News and Analysis
5 Retail Communications Platforms for Multi-Location Brands
If there is one thread that runs through nearly all the challenges retailers are facing in 2023, it’s communication. Using the right enterprise communication platforms, retail brands have an opportunity to reduce staffing woes, improve customer retention, and even minimize ongoing supply chain issues.
Commentary
The One Where Adtech and Martech Get Married
It’s impossible to have any certainty about the de facto cookieless targeting solution of the future or what solutions will emerge from Google’s privacy sandbox. But what is clear is that the ability to precisely target audiences in adtech without cookies will likely have very similar applications for personalization use cases in martech.
In order words, the data used to show a targeted ad to a person without cookies could simultaneously power the way a digital experience is personalized for that same person.
iOS14 and Privacy: What it Means for Advertisers, Especially on Facebook
The latest in the tug of war between consumer privacy and effective digital advertising pits Apple against Facebook, Google, and others. At stake for ad tech: significant revenue for ad publishers and app developers, effective ad results for advertisers, and more relevant ads for consumers. At stake for users: consumer privacy protection, the use of their behavioral data for marketing, and possibly, the future of “free” software.
Apple’s pending release of iOS 14 is a strong consumer-privacy-first stance and a potential disruption to digital marketing as we know it. But what is the real impact for targeted digital advertising?
Standardizing the Definition of Data Quality
Now that companies are using data to drive marketing strategies, product development, and other key business decisions, stakeholders need to know more. They need to know whether data represents an intent signal or an interest signal. They have a right to know the honest origins of the data they’re using — whether it’s been pulled from bidstream or it’s truly opt-in data from a reliable publisher. They deserve to know that the data they’re using has been collected in a privacy-safe manner and if permission has been ethically obtained. Furthermore, business users should have some transparency around modelled data and declared data. They should have visibility into what’s inside each segment.
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Will Images Drive a New Local Search Paradigm?
Blumenthal to Mihm: Obviously AI/ML vis-à-vis image recognition is going to play a huge role going forward in terms of discovery and conversion. But I would have to add that it is also critically important to Google as a way to engage the user in “immersive search” behaviors. That is, drawing the user deeper and deeper into Google so that they never feel the need or desire to go someplace else. This will further seal off the walled garden of local discovery search.
You can see this in the new search by photos feature where the user is led into a grid of visual business choices and ultimately served up the Local Finder via the View list link or, if they click on an image, a business profile. But to get to the phone number, the user had to totally commit to diving deeper into Google.
6 Scheduling Platforms for Fitness Studios
One of the most exciting verticals right now is the fitness space, where the number of boutique gyms and studios is on the rise. Scheduling software has become an absolute necessity for fitness studios, giving clients a way to quickly book classes, pay for memberships, and even check in from their smartphones.
Here are six scheduling platforms serving the fitness vertical.
Using Location Intelligence as Marketing Pixels for the Real World
Without pixels, marketing in the digital world would be a guessing game. However, with 90% of all commerce still taking place in the physical world, oftentimes marketers find themselves in the dark, not knowing how their customers are interacting with their brands offline. Enter location intelligence, or as we like to call it, pixels for the real world.
Take a moment to reflect on the past few weeks. Did you stop at a coffee shop on the way to work? Did you work out on specific days of the week at a nearby gym? Are there restaurants you frequent when you are too lazy to cook at home? In a study, published in Nature Human Behaviour, researchers found that people frequent up to 25 places at any given time period. Similar to marketing pixels placed on websites, the ability to understand physical, real-world behavior such as path-to-purchase, visitation patterns, day-of-week preferences, and daily activities fuels more strategic decision making.
LBMA Vidcast: Amazon to Roll Out Hand Recognition Payment at Whole Foods
On this week’s Location-Based Marketing Association podcast: Skoda announces in-car voice assistant Laura, Philadelphia bans stores that don’t accept cash, Kochava teams with CubeIQ, GOAT let’s you try on exclusive sneakers in AR, Olo powering restaurant orders from Google search and maps, Amazon to roll-out hand recognition payment at Whole Foods.
Impending Brand Safety Woes: Nasty and Misleading Political Ads Hit Facebook
If brand safety in the 2020 election season does not immediately seem concerning, consider the following: You’re an advertiser hoping to run digital ads for your advertising tech solution. You pay a publisher with huge traffic big money to score impressions on its platform. But as soon as a Democratic voter navigates to the site and sees your ad, along with it pops up a big Trump ad making inflammatory claims about Biden. The web surfer navigates away from the site. Who wins?
Last-Minute Shoppers Help Small Retailers Compete with Amazon for Holiday Sales
During the holiday shopping season, it’s Amazon’s world — or is it?
Outside the digital sphere, brick-and-mortar holiday sales at big-box shops like Walmart and Best Buy continue to be buoyed by bullish shoppers willing to hit the streets in search of timely deals during consumer-focused quasi-holidays like Black Friday. As a result, shoppers are spending more during the holidays than ever before.
And then there’s the independent, local retailer. How is a small shop supposed to compete with the ease of mobile e-commerce or the allure of big-box doorbuster deals? Turns out, they have an ace in the hole: last-minute shoppers.
Heard on the Street, Episode 36: Fighting Location Fraud, With Location Sciences
Along with GDPR, CCPA, and a period of generally heightened concern about privacy and data collection, this iOS update could challenge the ability for marketers to get precise location data. But on the bright side, these macro factors compel better practices, shifting strategies and measurement tools. The time is right, Jason Smith says, for Location Sciences and lots of other companies in the location intelligence sector looking to point the way toward digital marketing’s future best practices.
Technology Planning: What Retailers Should Do Now to Prep for the Holiday Rush
Retailers will need to think differently when it comes to technology planning. With the holiday season looming, now is the best moment to develop a long-term technology strategy geared toward capturing more holiday sales in addition to driving revenue growth all year long.
Understanding a few key areas can help get the planning process started. This includes: exceeding consumers’ holiday shopping expectations, making holiday shopping more convenient, and enabling a holistic holiday shopping journey.
Direct-to-Consumer Brands Are Winning at Personalized Messaging. Here’s Why
According to new research conducted by Braze, a company that specializes in growth marketing automation, direct-to-consumer brands beat non-direct-to-consumer brands with 58.6% higher messaging open rates across channels.
One reason for the higher open rates is because direct-to-consumer brands show greater willingness to use automation and iteration to personalize messages and speak to customers at a point in the journey when it makes sense for them.
Nextdoor Releases Local Deals to Connect Businesses with Nearby Customers
Nextdoor, the social networking app that requires users to enter a verified address in order to connect neighbors, is announcing local deals, a feature that will allow businesses on the platform to promote sales, discounts, and other offers to nearby customers.
Nextdoor is active in more than 248,000 neighborhoods across 11 countries.
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