News and Analysis
Yelp Introduces Guest Manager, A Front-of-House Operations Tool for Restaurants
Yelp today introduced a new, comprehensive solution for restaurants to manage their front-of-house operations. With online searches for takeout remaining above pre-pandemic levels, the new Yelp Guest Manager is being billed as a comprehensive solution that brings together many of the digital tools restaurants have been using to manage digital ordering, reservations, takeout, guest loyalty, and table management.
How Apple’s Latest Privacy Changes Will Affect Email Marketing
Last week, Apple rolled out iOS 15, which brought more privacy changes that could undermine tracking and disadvantage digital marketers. Most notably, the company’s Mail Privacy Protection policy will ask iOS device users whether they want to “protect” their mail or not, preventing marketers from determining whether consumers who “protect” their email opened messages.
Commentary
Studying the Relationship Between Phone Price and Income
The results of our study show that the more expensive your phone is, the more likely you are to come from a higher income bracket. Our model predicts that, for every dollar that the average price for a cell phone in a given zip code increases, the median income for that zip code will also increase by $122.70 — in other words, by a fairly significant amount.
In the Wake of Spam Reports, Google Focuses on Brand and Small Business Engagement
Google’s calculated risk in creating a low bar for verification works out fine in a world where most business owners simply want to gain legitimate access to their own listings, and most businesses do operate within those ethical boundaries. But as we’ve seen elsewhere at this stage in the evolution of social networks, fraud and deceptive manipulation have become a kind of ghost in the machine, dominating darker sectors of the local marketplace and creating an atmosphere of distrust that may eventually prove more broadly contagious.
All of this is only possible when lots of activity is consolidated on a few platforms. Just as fake accounts attempting to engineer the 2016 election thrived in the vast and complex Facebook ecosystem, so too has Google’s dominance in local attracted its own horde of opportunists, drawn like moths to its flame. Indeed, fraud in local listings is just the latest in a long history of attempts, from link farms to keyword spam, to manipulate loopholes in Google’s regulations and algorithms.
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#SFSW18: Street Fight Announces Winners of the 2018 Local Visionary Awards
Street Fight has announced the winners of the 2018 Local Visionary Awards. The awards were presented in a ceremony at Street Fight Summit West. The 9-category competition honored the very best campaigns, companies, ideas, and individuals working in the local marketing and commerce ecosystem.
Street Fight Daily: Amazon Launches UPS & FedEx Rival, P&G Cracks the Code on Marketing
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Amazon to Launch Delivery Service for Businesses, Challenging UPS and FedEx… Drawbridge Partners with mParticle to Help Brands Deliver Personalized Experiences… Liftoff Dating App Report Shows Cold Seasons’ User Behavior and Geographic Trends…
SMB Ecosystems vs Universes: What’s the Difference and What Do They Tell Us?
From analyzing the companies that specifically target the SMBs, this space is better depicted by a series of galaxies that swirl independently of each other and offer the SMB a myriad of choice. The upshot of all this work is that some stars are shrinking and others are growing. Bigger companies are actively acquiring and consolidation is increasing.
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Beyond Likes: Win Hearts with Emotional Marketing