News and Analysis
2021 Ranking Factors Report Underscores Importance of Google Profiles and Reviews
Three of the most notable trends — the ever-increasing importance of native Google My Business (now Google Business Profile) factors and, in particular, of reviews, as well as the diminished impact of citation building — are reinforced this year, with Google profile optimization accounting for 36% of local ranking, up from 33% last year, and reviews inching up from 16% to 17%, while citations continue at 7%, down significantly in importance compared to their prominent role in earlier years.
Business Messaging Best Practices: A Conversation with Meta
Messaging is one of the core ways customers interact with local brick-and-mortar businesses. Yet this key part of the customer experience often leads to frustration, and automation, which is supposed to boost convenience, sometimes leaves customers feeling underserved.
Heap Raises $110M to Fund the Future of Digital Analytics
Heap, a startup that helps businesses build better digital experiences by surfacing hidden friction and opportunities in the customer journey, has closed on a $110 million Series D round. That brings the company’s valuation to $960 million and solidifies Heap as one of this year’s heavy-hitters among digital analytics platforms for product builders, growth marketers, and analytics teams.
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.
LBMA Vidcast: Facebook’s Libra, Carrefour Tests Facial Recognition
On this week’s Location-Based Marketing Association podcast: Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrency, L.L. Bean and Uber for Backyard Campsite, Carrefour tests facial recognition, 7Eleven delivers Cheetos AR experience, Kyruus + Brandify partner, PromoRepublic raises 2 million Euros.
Latest Posts
Whole Foods Comes Out a Brand Winner on Super Bowl Sunday
Eagles fans weren’t the only ones cheering about Super Bowl LII on Sunday. Upscale grocery chains like Whole Foods saw increases in foot traffic in the hours before kickoff, even while multi-purpose stores like Walmart saw fewer shoppers than normal, according to newly released data from Simpli.fi.
Street Fight Daily: Snap Shows Signs of Life, GroundTruth Launches New Platform
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Snap Shares Skyrocket As It Makes Ad Buying Easier and Sees User Growth… Understanding the B2B Content Marketing Landscape… Poll: Facebook’s Algorithm Change Isn’t All Bad for Publishers…
GroundTruth Takes on Cost-Per-Visit ROI with New Platform
The company announced the rollout of its Ads Manager platform, which will calculate the cost-per-visit for campaigns along with provide other services. GroundTruth says this is the first location-based ROI metric of its kind for mobile advertising.
Cost-Per-Visit and Bad Location Data: Are You Really Getting What You Pay For?
CPV is generating a welcome dialogue in the ad industry as it wrestles with questions such as how to value repeat customer visits and how much is a visit worth. Key to answering all these questions, though, is clearly understanding the accuracy of the underlying location data being used to score the visit.
Case Study: Using Business Texting to Reach Millennial Homebuyers
The value in business text messaging is for brands to be able to communicate with customers how they want to be communicated with. At Environmental Pest Service, director of marketing Mandi Harris has started using business text messaging as a way to increase customer engagement and improve the effectiveness of Google AdWords.
Street Fight Daily: Publishers Desert Instant Articles, Walmart Bets on VR
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… More Than Half of Facebook’s Instant Articles Partners May Have Abandoned It… Walmart Looks to Revolutionize Retail with VR Acquisition… Vogue and GQ Will Test Content Inside Amazon’s Echo Look…
Truffl Revamps Pink Dot’s Services and Brand to Court Social-Native Consumers
“Creating a share-worthy experience is really important — something that can live online even if it’s offline and turn customers into advocates,” says Truffl founder Raphael Farasat about how legacy brands can compete in the golden age of tech startups and social media.
The ABC’s of AR: Always Be Closing
In these early days of augmented reality (AR), we’re learning a lot about consumer behavior and preferences — the same learning curve defined the early days of smartphone apps. One lesson so far is that consumer AR use cases will be fairly limited. It’s not a silver bullet and it’s not for everyone.
Street Fight Daily: Voice Really Is a Game-Changer, Alexa’s Stunning Rates of Consumer Adoption
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… The Voice Shopping Future… Even Amazon Is Surprised By How Much Customers Use Alexa… Unicorns Gorge As Investors Dish Out Bigger Rounds, More Capital…
Street Fight Daily: Local Mobile Ads to Soar in 2018, Amazon Posts Record Profits & Ad Revenue
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Mobile Ads to Soar in 2018, Especially in Local… Amazon Posts Largest Profit in Its History As Ad Biz Grows… Factual Expands Location-Based Ad Tools…
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