News and Analysis

Savvy Retailers Are Turning Returns Into Revenue — Here’s How

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Returns are inherently expensive due to shipping and restocking fees, but some retailers are finding ways around those issues. In the process, they’re coming up with new strategies for building revenue streams from customer returns.

Google Is Using AI to Improve Business Listings — Here’s How

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Google said it would be using artificial intelligence and machine learning to build a self-updating Maps product that predicts when business hours are likely to be wrong and updates listings automatically using AI-generated predictions.

New Hires at Publica, January Digital, Vibrant Media

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The monthly Street Fight new hires roundup features movers and shakers in adtech, martech, e-commerce, localized marketing, location intelligence, and more. This month’s roundup features new hires at CTV ad platform Publica, digital analytics company January Digital, and contextual marketing firm Vibrant Media.

Commentary

The Trust Crash: How Our Platforms Are Failing Us At Every Level and What We Can Do About It

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It doesn’t have to be this way. There are the seeds of a new generation of open platforms and technologies aimed at evolving the platform paradigm to one of transparency, value share, and universal governance representation. Sharing value with users via data revenue share; allowing users access to insights generated about them and their peers and help to understand who is trying to engage with them and why; rev share and benefits for service providers; collaborative governance; and abolition of unilateral platform expulsion or rule changes are just several of the major changes on the table. A whole host of new open platform operating protocols is emerging.

LBMA Vidcast: Walmart Launches Alcohol Pick-Up; Salesforce Teams with Neura

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On this week’s Location-Based Marketing Association podcast: Neura + Salesforce, do it outdoors media partners with BlueBite, NinthDecimal adds Inscape TV data, Eatigo (Thailand) matches restaurant deals with customers, Yoplait using facial detection for free offers with JCDecaux, Walmart launches alcohol pick-up in 2,000 US locations.

How CPGs Can Score a Touchdown This Fall by Emulating Spiked Seltzer’s 2019 Summer Splash

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In a way, local football fandoms are microcosms for the communities they represent. Each franchise fandom possesses a deeply rooted culture — the kind of loyalty and camaraderie marketers strive to inspire among their own consumers. From high school matchups and college games to the national stage and beyond, the opportunity to tap into local sports to forge meaningful connections with consumers is conspicuous. The strategies and tactics to go about creating those connections, though, is far from obvious. 

To home in on a seasonally relevant, hyperlocal strategy for tailgating and football, brand marketers can look to the strategies hard seltzer brands implemented that resulted in the overwhelming successes of the past summer. 

Latest Posts

Street Fight Daily: Prime Day, Amazon’s Power, and Local; Google’s Mobile Speed Update and SMBs

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BIG MOVES AND TOP TAKES IN LOCAL… Prime Day Showcases the Power of an E-Commerce Empire—And What It Means for Local… Why Google’s Mobile Speed Update Smells Like Trouble for Small Businesses… Simpli.fi Reaches Next Level in Precise Location Targeting…

Foursquare Announces New Chief Revenue Officer, Liz Ritzcovan

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Ritzcovan’s mission will center on “client centricity.” She’ll be tasked with optimizing Foursquare’s relationships with its clients as the company seeks to make the case that its suite of resources for brands looking to connect the digital and physical worlds is both comprehensive and indispensable.

Restaurant Management Platform Toast Raises a Whopping $115 Million

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Restaurant management platform Toast is announcing a $115 million Series D this morning. Courtesy of T. Rowe Price Associates, the round values Toast at $1.4 billion.

Simpli.fi Reaches Next Level in Precise Location Targeting

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As of this morning, advertisers using Simpli.fi’s programmatic advertising platform will have access to Addressable Geo-Fencing, a solution that Simpli.fi’s vice president of marketing Ryan Horn says is the next logical step in the localization and personalization of programmatic advertising.

Prime Day Showcases the Power of an E-Commerce Empire—And What It Means for Local

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Prime Day underscores Amazon’s power in the retail market because it compels the over 100 million consumers who pay for that service to make the most of their investment by purchasing directly from Amazon. Local businesses are hardly in a position to compete.

Why Google’s Mobile Speed Update Smells Like Trouble for Small Businesses

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The murky guidelines surrounding just whom and how many people and sites the mobile speed update may affect—and how exactly businesses in the line of fire are to amend unsatisfactory practices—spells potential trouble for small businesses.

Groupon Reportedly Puts Itself on the Market

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Groupon, the early pioneer in local deals that was once valued at as much as $16 billion, is on an avid hunt for a buyer, Recode reported this weekend. Executives and banking representatives at Groupon have reportedly been pursuing potential targets.

TVadSync and Unacast Partner for Cross-Platform TV/Digital Attribution

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Unacast’s location data will allow TVadSync to prove with unprecedented accuracy that the campaigns it manages across TV and digital platforms are indeed driving exposed audiences to make purchases at brick-and-mortar stores.

Street Fight Daily: Groupon Puts Itself on the Market, Google Demoting All Slow Sites

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The latest in local and hot takes on tech & marketing… Groupon Reportedly Puts Itself on the Market… Google Speed Update Is Now Being Released to All Users… Some of London’s Top Retailers Call for a Sales Tax on ‘Largely Online’ Rivals…

SMB Index Declines Slightly Over the Course of a Volatile June

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June was a volatile month in the public markets, which saw the SurePath SMB Index give back 1.1%, after climbing 7.9% in May. Web.com led last month’s winners, leading the index with 31.5% growth in market cap following news of an acquisition offer.