News and Analysis

Mobile Location Mapping Apps and Other Technologies Make Reopenings Safer

On its face, it looks a lot like pre-pandemic life has resumed. Behind the scenes, though, many businesses are frantically searching for ways to welcome back guests at full capacity without sacrificing safety.

Innovation Brief: Facebook, Twitter & Tinder

On a semi-weekly basis, Street Fight’s Innovation Brief series aggregates and analyzes happenings from across the technology and media spheres. This week, we look at Facebook’s e-commerce play, Twitter Ticketed Spaces, and Tinder’s latest integrations. 

Contextual Ads Power Sophisticated Content Strategies in Privacy Era

As the advertising industry turns back toward contextual, marketers will find a much more advanced technology than the one they may equate with the term. The privacy-safe ad method isn’t just serving up sneaker ads anymore; it’s powering sophisticated, content-based brand campaigns across multiple channels and target audiences.

Commentary

Why Ad Tech Needs to Shift Toward a Managed-Service Model

Alexandra Theriault: The expense of in-housing and the programmatic talent shortage are long-term issues. Currently, in-housing runs contrary to the general trend of reliance on outsourcing and on-demand technologies (like SAAS) that allow businesses to focus on their core competencies instead of wasting resources on peripheral concerns. That’s why, although it might seem like the market is going to a self-service model, for many marketers it’s not the most practical or efficient option.

LBMA Vidcast: Urgent.ly Gets $21M, Adobe to Measure OOH

On this week’s Location-Based Marketing Association podcast: Urgent.ly gets $21M, AisleLabs adds payments, Ahold Delhaize deploys 500 robots, TomTom sells telematics for $1B, Adobe to measure OOH, Walgreens tailors ads on coolers.

Building the Location Layer: A Conversation with Foursquare

Last week, location technology company Foursquare announced its new Pinpoint audience segments product. Building from its large corpus of data on places, spatial movements and behavioral patterns, Pinpoint represents the latest in Foursquare’s evolution as the “location layer,” for the internet. We got the chance to sit down with Foursquare CEO Jeff Glueck in San Francisco to find out more. Here is the full interview. 

Latest Posts

Drawbridge Partnership Brings Identity Graph to Latin American Market

Latin America has become a hot spot for mobile advertising, with forecasters predicting that ad spending in the region will grow at a faster rate than anywhere else in the world through 2019. Today, the cross-device identity firm Drawbridge is expanding into the market in a big way.

Case Study: How an Unusual, Soft-Sell Sponsored Post Turned Readers Into Customers

“I tried to think about everything I hated about sponsored posts and do the opposite,” says Aaron Seyedian, the founder of Well Paid Maids. “As a reader, I find that sponsored posts on blogs are often lengthy, impersonal and overly centered on sales. I set out to write a post that would be succinct and personal.”

Street Fight Daily: How Google Cashes in on AI, Uber CEO Says IPO 18-36 Months Out

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Google and Microsoft Can Use AI to Extract Billions More in Ad Dollars from Clicks… New Uber CEO Says Company Could Go Public in 18 Months… Coming Soon to Facebook Watch: Sponsored Shows…

Report: Matching Up With Local Merchants’ Marketing Objectives

Our analysis of local merchants shows that SMBs are spending more money on digital marketing — particularly social media and email — because they find those channels most effective. But there appears to be some missing links between new customer acquisition and their favorite tactics.

Is Your Local Dealership Prepared for a New Era of Car Buying?

The automotive space is extremely competitive and with automotive sales down 13.2 percent, the competition could not be fiercer. In order to remain afloat in today’s challenging sales environment, auto marketers need to rethink how they get high-intent buyers to their stores.

Street Fight Daily: Microsoft & Amazon Integrate Cortana/Alexa, USA Today Personalizes Homepage

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… In Surprising Move, Microsoft and Amazon Integrate Voice Assistants… USA Today’s Facebook-Like, Personalized Mobile Site Succeeds in Grabbing User Attention… For New Uber CEO, Fresh Challenges Already Emerge…

Captivate Adds Content Partners in Push for a 360-Degree Ad Solution

The company has 12 new content providers joining its digital place-based media network target consumers on screens in thousands of building elevators and lobbies across the U.S. The partners include Vox Media, Bloomberg, Billboard, Quartz, and The Hollywood Reporter, as well as Stadium sports video content.

Hearst’s Barrett on Talks With Facebook: Progress, but More Needs to Happen

The president of Hearst Newspapers Digital Media, details what he sees as the current promise of Facebook’s nascent effort to promote subscriptions for local news publishers, and assesses the state of other major, yet-to-be-resolved issues for the publishers as they weigh their future on and with the tech giant.

How Wells Fargo Connects Locally Via Sports, Philanthropy, and Digital

Gary Korotzer, EVP of marketing and brand strategy and community bank marketing for Wells Fargo, says that through a mix of efforts the bank weaves its way into the day-to-day lives and needs of its customers.

Street Fight Daily: Self-Driving Cars Now Deliver Pizzas, Amazon Expands Advertising

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Ford and Domino’s to Deliver Pizza Using Self-Driving Cars in New Test… Amazon Grows Its Programmatic Ad Business… Uber’s CEO Choice Faces a Question of Ambitions…