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
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.
The Retailpocalypse Doesn’t Have to Be Scary for Local Businesses
Headlines about retail closures suggest it’s Amazon’s world and we’re all just living in it, but there’s more to the story. For local businesses, in particular, there’s ample reason to be optimistic that the retail apocalypse doesn’t have to spell end times. In fact, exactly the opposite could be true. Let’s walk through a few of the reasons for optimism.
Latest Posts
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…
Upserve Uses Restaurant Transaction Data to Track Industry Trends
Upserve recently released its State of the Restaurant Industry Report, using data pulled from thousands of restaurants and millions of transactions through the United States. Performing a retroactive analysis, Upserve’s data science team looked at 2017 trends to see which predicted trends lived up to the hype, and which fell flat.
Raise Report: Uberall, Snowflake Computing, ContentSquare Secure New Funding
Every two weeks, we round up some of the biggest fundraises taking place in hyperlocal marketing, commerce, and tech. This week’s edition includes funding for Rokid, Unravel Data, Trifacta, and Prodigy.
LBMA Podcast: Woolrich, Oreo Subscriptions, Amazon GO
This Week in Location Based Marketing is a weekly video podcast from the Location Based Marketing Association with Asif Khan, Rob Woodbridge & Aubriana Lopez. On the show: Kroger, Yext + Duda, eyeQ launches Atom Research: Gasbuddy.
State of Hyperlocal: Attribution Is Top Industry Challenge and R&D Priority
Companies selling local marketing and technology and services continue to believe that online-to-offline attribution is the toughest challenge facing the industry, and it’s now their top near-term R&D priority. That’s what we’re hearing from a preliminary analysis of our annual State of Hyperlocal survey of Street Fight readers.
Street Fight Daily: User Time on Facebook Drops, Highlights from #SFSW18
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… User Time on Facebook Declines for First Time Ever… Google’s Rivals Say Search-Page Practices Still Unfair… Alexa Can Now Send Text Messages to Phones…
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Meta Is Automating Ads, But Brands Still Face a Bigger Problem