News and Analysis
Snap Scan Shines New Light on the Company’s Local Discovery Ambitions
Snapchat’s ambition to become a socially fueled local discovery engine recently got a boost with Snap Scan, a visual search tool that makes the world searchable and shoppable. Connecting dots over several years, Snap’s geo-local efforts include Geofilters, Snap Map, Local Place Promote, and Local Lenses.
5 User-Generated Content Platforms for SMBs
As Google expands the local search experience to encompass more aspects of the customer journey, user-generated content is coming into play as one of the most important ranking factors for small and mid-size businesses.
Brands Rethink Return Policies to Build Customer Loyalty
If generous return policies aren’t sustainable from a financial perspective, and restrictive return policies lead to high rates of customer churn, what’s the solution?
Commentary
Brand Building Beyond Reviews: Is the Local Marketing Ecosystem Ready?
“I think it makes more sense for a small business to buy ‘brand building’ that includes some community events and link building than for that same business to buy SEO,” Mike Blumenthal tells David Mihm. Find out what tech tools can build a local brand and why David disagrees partly with Mike’s suggestion.
The Power of Micro-Location Technology
The location market has matured beyond push. The value of micro-location technology is now built on hyper-accurate analytics on where users go in the physical world, allowing advertisers to re-target them with a variety of omnichannel marketing efforts. Here are a few exciting use cases that highlight the power of hyper-accurate location-based marketing technology.
How Emerging Technologies Allow Businesses to Merge Their Digital and Traditional Marketing
New technologies (and new spins on old ones) are the modern company’s ally in merging digital and traditional marketing. The brands that find a sensible balance between the two are the brands that will outperform the competition. Let’s take a look at four major examples of innovation in this arena.
Latest Posts
Mobile Strategies That Retail Brands Are Using to Fuel Holiday Sales
This holiday season, retailers with physical locations are working feverishly to compete against e-commerce giants like Amazon. Technologies that capture historical, location-based data from devices have become the next great hope for these brands, even as the physical and online shopping worlds continue to merge.
LBMA Podcast: Warby Parker, Marriott & Samsung, McDonald’s
This Week in Location Based Marketing is a weekly video podcast from the Location Based Marketing Association with Asif Khan and Rob Woodbridge. On the show: Hotstepper app, Lunera, Visa at the Olympics, Blippar’s AR City app. Special guest: Kent Weber from Leo Burnett.
Street Fight Daily: Black Friday Was a Bonanza, SoftBank Tries to Buy Uber Shares at a Discount
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Black Friday Sales, Click Rates Soar… SoftBank Will Try to Buy Uber Shares at a 30% Discount… Amazon Expands Its Influence on Video Infrastructure…
How Far Can Google Local Services Expand?
Regardless of what Google thinks is in the best interest of the searcher, the company has “no choice but to accelerate their monetization in Local to keep their revenues growing at a healthy clip and Wall Street happy,” David mihm tells Mike Blumenthal in their biweekly column.
Smaller Newspapers Are Doing Just Fine, Thank You, New Report Finds
Smaller-market papers, with 50,000 or smaller print circulation, are doing quite well overall compared with their larger counterparts, according to the new report by Damian Radcliffe and Christopher Ali. In this Q & A, Ali explains the contrary success of these numerous smaller papers.
Street Fight Daily: What the Time Sale Portends for Media, Moment of Truth Approaches for Uber
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… What the Blockbuster Sale of Time Inc Means for the Media… Here’s What You Need to Know About Softbank’s Tender Offer for Uber Coming Tomorrow… As Amazon Marketing Grows, Agencies Sees an Opportunity…
Openings and New Hires at Empyr, Vistar Media, LotLinx
Every two weeks, Geoff Michener covers some of the latest openings and new hires in this dynamic industry. This week’s edition includes moves and new openings at SurePath Capital Partners, Brandify, and Foursquare.
Street Fight Daily: Snap Selling New Type of Ad, Net Neutrality Repeal Could Affect Marketers
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Snapchat Is Selling a New Type of Ad in Time for the Holidays: Promoted Stories… Marketers Fear the FCC’s Plan to Kill Net Neutrality Could Affect Advertising Prices… Advertisers Express Interest in Bringing Programmatic In-House..
How the End of Network Neutrality Could Affect SMBs and the Public Interest
For many years, the government’s assessment of the public interest was to encourage Web access to all. The current FCC, however, contends that this position is better met by eliminating the net neutrality rules — that SMBs will be able to have a variety of ISP options based on their actual needs with the end of the net neutrality rules.
Street Fight Daily: Uber Hid 2016 Data Breach from Users, Huge Ad Fraud Scheme Uncovered
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Uber Hid a 2016 Data Breach That Affected 57 Million People And Paid Off the Hackers… Fake-Ad Operation Used to Steal from Publishers Is Uncovered… The NYT Is Making All of Its Ads Available Programmatically…



















































Meta Is Automating Ads, But Brands Still Face a Bigger Problem