News and Analysis
How to Leverage Mobility Data to Bring Consumers Back In-Store
Rising inflation is changing the way consumers shop and decreasing the number of trips people make to brick-and-mortar stores. While the change in behavior could be a stumbling block for some specialty retailers, it’s also providing brands with an opportunity to more effectively leverage mobility data to target consumers in ways that weren’t possible prior to the pandemic.
How Retailers and Brands Can Entice Gen Z
Deals, mobile capabilities, and authenticity — these are some of the principles for attracting Gen Z shoppers. But how does the data support this common wisdom about enticing the youngest adult consumers? And what steps can brands and retailers take to win their dollars this holiday season?
Brand Advertisers Hunting for Safe Spaces to Access Audience Targeting Information
In the privacy-first era we now find ourselves in, brand advertisers are on the hunt for safe spaces to access audience targeting information. Data clean rooms should be an obvious solution for this — providing brands with secure environments to connect distributed data across multiple platforms and parties. In reality, though, data safe rooms are often under-utilized. In fact, according to research from Habu, more than half of marketing professionals say they have never used one.
Commentary
How Realistic is the IAB’s Rearc?
Behind the scenes, at conferences and in meetings, we’re told of solutions for the death of the third-party cookie that will use CNAMEs, Universal IDs, device IDs, IP addresses, or other Rube Goldberg-ian hijinks to create the supposed 1:1 replacement for how marketing was previously done. The bridge from marketing using the third-party cookie to first-party data is as simple as snapping your fingers!
Of course, it won’t be that simple. There will not be a simple replacement for the third-party cookie. In truth, there shouldn’t be. The third-party cookie never worked as well as the industry liked to believe. Third-party data was used to measure the performance of first-party inventory, and attribution was biased toward a last-click model that benefited the triopoly of Amazon, Facebook, and Google. The third-party cookie never really worked in a society that has adopted mobile as a way of life. In a way, it’s time to bid good riddance to a flawed system, albeit one with which we’d all grown comfortable.
Rely on Empathy to Stop Second-Guessing Your Covid-19 Marketing Strategy
We have to recognize that — just like us — our customers are in a heightened state of stress and sensitivity. They’re likely to remember brands that get their messaging very wrong or very right during this historic period, and no one wants to be among the former. But we also have to remember that empathy in the face of daunting challenges is a proven business strategy — brands that deliver humanized experiences are twice as likely to outperform their competitor’s revenue growth.
With Stimulus Funds Delayed, Small Businesses Digitize for Survival
Experts at helping SMBs adapt to a tech-first commercial landscape say the pandemic has led some businesses to tap into their long-dormant potential as digital marketers and sellers, possibly setting them up for gains in the aftermath of the recession. Now that e-commerce is the only path to survival, mom-and-pop shops, aided by martech firms, agencies, and Silicon Valley giants, are capitalizing on cutting-edge marketing and retail techniques, many for the first time.
Thousands, if not millions, of Main Street businesses will close their doors for good as a result of the pandemic. Those that survive will be technologically savvier and sleeker than they were before.
Latest Posts
Brandify, PlaceIQ, Simpli.fi Among 2019 LSA Ad-to-Action Award Finalists
The Local Search Association announced this week a slate of 20 finalists for its annual awards celebrating the best in local and online-to-offline marketing. Among more than 80 submissions, the finalists have been recognized for their outstanding work in such categories as reputation management, SMB software, and local search.
While Sales Growth Rate Slows, Amazon Marketplace, Cloud, and Ad Businesses Point to Long-Term Prosperity
For brands hoping to compete with Amazon (and potentially looking on with relief at a sign of fallibility from their digital rival), the company’s earnings report brings the news that Amazon Marketplace, where third-party sellers can reach customers, is doing more than twice as much in sales as Amazon’s first-party retail platform. Marketplace is troubled by bad practices and fake reviews, and its prosperity suggests the growing challenge for brands to get customers to even go to their sites at a time when Amazon is essentially the homepage of the commerce-oriented Internet.
LBMA Vidcast: Urgent.ly Gets $21M, Adobe to Measure OOH
On this week’s Location-Based Marketing Association podcast: Urgent.ly gets $21M, AisleLabs adds payments, Ahold Delhaize deploys 500 robots, TomTom sells telematics for $1B, Adobe to measure OOH, Walgreens tailors ads on coolers.
As Voice Gets Established, Brands Grapple with Implementation
Consumer demand for voice technology has never been greater, and industry heavyweights like Google and Amazon are gearing up for a platform war as they work to integrate voice assistants into virtually every area of the connected consumer’s life. But behind the scenes, many brand marketers are struggling to connect the dots and design campaigns around a technology they don’t fully understand.
Apple Takes Advantage of Facebook’s Foul Play to Make a Privacy Statement
Not only did Facebook’s “Research” app, which paid 13- to 35-year-old users $20/month to access their search history, emails, and private messages, set off every imaginable alarm on the this-will-look-bad-when-the-exposé-comes-out PR radar (one of the world’s most powerful corporations must be lacking one of those), but the app also blatantly violated the terms of Apple’s Enterprise Developer Program, which proscribes distributing apps to consumers. It probably didn’t help that Facebook was searching tweens’ data for dirt on its competitors.
Privacy, Poor Management, and Sex Scandals Can’t Touch the Duopoly’s Ad Growth—Yet
It will likely take a significant downturn in spending or overall economic well-being for Big Tech to feel some major financial pain. And while great for Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Apple, that’s got to be concerning for industry watchdogs wondering whether these businesses are too entrenched in digital search, advertising, and commerce to be challenged—because the past year was not hot for Silicon Valley, and yet the presses keep printing dollars.
Building the Location Layer: A Conversation with Foursquare
Last week, location technology company Foursquare announced its new Pinpoint audience segments product. Building from its large corpus of data on places, spatial movements and behavioral patterns, Pinpoint represents the latest in Foursquare’s evolution as the “location layer,” for the internet. We got the chance to sit down with Foursquare CEO Jeff Glueck in San Francisco to find out more. Here is the full interview.
Williams-Sonoma Sues Amazon, Underscoring War Over E-Commerce Monopolization
Foreshadowing a battle over Amazon’s overwhelming control of e-commerce, Williams-Sonoma filed a lawsuit against Amazon in the final days of 2018, charging that the retail juggernaut used its market power to copy the furniture maker’s products and squeeze it out of the market.
Choice: The Ingredient That Drives Higher Mobile Engagement Across All Marketing Use Cases
Dan Slavin: To appeal to all consumers, you must use a mix of mobile channels, such as text, mobile wallet, and apps. Your consumers have a specific preference when it comes to receiving retailer promotional messages. Your mobile marketing strategy must cater to this preference.
Facebook to Integrate Technical Infrastructure of WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger
While the move indeed indicates that Facebook’s chief executives are looking to centralize acquired properties that once operated with relative autonomy, the integration also marks a response to growing concerns over user privacy. Under this new technical configuration, all the messaging platforms will be endowed with end-to-end encryption, warding off the possibility that people other than those taking part in conversations will ever read messages sent on the platforms.
Street Fight’s Big 3
Street Fight Columns
Street Fight Categories
The Agency Offering Your Clients Need: Citation Intelligence for AI Search