News and Analysis

Super Bowl Advertising

These Location Intelligence Solutions Are Optimizing Last-Mile Delivery

Advanced location intelligence software combines artificial intelligence and street-level mapping data to help startups predict customer buying patterns and stage inventories in the right locations — e.g. ghost kitchens — using prediction algorithms and real-time sales metrics. Location intelligence software firms are also taking advantage of traffic data, weather information, and consumer behavioral data to help last-mile delivery companies streamline operations in today’s tough business environment.

May Was a Lucrative Month for E-Commerce Retailers — Here’s Why

Forget back-to-school shopping in the fall or the pre-Christmas rush in December. New research from the mobile measurement company Adjust shows that May is quickly becoming one of the most lucrative months for m-commerce retailers. 

4 Predictions for Retail Media

I spoke with Sarah Hughes, head of marketing at InMobi, to get the inside scoop on where retail media is heading. Here are four predictions for the space based on our conversation.

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

Hires and New Openings at Dream Local, Adsquare, PubMatic

Every two or three weeks, Street Fight rounds up some of the latest hires and new openings in the hyperlocal marketing, tech, and media industries.  This week’s roundup includes hires and new openings at Gravy Analytics, GasBuddy, Swrve, Episerver, and Swrve.

LBMA Podcast: Ninth Decimal and Branded Cities, Swrve, Burger King

On this week’s Location-Based Marketing Association podcast: Swrve’s Payload, UnDigital, Branded Cities + NinthDecimal, Tommy Hilfiger, Singapore Airlines, and Burger King France.

Raise Report: Dynamic Yield, Optoro, Gusto Score New Funding

Every two or three weeks, we round up some of the biggest fundraises taking place in hyperlocal marketing, commerce, and tech. This week’s report also includes funding for Spark Neuro, StreetLight Data, Shedul, and Teamleader.

Street Fight Daily: Investors to Buy Dun & Bradstreet, Yelp Soars on Ad Biz Growth

TODAY IN LOCAL & DIGITAL MARKETING… Investors to Buy Dun & Bradstreet in Multi-Billion Dollar Deal… Yelp Shares Surge on Ad Biz Growth… Hires and New Openings at Dream Local, Adsquare, PubMatic…

Local News Publishers Still Mired in Ad Fraud, New Pixalate Data Shows

According to new research from Pixalate, a cross-channel fraud intelligence company that works with brands and platforms to prevent ad fraud and improve ad inventory quality, about a quarter of all smartphone app video and smartphone app display activity is “invalid traffic” (the technical term for what is largely fraud).

Indi Tackles Inauthenticity in Influencer Marketing Space

Consumers have grown weary of synchronized sponsored content flooding their Instagram feeds, and brands are being inundated by requests for freebies from self-proclaimed social media stars. That evolution in the influencer marketing space has created an opening that Indi CEO and founder Neel Grover believes his new platform can fill.

Street Fight Daily: Agencies Adapt to Amazon, Local News Sites Awash With Ad Fraud

TODAY IN LOCAL & DIGITAL MARKETING… Hacking Amazon: Agencies Create Workarounds for an Emerging Ad Giant… Local News Publishers Still Mired in Ad Fraud, New Pixalate Data Shows… More than 1,000 U.S. News Sites Are Still Unavailable in Europe Post-GDPR…

Will Apple Help Assemble the ‘Internet of Places’?

The AR cloud is the missing piece in the vision we all have for how AR should work. It’s the spatial map of the world that will let AR devices understand their surroundings. Taking this into account, the news that Apple is collecting its own data for Apple Maps may have implications for AR.

Drift Releases New Tech to Help B2B Marketers Convert Site Visitors Into Leads

It’s 2018, and if visitors to your site are slapped with forms that need to be filled out manually, those visitors are going to take their business elsewhere. That’s the state of affairs that conversational marketing and sales platform Drift is addressing this week with its new technology, Drift Intel.

Heard on the Street, Episode 9: Running Lean with Stadium Goods CEO John McPheters

VC funding is sexy, but sometimes it’s better not to take the money. Operating lean can train founders for optimal practices and efficiencies that will serve them well in the long run, says Stadium Goods co-founder and CEO John McPheters, our latest guest on Heard on the Street.