News and Analysis
BeOp Adds Conversation to Post-Cookie Contextual Advertising
The contextual, conversational advertising firm BeOp believes it has the solution to the death of cookies. The company, which works with more than 90% of premium publishers in its home country across the Atlantic, connects advertisers with consumers reading content related to their products and services. But what distinguishes BeOp from contextual ad competitors is the style of its ads: conversational quizzes and questions that drive engagement and zero-party, or fully consensual and explicit, data collection.
Shipping Costs and Shortages Disrupt Holiday Shopping
The Shopkick survey paints a portrait of this year’s holiday shopper as someone who is looking for deals and convenience, cares about inflation and product shortages, and is willing to shop early and in store to get what they need before it runs out.
6 Ways Brands Are Leveraging Human-to-Human Marketing in 2021
The ultimate goal with human-to-human marketing is to tap into consumers’ emotions by using real people to engage potential customers. Advancements in technology, and growth in the gig economy, have made human-to-human marketing a more realistic—and affordable—option for brands this year. As the holidays draw closer and brands rethink how they’ll connect with targeted consumers in the coming months, this is a strategy more brands are considering.
Commentary
Visual Search and Local: A Match Made in Mountain View
Though visual search challengers such as Snapchat and Pinterest could shine in niche use cases such as fashion items, Google will rule as the best all-around utility for visual search. It has the deepest tech stack, and the substance (knowledge graph) to be useful beyond just a flashy novelty for identifying things visually.
The name of the game now is to get users to adopt it. Google Lens won’t be a silver bullet and will shine in a few areas where Google is directing users, such as pets and flowers. But it will really shine in product search, which happens to be where monetization will eventually come into the picture.
Single-Use Coupons: A Multi-Pronged Strategy for Each Phase of the Customer Journey
A savvy marketer can select a solution that enables her to launch personalized promotions that perfectly suit a target customer for a given phase. For example, an offer designed to acquire new customers should differ from the one that goes out with a view to retaining lapsed customers or further engaging the loyal customer. This is where single-use coupons provide immense potential to deliver personalized promotions, allowing marketers to segment their customers into the appropriate marketing phase—acquisition, engagement, or retention.
Latest Posts
Street Fight Daily: Target Acquires Shipt, Facebook to Stop Paying Publishers for Video
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Target Acquires Instacart Competitor Shipt to Compete with Amazon… Facebook Plans to Stop Paying Publishers to Make Videos for News Feed… Uber Under Criminal Investigation, Justice Department Confirms…
Cloud Summit: Cisco Ramps Up Its SaaS Solutions for SMBs
Giant enterprise tech firms like Cisco are well-equipped to provide SaaS services. But in selling to SMBs they have had to re-think the marketing approaches that have worked with larger customers.
Street Fight Daily: Inside Amazon’s Fast-Growing Ad Biz, Facebook to Book Ad Revenue Locally
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Know AAP from AGM and AMS: How Amazon’s Major Ad Offerings Work… Facebook to Book Advertising Revenue Locally Amid Political Pressure… Sephora Mastered In-Store Sales by Investing in Data and Cutting-Edge Technology…
Can Facebook Contend in Local Search?
Facebook has been formidable in a few key areas of local — mostly among SMBs. It has penetrated further in SMB adoption than any other entity to date, and Street Fight data indicates sustained growth. That’s half the battle for Facebook: The other half is gaining equal favor as a local search and discovery engine among users.
Holiday Countdown: 5 Powerful Mobile Marketing Activations that Drive Sales
With the right approaches and strategies, stores can connect with consumers throughout December, even as the clock ticks down to everyone’s end-of-year celebrations. So, hitch your sleigh to the following five activations — put these in your marketing mix and get ready to toast your company’s end-of-year sales with a cup of retail cheer.
Street Fight Daily: Google Bests Facebook on Web Traffic Referral, How BBC Uses Voice Assistants
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… In Reversal, Google Now Sending More Traffic to Publishers than Facebook… How the BBC Is Using Voice-Assistant Platforms… The Mall of America’s New Chatbot Makes Holiday Shopping Easy…
Google Websites — To Infinity and Beyond?
“In the developing world, Google has a simplified path to the GMB where if a business first creates a website they can get verified more easily,” Mike Blumenthal notes. “Thus the website becomes the hook into Google’s data funnel. In the US, and most other developed countries, I would speculate that it is typically the other way around”
At Cloud Summit, a Focus on the Transition to SaaS Services
ReachLocal’s CPO Kris Barton noted that SaaS churn is typically between 6 percent and 22 percent. Media churn is between 39 percent and 86 percent. The key is to provide an integrated marketing system, said Barton: “Sixty-four percent are more likely to use a marketing system when it is integrated with core business systems.”
Big Political Ad Spend Set for Local in 2018, but Will News Sites Be Ready?
Political ad spending totaling $1.9 billion will pour into the digital space, most of it on the local level, Borrell Associates estimates in its 2018 forecast. But daily newspapers and local news “pure-plays” will have to fight hard for their share against Facebook, Google and the other digital platforms.


















































AI Won’t Fix Advertising – It May Scale Its Chaotic Nature