News and Analysis
Retailers Tackle Excess Inventory with Demand Planning Tools
The scramble to move excess summer inventory ahead of the holiday shopping season is forcing retailers to take a second look at new technology designed to help companies determine how much to discount or raise pricing to maximize profitability. At o9 Solutions, an enterprise AI software platform provider, retail clients are increasingly seeking out demand planning tools to help with demand sensing and inventory visibility.
What Retailers Can Learn from Spotify and Netflix
Peter Messana, CEO of Searchspring, believes retailers have a lot to learn from their counterparts in entertainment. And, he argues, consumers already expect the same level of convenience in retail.
Meta Introduces “Third Screen” to Brand Marketers at Place 2022
Everyone’s talking about the metaverse. What does it really mean, and what impact will the metaverse have on local commerce over the next decade?
Commentary
Amid COVID-19 Pandemic, Accurate Location Data Can Save Hassles and Even Lives
Updating your location data management information to reflect new hours, store closures, different contact information or special announcements is important for business success in general. In the midst of the global Covid-19 pandemic, maintaining accurate location data can actually have vital consequences for public health.
Yet a BrandMuscle study found that less than 60% of local business owners had even claimed their online business listings, which can lead to confusion about whether businesses are open or not.
Location Weekly: Using Location Data to Track Covid-19
In this episode of Location Weekly, the Location-Based Marketing Association covers Turkish firm Elektral developing vending machine for masks, wipes, and disinfectants; UNL raising $2M for smart address system; Wuhan bringing its famous Cherry Blossoms online; and Israeli startup Noveto bringing “smart audio bubbles” to digital signage. The episode also features a special discussion on using location data to track the virus.
Location Leaders Step Up to the Plate
During the Covid-19 outbreak, we’re seeing tech companies step up to the plate in a mixture of altruistic and opportunistic moves. That’s everything from Comcast removing data caps to Amazon removing its paywall for streaming kids shows. But what about local specifically? Again, that’s where businesses are getting hit most.
We’ve seen moves in the local space over the past week from Facebook, Yelp, and Foursquare. Though there are several others, we’ll drill down on this representative sample. We’ll also give a shoutout to Google for its work to free up human and compute resources for local listings updates, covered Monday by Damian Rollison.
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Location Data Industry Gets Huge Wake-Up Call on Monday
Platforms, brands, and vendors benefiting from the reams of location data used to hit consumers with highly targeted ads should be paying attention to a change suggested by Google and Facebook’s appearances before government authorities, a New York Times exposé out Monday, and most importantly the impending arrival of GDPR-like legislation in the United States: 2019 will be the year privacy actually matters, posing a potentially devastating threat to the status quo of the location-based data and marketing industries.
How to Better Connect with Consumers via Mobile Coupons
Dan Slavin: It’s not just smartphone use that is growing—the number of people totally dependent on these devices to access the internet is rising as well. Both segments are projected to continue to show strong growth. Yet some marketers and retailers are struggling with attracting these users with offers and coupons.
Evolving Our Lens for Local Ranking Factors
Blumenthal and Mihm: We in the Local Search industry are not served by relying so heavily on traditional SEO logic and tools—in our approach to the Local Pack, our understanding of the ranking factors, and even what we suggest to clients as appropriate activities.
Consumers’ Reliance on Online Reviews, Evolving Rapidly, Is Reshaping Local Search
Recommendations gradually exchanged in person are now flooding webpages, most notably Google’s SERPs. Twenty-seven percent of consumers are now reading reviews of local businesses every day, marking a staggering jump from just 12% in 2017, according to a recent report.
LBMA Podcast: Spent Retail Analytics, Reveal Mobile Black Friday Report
On this week’s LBMA show: Spent retail analytics, LinkSure free global WiFi, Casino competes with AmazonGo in France, McDonald’s dancing in the streets of Bogata, Shopkick + Unilever & Walmart, Verve + AdCouncil for Goodwill. Special Research—Reveal Mobile Black Friday Report.
Firefly, Mounting Ad Displays to Ubers, Comes Out of Stealth with $21.5M
Firefly, a new digital ad company, hopes to provide Uber drivers with another way to make money as they drive. The startup has quietly assembled a fleet of close to 1,000 Uber drivers in San Francisco and Los Angeles who have been mounting ad displays to the top of their vehicles.
Mike Ragsdale Says Putting Community First Makes His ‘Indie’ 30A Site a Big Winner
In this Q&A, 30A founder Mike Ragsdale itemizes what he thinks his industry is doing wrong and how 30A, by making community paramount, has become the top revenue-producing site among independents.
RhythmOne Introduces Linear TV Attribution Partnership with Placed
Marketing technology end-to-end platform RhythmOne announced an expansion of its relationship with attribution solution Placed this week, incorporating linear tv measurements into their already existing partnership.
Heard on the Street, Episode 17: Local SEO and Seeing the Matrix, with Andrew Shotland
What are the latest developments in local search ranking factors and SEO? These were a few topics we batted around with Local SEO Guide CEO Andrew Shotland on the latest episode of Street Fight’s Heard on the Street podcast.
Google Local Services Reportedly Expand to Canada, Signaling Rapid Growth
Launch in 2015 in Silicon Valley’s home court, Local Service Ads have since expanded to a whopping 90 markets in the U.S. and are now making their way abroad, where searches for local services are abundant.
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Meta Is Automating Ads, But Brands Still Face a Bigger Problem