News and Analysis

Marketers Are Changing How They Think About OOH — Here’s Why

Location data is increasingly being used to help retailers target outdoor ads to specific groups of consumers, while the ability to combine artificial intelligence with advanced techniques like travel pattern analysis is giving brands an even better understanding of customer routes.

Retailers Grapple with Decreased Loyalty from Omnichannel Shoppers

Sixty-nine percent of consumers say they expect a consistent cross-channel customer experience. And that’s just the beginning.

Report: Black Friday Is Back — With a Vengeance

According to the findings of a new consumer survey commissioned by UserTesting and conducted by the market research company OnePoll, 43% of shoppers say they miss the frenzy of in-store Black Friday shopping and 42% say in-store shopping is more important now than pre-pandemic.

Commentary

Adapting to Covid-19 Using Location Data

My personal experience getting sick during the pandemic also got me thinking about how easy it is to spread the virus just by moving around and how important it is to abide by government guidance to stay at home or at least limit your movements. As someone who works in the location data industry, I have an appreciation for the mass movement of people, and staying at home and limiting contact with other people is the right thing to do right now.

I also had the chance to think about how location data could be used to help hospitals, governments, and businesses combat the spread of the virus. 

Social Distancing and Gen-Z

Social distancing and self-quarantining have changed the world in a matter of weeks. How is Gen-Z responding? They are flocking to apps like TikTok, Instagram, and Snapchat to pass time and interact with family and friends. Facebook and WhatsApp have lost their reign over the competition during lockdown.  

To get a better understanding of Gen-Zers’ habits, routine, and lives during the pandemic, Brainly, the world’s largest peer-to-peer learning community, surveyed over 1,700 of them. 

The Affiliate Maturity Curve: Graduating from Banners to Lifetime Value

Let’s face it: Affiliate marketing gets a bad wrap. Once considered a channel fraught with black-hat players, fraud, weak strategy, and an overall lack of transparency, affiliate marketing suffered from a reputation for opacity that did not imbue confidence and trust in partners. Most importantly, there wasn’t a sufficient level of confidence that the channel could deliver desired results and outcomes. 

The reality is that the last-click-only perception of affiliate marketing is a thing of yesteryear. Looking back, coupon and loyalty dominated the category because of this reliance on the last-click model embraced by brands. That model stymied the channel’s advancement and progression. However, affiliate is no longer relegated to rudimentary tactics like banner advertising on coupon sites. 

Latest Posts

Data Science as a Solution: conDati Opens Doors for Digital Retailers

The pitch is that today’s marketers with omnichannel inspirations need a machine learning-driven platform that will not only assess the success of campaigns across several media but also point them toward paths for future success. That’s an expensive technical infrastructure to create in-house, and conDati’s betting its solution is worth the spend.

Heard on the Street, Episode 20: Local Reviews Tactics from a Travel Giant

Even in a hyper technology-driven world, one of the most influential forms of local marketing remains word of mouth. But of course that universal principle has taken on new digital formats, including social influence and good-old local business reviews. Reviews optimization is the name of today’s game. We spoke to TripAdvisor Restaurant Division Lead Mark Goloboy on the latest episode of Street Fight’s Heard on the Street podcast to find out how his company is innovating in reputation and identify best practices for businesses.

How Mobile and OOH Can Defy a Dip in Traffic to Coffee Shops During the Otherwise Hot Winter Season

With AAA reporting that 91% of the 112.5 million people in the US who travel during the holiday season take a road trip during that time span, it’s intuitive to dovetail mobile creative with digital out-of-home creative, targeting all these travelers who are undoubtedly moving about the country … and outside their usual stop-for-coffee routines. Below are some strategies to bear in mind when trying to reel in the customer at year’s end.

Want to Know How Long the Wait For that Hot New Restaurant Is? There’s a Google Integration for That

Building on the Reserve with Google offerings that have made the tech giant’s SERPs the new homepage of local businesses, Google seems to be adding a feature that allows people searching for local restaurants to sign up for a waitlist. Busy folks with a penchant for busy eateries rejoice. 

How 5 Retail Brands Are Maximizing the Power of User-Generated Content

Photos and videos that shoppers post on social media convey sentiment about brands, giving fellow consumers—and brands themselves—an uncensored look at how people really feel about their products and services. How brands harness this feedback is evolving, as brand marketers find new ways to glean insights from the unstructured consumer feedback being posted on social media and elsewhere online. Here are five examples of brands that are engaging shoppers across social channels and taking full advantage of the content that customers post on their own online accounts.

Inform Your Multichannel Customer Experience Strategy

Google Posts: Less Visible but Still Valuable

Mihm to Blumenthal: Google has been making a serious effort to get more business owners more engaged with Google My Business over the past 12-18 months. The irony is, though, that deprecating the success business owners can see from easy, compelling offerings like Posts makes them less likely to remain engaged. It’s a little bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy. That said, and despite my initial skepticism about Posts, I have become a long-term believer.

How to Craft a Successful Content Marketing Strategy

Andrew Witkin: One of the main reasons businesses miss the mark with content marketing is that the goals and execution of effective content marketing are at odds with those of traditional marketing methods. While traditional marketing principles dictate that products and services should be the main focus of any advertising initiative, a successful content marketing strategy views a company’s products and services as secondary or supplemental to providing the audience with information that is useful to them and interesting to read or view.

LBMA Vidcast: Toyota & GroundTruth, GOAT Sneakers AR Campaign

On this week’s Location-Based Marketing Association podcast: GOAT Sneakers AR campaign, Swatch goes contactless, BevMo tests voice, Solving homelessness in London with ClearChannel, Nextdoor monetizes data, Toyota dealers + GroundTruth.

New Hires at Kobie, AppNexus, Rewards Network

Every two weeks, our jobs columnist Geoff Michener provides a roundup of the latest hires in the digital marketing and media ecosystems. This week’s edition also includes new hires at Digital Ocean and Acceleration Partners.

How Mom-and-Pop Shops Can Attract Customers Year Long, Not Just on Small Business Saturday

Dan Silver: Why should small businesses be limited to one great day of sales a year? Now more than ever, owners have an arsenal of tools at their disposal to help them drive more visits and generate revenue. Here are a few sustainable solutions for local businesses.