News and Analysis
The Growth of Visual Search
Claire Carlile, in a recent post on visual search that contains useful tips for local businesses, shows us that Google is now making it possible to conduct a search that starts and ends with images. Her example search is conducted using Google Lens, where an image of a Sony headphones package is the “query” that produces a local pack result replete with its own images. This may or may not be the future of search, but it’s highly representative of the visual-first orientation that Google is embracing to a growing degree.
Report: Online Shopping Experiences Disrupted by Last-Mile Delivery Delays
Online grocery sales reached nearly $98 billion in the U.S. last year. Restaurants and home essentials sellers also saw incredible growth. While demand for the local delivery of goods purchased online continues to skyrocket, a new report finds that persistent delivery disruptions in the last mile threaten to impact customer retention and blunt long-term industry growth.
Unstructured Data Becomes an Untapped Opportunity for Brands
Unstructured data now represents 80% to 90% of all new enterprise data, according to Gartner, but just 18% of organizations are taking advantage. Unstructured data, like product images, customer audio files, and comments from social media, represents an untapped opportunity for marketers.
Commentary
Will Images Drive a New Local Search Paradigm?
Blumenthal to Mihm: Obviously AI/ML vis-à-vis image recognition is going to play a huge role going forward in terms of discovery and conversion. But I would have to add that it is also critically important to Google as a way to engage the user in “immersive search” behaviors. That is, drawing the user deeper and deeper into Google so that they never feel the need or desire to go someplace else. This will further seal off the walled garden of local discovery search.
You can see this in the new search by photos feature where the user is led into a grid of visual business choices and ultimately served up the Local Finder via the View list link or, if they click on an image, a business profile. But to get to the phone number, the user had to totally commit to diving deeper into Google.
Using Location Intelligence as Marketing Pixels for the Real World
Without pixels, marketing in the digital world would be a guessing game. However, with 90% of all commerce still taking place in the physical world, oftentimes marketers find themselves in the dark, not knowing how their customers are interacting with their brands offline. Enter location intelligence, or as we like to call it, pixels for the real world.
Take a moment to reflect on the past few weeks. Did you stop at a coffee shop on the way to work? Did you work out on specific days of the week at a nearby gym? Are there restaurants you frequent when you are too lazy to cook at home? In a study, published in Nature Human Behaviour, researchers found that people frequent up to 25 places at any given time period. Similar to marketing pixels placed on websites, the ability to understand physical, real-world behavior such as path-to-purchase, visitation patterns, day-of-week preferences, and daily activities fuels more strategic decision making.
LBMA Vidcast: Amazon to Roll Out Hand Recognition Payment at Whole Foods
On this week’s Location-Based Marketing Association podcast: Skoda announces in-car voice assistant Laura, Philadelphia bans stores that don’t accept cash, Kochava teams with CubeIQ, GOAT let’s you try on exclusive sneakers in AR, Olo powering restaurant orders from Google search and maps, Amazon to roll-out hand recognition payment at Whole Foods.
Latest Posts
#SFSNYC: Moving Beyond Basic Location-Based Advertising Without Getting Creepy
In regard to guidelines pertaining to the ethical use of location data, Mark Risis, head of global data partnerships at IBM Watson, offered the following maxim: “Don’t do creepy stuff.” Risis as well as panelists from Zocdoc and Waze addressed the topic of location-based marketing and ethics in a panel at Street Fight Summit Wednesday.
#SFSNYC: UPS, TripAdvisor, and HappyOrNot Break Down Divergent Approaches to Customer Feedback
Consumer feedback and brands have a complex and sometimes contentious relationship. Three panelists from companies with starkly different relationships to both their customers and the customer feedback process provided their angles on the issue at Street Fight Summit in New York Wednesday.
#SFSNYC: GroundTruth Turns On-the-Ground Data Into IRL Transactions
When consumers visit physical stores, the likelihood that they will complete a purchase shoots up, especially in comparison to the likelihood they will make a purchase after visiting a digital site. “Visits lead to sales,” was the message of Hongzhe Sun of GroundTruth, one of the sponsors of Street Fight Summit in New York Wednesday.
#SFSNYC: May AI Help You? The Marketing Opportunities in Intelligent Search
Artificial intelligence is the future of search engines. Increasingly conversational, intelligent, and visual, search engines are adapting to become the centerpiece of consumer engagement, as well as a virtually new tool for marketers. Purna Virji, senior manager for global engagement at Microsoft/Bing, broke down the AI revolution in search at Street Fight Summit Wednesday.
#SFSNYC: Investors on Billion-Dollar Opportunities in Local and Where to Find Them
Long before startups become the “next big thing” the masses talk about, investors have an opportunity to use their wallets to weigh in on the prospects for those emerging companies. At Street Fight Summit Wednesday in New York, investors pointed to voice, VR and AR, and influencers as some hot topics in local investing right now.
#SFSNYC: Verve’s Mark Fruehan Talks Being a Tactician in Location-Based Advertising
Mobile and local offer huge opportunities in potential revenue to advertisers smart enough to capitalize on them. But location data will ultimately hold value for marketers only if its collection and analysis rests on accurate audience identification, said Mark Fruehan, executive vice president of enterprise platforms at Verve, at Street Fight Summit Wednesday.
#SFSNYC: Broadly CEO: Brick-and-Mortars Need to Become Messaging Centers
Phone calls and contact forms are dead, but what about websites? Not so much, said Josh Melick, CEO of Broadly, at Street Fight’s annual summit in New York Wednesday. With this trend showing no signs of stopping, websites—especially those of local businesses—need to become messaging centers.
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