
While 2020 has thrown a lot of curve balls, marketers that worked to get their consumer data house in order with an eye on ways to better enable their first-party data for a complete view of their most-desired audiences and buying behaviors will survive and thrive as we head into 2021. The newest technology, data-sharing innovations, and identity resolution algorithms won’t help if you don’t have the basics down.
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Tech Companies Respond as Workers, SMBs Face Covid-19 Pressure
Google’s sister site Verily launched a site, albeit with logistical difficulties, to help Bay Area residents find testing options, and Verily isn’t the only tech company facing or alleviating coronavirus concerns. As a possible recession looms, consumer spending dips, and employees are sent home for public safety, some vendors are stepping in to help workers weather the storm. Others are boosting small businesses, hiring and increasing pay for workers, and suspending precarious services.
Do Your Data Relationships Have a Real Future?
Brands and publishers seem to be getting the short end of the stick amid recent cookie and privacy regulation changes. In the absence of cookies, brands may feel undue pressure to go to walled gardens for scale. Meanwhile publishers will have to bet on first-party data collection and monetization, along with its inherent scalability challenges and slim view of the customer. What’s happening with our data relationships?
Computers Without Boundaries: A Deep Dive Into Ambient Computing
“Ambient computing” is actually a catch-all term for several new technologies. These include Internet of Things (IoT) devices, AI-driven devices, and cloud storage solutions that allow previously impossible amounts of data to be stored and processed.
The advantage of looking at these technologies under one term, though, is that it allows us to see the future of marketing more holistically. And that’s what we’ll look at in this article.
Social Selling Helps Boost Sales
I define social selling as the process of researching, connecting, and interacting with prospects and customers on social media networks. It focuses on nurturing leads, building brand authenticity and building trust with your prospects.
Leading firms have taken advantage of social selling and have begun reaping the benefits it offers. Research has shown that 70% of sales professionals are active on LinkedIn for business purposes, 89% believe social networking platforms such as LinkedIn are important in closing deals, and 64% of sales reps who invest time in social media are hitting their sales quota.
What California’s Gig Economy Law Means for Worker Flexibility
We can expect continued pushback to AB5 from companies across the gig economy. But regardless of whether the pushback leads to legislative changes, we’ll begin to see even more innovative approaches for managing flexible labor pools and flexible schedules. In the meantime, though, how can companies stay compliant, provide stability, and still preserve the flexibility that appeals to gig workers?
How Local Businesses Should Prepare for Coronavirus
A quick Google search on this column’s headline reveals a large number of sites offering recommendations to businesses large and small about how to prepare for the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak as it moves into pandemic territory. Articles on Inc., Fast Company, and the World Economic Forum echo a common theme: Businesses need to develop a plan of action for containing the spread of the illness, as well as contingencies that allow normal operations to continue as smoothly as possible.
In the sphere of digital presence management, key players like Google, Nextdoor, and Facebook are offering recommendations to help businesses develop plans and communicate effectively with consumers who need to access their products and services. The advice comes at a time when business operations may be modified or interrupted by multiple factors such as quarantines and supply chain interruptions.
Freckle, AdSquare Team Up on Privacy-Compliant Geo-Contextual Advertising
For years, geo-contextual advertising focused on targeting consumers for specific products or services at specific locations. The strategy has delivered impressive results for many brands and agencies. But with privacy restrictions on the rise, the time has come to start reimagining geo-contextual advertising in a way that brings brands together with on-the-go consumers in a privacy-safe way.
While many vendors are looking at how to expand into privacy-safe geo-targeting, Freckle and AdSquare are getting out ahead of the pack. Just this morning, Freckle and AdSquare announced a collaborative effort to improve geo-targeting capabilities for brands and agencies across North America. Through the collaboration, Freckle will layer its privacy-safe visitation data into AdSquare’s platform.
Location Weekly: Grocery Delivery in the Time of COVID-19 Alarm
In this episode of Location Weekly, the Location-Based Marketing Association covers Instacart’s doorstep grocery delivery amid the coronavirus scare, Papa Johns enjoying success with AR, 7Eleven opening an “Evolution” concept store, TapAd partnering with Gimbal, and Pandora launching interactive voice ads.
SMB Resellers and Agencies: How to Make the Most of the Conversions Objective
ROI is, of course, the ultimate goal of any advertising effort, so one might naturally ask, “Why would I ever choose an objective that’s not conversion optimized?”, or even “Why would I choose to optimize towards anything but purchase conversions?” It turns out the latter is the more complicated question, but one you can answer when armed with the right information.
It all has to do with how Facebook’s ad bidding works, which involves a combination of factors: your advertiser bid, estimated action rates (i.e. how your target audience responds to the ad), and overall ad quality. As Facebook notes, “together, estimated action rates and ad quality measure ad relevance. In fact, we subsidize relevant ads in auctions, so more relevant ads often cost less and see more results.”
Amazon’s Just Walk Out Cashierless Solution Is an Antitrust Signal
It’s well established that Amazon dominates at dominating industries adjacent to retail. But that’s what makes its Just Walk Out solution more suspect. By doubling down on retail as a service, Amazon is courting enterprise customers in the very industry — brick-and-mortar retail — that its main e-commerce business gutted. The Seattle behemoth is asking firms like Walmart and Macy’s to pay it for the chance to meet the same Amazon-driven standards that put some of the retail champions of yesteryear out of business.
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