News and Analysis
Why More Brands Are Bringing Data Intelligence In-House
Despite implementing many of the same technology platforms and marketing strategies as they did in early 2020, retail brands today are shifting their approach and bringing more data intelligence solutions in-house. The strategy is part of a larger emphasis on first-party within the brand marketing community, particularly as personalization techniques grow more advanced and privacy changes make targeting harder.
Survey: Interactive Video is the Future
Of course, we might approach a survey by an interactive video platform about the love for interactive video with some caution. But there are other signs that interactive video is the future of online customer engagement, increasingly taking over both online ads and shopping experiences.
Leadferno Launches to Power the Front End of Five-Star Customer Experiences
When Aaron Weiche, CEO and co-founder of Leadferno, started his previous company GatherUp, the goal was to help businesses organize data on customer experiences and boost their reputations. Now, Weiche is onto his next venture, which aims to set up the communications infrastructure that will help businesses kick off those five-star customer experiences.
Commentary
Digital Signage Is All Grown Up Now, Speaking with the Consumer, Not at the Consumer
I’ve been attending Digital Signage Expo (DSE) in Las Vegas for quite a number of years, and now more than ever, the show organizers, Exponation, deliver on their promise: a highly impactful four-day event jam-packed from early morning to late at night. The show demonstrated that if content is king, context is definitely queen. Location is the new cookie, and all the out-of-home industry stakeholders are now finally aligned for much success in the years to come.
From Zero-Click SERPs to Rabbit-Hole SERPs
Mihm to Blumenthal: Answer Optimization and Zero-Click SERPs seem to be gaining traction as concepts in the SEO industry, but as you pointed out in our previous conversation on this topic, Google’s moving well beyond simple answers and into journeys. Cindy Krum highlighted several examples of these new search journeys, which as I saw her presenting struck me as “rabbit-holes.”
Latest Posts
Street Fight Daily: Cash Comes Rolling In for Big Tech, Uber Adds Multi-Stop Rides
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Big Tech Companies Post Glowing Quarterly Profits… Uber Launches Multi-Stop Trips in U.S. and Canada, Facilitating Detours at Local Businesses… When It Comes to Ad Quality, Programmatic Isn’t the Problem…
Hyperlocal Pioneer Howard Owens Sees New Mobile App as Key to Scaling Beyond His ‘Batavian’
Eight and a half years after launching his hyperlocal news site The Batavian, in upstate New York, Howard Owens is looking at growing his base company, Album Corp., beyond Batavia to multiple locations. His plan for expansion is driven by a homemade mobile app that he’s experimenting with for the site.
Street Fight Daily: Facebook Unveils Tools for Brand Marketing, How the Best Brands Do Mobile
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Two New Facebook Tools Will Help Brands Craft Ads for Every Environment… What Sets the Best Brands in Mobile Apart from the Pack… Understanding Amazon as an Advertising Platform…
Brands Struggle to Keep Up with Demand for Cross-Channel Personalization
Consumers want offline shopping experiences to be just as personalized as online, but new research from the customer data firm Segment shows that most major brands are failing to meet those expectations.
Street Fight Daily: Amazon’s Dominance Grows, The Guardian Wants to Clean Up Programmatic
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Amazon’s Share of E-Commerce Market Grows in 2017, Nearing Half of Sales… The Guardian Wants Publishers to Unite to Clean Up Programmatic… Facebook Releases News Feed Guidelines for Publishers…
TripAdvisor Pushes Further Into Restaurant Space with Local Ad Product
Having already tackled travel and hotels, TripAdvisor is continuing to go after the restaurant vertical, today launching a new product aimed at independent restaurants and restaurant groups. TripAdvisor Ads marks the company’s first product designed to allow restaurants to reach customers through cost-per-click sponsored ad placements.
AR and VR — Will Local Advertisers Bite?
Local advertising is a $150 billion market, and is particularly conducive to AR, given the technology’s ability to qualify purchase decisions in the commerce-heavy offline world. There will be a land grab for this digital real estate as mobile AR gains consumer traction. There will be also questions about who “owns” that virtual space.
Street Fight Daily: Facebook Feed May Oust Pubs, Google Helps Marketers with Holidays
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Facebook Tests Removing Publishers from Newsfeed — Unless They Pay… Google Prepares Advertisers for Holiday Shoppers… How AI Helped Walmart Go from 700,000 to 60 Million Items Online…
How Brands Determine Their Local Marketing Effectiveness
Website analytics are the most popular means of evaluating local marketing for multi-location brands. While that’s a logical tactic for analyzing digital marketing and advertising effectiveness, it hardly presents the full picture of multichannel marketing or online-to-offline attribution.
Brand-building Expert Norty Cohen to Marketers: Consumer Engagement Is Key
Cohen’s message is that the old ways of trying to connect via TV and other media just aren’t as effective as they used to be. What you need now is to make a connection with the potential consumer of your product or service. And the person who now has a relationship with the brand can then help spread the message via word of mouth.


















































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