News and Analysis
The Future-Proof, Full-Funnel Approach to Thriving in a Cookieless World
Building strong relationships and encouraging customers to continually engage with the brand will go a long way toward building out first-party data collection and management. But how? As the cookieless world draws near, brands and marketers are looking for alternatives, and the answer lies in a future-proof, full-funnel approach.
Commentary
Then vs. Now: 10 Years of Local Search
David Mihm and Mike Blumenthal offer their take on a decade in local search. Among other topics, they take stock of Google’s dominance.
Mike: Now, it seems that the battle to become the hegemon of local has been signed, sealed, and delivered by Google not just in the US but worldwide. Their well-played hand with Android seems to have been the push they needed. And they managed to gain a totally dominant position IN SPITE of the Google Plus fiasco, which started around that time.
David: Google Plus! I’d honestly forgotten about that debacle already. In our little corner of the world, the fact that Google could waste all those years, person hours, and billions of dollars developing Google Plus and still ascend to its current position in local search shows you just what a colossal opportunity Facebook has missed in this space.
2020: The Year Publishers and Brands Truly Challenge the Walled Gardens
We’ve already started to see publishers and brands start to adopt technology that is beyond the reach of the walled gardens. For brands and publishers reexamining their relationships with the walled gardens, the new year is a great time to determine which channels are adding value and are also future-proof. Only those who own first-party data will be in a position to thrive and fight back against industry changes.
The Premise for Progress in a CCPA Era: Permission, Protection, and Privacy
In the aftermath of fresh privacy legislation, disruptive technologies are beginning to emerge as a possible salvation to the existential challenge the advertising industry faces today. Blockchain, the distributed ledger technology celebrated for its structural logic of transparency and trust, has the profound potential to move the needle on some of the most opaque segments of the digital media supply chain. Data portability, a fundamental right of any subject under the view of data privacy laws, can facilitate the way individuals regain usage of their personal data without risking exposure to the underlying consumer data set. In another instance, blockchain can efficiently track, manage, and record consent among data subjects, processors, and controllers.
Latest Posts
Happy Returns Expands Into College Market
Startup Happy Returns, based in Santa Monica and founded by alums from HauteLook and NordstromRack.com, offers a way for shoppers to return e-commerce purchases at real-world kiosks. Beginning this fall, Happy Returns will be setting up kiosks—which it calls “Return Bars”—at five campuses around the country to capitalize on the returns generated by back-to-college online shopping.
Survey: Identifying Best Practices in Reputation and Review Management
Multi-location brands that use reputation and review management to manage local marketing and advertising are more likely to say that their marketing efforts are effective, according to Street Fight’s latest survey. Analysis of the survey identified several related strategies that correlated strongly with marketing effectiveness, including trying to respond to every review and working with a reputation specialist with its own technology.
As Local Search Enters the Voice Era, Three Content Channels Dominate
You’re well covered today on the three top voice platforms if you have strong listings on Google, Apple, and Yelp. If you want to do even more, make sure your Bing listings are up to date for Cortana (note that Yelp reviews show up here as well), and submit your listing info to Here and Foursquare in order to be found in Samsung’s Bixby interface.
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Streets Ahead: Google Chat, and Instagram Reels