News and Analysis
BNPL Firms Spend Big in Battle for Market Share
Digital ad spend from Affirm, Klarna, AfterPay, and PayPal as a collective group increased by 130% in the past year, totalling more than $52 million, according to new research by the advertising intelligence firm MediaRadar.
Digital Ads Are Getting Much More Expensive as E-Commerce Booms
The cost of digital advertising has skyrocketed over the past 18 months, climbing along with e-commerce spending. That’s according to a report by digital marketing firm Merkle.
Retailers Use AI to Combat Shrinking Seasonal Workforce, Surging Customer Demands
Increases in customer service tickets are expected to come just as seasonal workforces are hitting all-time lows. According to Puneet Mehta, founder and CEO of the AI platform Netomi, about 25% fewer agents are working in seasonal customer service roles now than before the pandemic. Customer service accounts for a lot of the seasonal roles retailers have traditionally hired for, and now retailers are looking at leveraging technology to fill that labor gap.
Commentary
AR Impacts Local Commerce, Disrupting Home Services and Retail
AR is emerging at a time when the physical retail world is undergoing significant transformation. Things like Amazon Go stores and the counteractive “retail as a service” movement have raised awareness and hunger for retail evolution. So AR’s retail shopping use cases fall on fertile soil.
But retail is just one way that AR intersects with local commerce. AR comes into play in another key local commerce category: home services. Innovators like Streem are bringing remote assistance to traditional service calls (think: busted pipe).
Google Antitrust: Is It Enough for Yelp?
Mihm to Blumenthal: I’m not averse to the idea of the government regulating Google’s practices in Maps or local search, but it feels like rewarding Yelp in particular is not going to bring consumers any particular benefit, nor will it meaningfully benefit small businesses, as Elizabeth Warren seems to indicate is a primary goal of her plan.
If anything, Google has gone out of its way to help small businesses compete in its search results with the introduction of the local pack and the Venice update, whereas small businesses continue to rate Yelp as poorly as any company in tech.
LBMA Vidcast: Foursquare’s Big Acquisition, Wendy’s Teams with GasBuddy
On this week’s Location-Based Marketing Association podcast: Eleven-X + Skyhook, NCR Digital + SAFE Credit Union, Albert Heijn tries dynamic pricing, Foursquare buys Placed from Snap, GrandVisual + NCMEC finding missing persons, Wendy’s partners with GasBuddy for Memorial Day campaign.
Latest Posts
Lots of Facebook News — But Little Progress in Local
Instead of integrating multi-media news consumption with entertainment, community conversations, events calendars, advertising, and a buyers and sellers marketplace, Facebook is isolating them as components. While this is consistent with its separate apps approach, it likely won’t result in as much audience cross-fertilization as it should. Nor does it feel at all local advertiser-friendly.
Should Local Businesses Ask for Reviews?
Reputation management services should focus on helping businesses understand what consumers are saying and engage with reviewers by responding. Unbiased review content is a true goldmine for the brand who works with a reputation company to glean deep insights about consumer sentiment offered by consumers themselves for free.
Street Fight Daily: Lyft Expands Service for Businesses, Marketers React to Facebook’s Latest
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Lyft Concierge, a Ride-Booking Service for Businesses, Expands… The Ad Community Reacts to Facebook’s Latest Tweak of the News Feed… To Woo Amazon, Cities Tackle Everything from Traffic to Housing…
Two Big Facebook Moves in the First Two Weeks of 2018
“It will be interesting to watch how much SMBs’ costs go up with Facebook to achieve the same level of engagement that they have been enjoying,” Mike Blumenthal tells David Mihm in their biweekly column. “As Google expands their many local offerings, this might just play into their hands by forcing businesses back to Google My Business.”
How MoviePass Is Using Subscriber Data for Retail Partner Integrations
Having now reached 1.5 million paying subscribers, with 500,000 of those coming in just the last 30 days, MoviePass is keeping a sharp focus on the data it’s able to collect from moviegoers. The company expects that data to become an important asset to retail partners and the movie industry at large in the coming months and years.
Street Fight Daily: Salesforce Rolls Out Retail Tech, Brands Push Boundaries with User Data
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Salesforce Debuts Retail Platform Enhancements… Where is the Line Between Creepy and Creative in Data-Driven Advertising?… How Twitter Could Make a Big Comeback in 2018…
SMB Index: Local Stocks Move Higher in December
The SCP SMB Index closed 2017 gaining a modest 1.2%, outpaced by other major indices we track. The SCP SMB Index gained 1.2% in December. The S&P 500, Nasdaq and Dow Jones all experienced gains during the month of 2.3%, 1.8% and 3.7%, respectively.
Street Culture: mParticle CEO on Appreciating People and the Founder’s Journey
“We want people who have historically been lucky. People who have demonstrated the ability to go out and create their own luck,” CEO Michael Katz says. “People who are curious, who engage and ask questions and generally listen, [who are] not just waiting for a pause in the conversation. “
LBMA Podcast: Amazon Alexa, Google Zagat, Redbox, Oath
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, Walmart and Special Guest: Sandeep Bhanote – Radius8.
Street Fight Daily: Facebook Feed to Demote Pubs and Brands, Amazon Takes it Slow on Alexa Ads
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Facebook to Make Major News Feed Change That Demotes Publishers and Brands… Amazon to Agencies: Alexa is the Future, But We’re Going Slow on Voice Ads… How CES Highlights the Speed of Change for Brands…
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