News and Analysis
Amazon’s Retail-as-a-Service Expands into Payments, AR, and Salons
As Amazon continues to mature, it needs to find revenue growth in new, creative places. The company’s booming advertising business is one such conquest. Iterating on the AWS playbook by bringing tech-fueled logistical innovations to physical stores could be another.
Airkit Raises $40 Million to Fuel the Future of CX
Just this morning, the low-code digital customer experience platform Airkit announced a $40 million round of Series B funding, led by EQT Ventures. The Series B will be used to accelerate the company’s investments in go-to-market and product development. The announcement comes just seven months after Airkit came out of stealth with a $28 million Series A.
2021: All Upside for Digital
As retailers try to determine how to welcome customers back in person while expanding digital efforts that accelerated last year, NetElixir CEO and founder Udayan Bose weighed in on what to expect from commerce and why retailers should invest aggressively in online channels.
Commentary
Evolving Our Lens for Local Ranking Factors
Blumenthal and Mihm: We in the Local Search industry are not served by relying so heavily on traditional SEO logic and tools—in our approach to the Local Pack, our understanding of the ranking factors, and even what we suggest to clients as appropriate activities.
LBMA Podcast: Spent Retail Analytics, Reveal Mobile Black Friday Report
On this week’s LBMA show: Spent retail analytics, LinkSure free global WiFi, Casino competes with AmazonGo in France, McDonald’s dancing in the streets of Bogata, Shopkick + Unilever & Walmart, Verve + AdCouncil for Goodwill. Special Research—Reveal Mobile Black Friday Report.
Mike Ragsdale Says Putting Community First Makes His ‘Indie’ 30A Site a Big Winner
In this Q&A, 30A founder Mike Ragsdale itemizes what he thinks his industry is doing wrong and how 30A, by making community paramount, has become the top revenue-producing site among independents.
Latest Posts
Foursquare Analysis Highlights Looming Bubble for Boutique Fitness Studios
Forget those New Year’s resolutions. The biggest surge in attendance at gyms and boutique fitness studios actually happens in the spring and early summer, according to a new analysis of foot traffic patterns by the data science team at Foursquare.
Alignable Rankings Show Lead Generation, Hiring Categories Primed for Disruption
Small businesses are largely at the mercy of the online reviews published on sites like Yelp and Facebook, but now those business owners have turned the tables with some tough critiques for technology vendors in a new report published by the SMB social networking platform Alignable.
Street Fight Daily: Social Shapes Young People’s Shopping Decisions, LinkedIn Adds Brand Insights
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… 80% of Gen-Zers, 74% of Millenials Say Social Influences Their Shopping Choices… LinkedIn Allows Brands to Track Who Is Visiting Their Sites… How Uber Is Trying to Fix Itself…
Building a Local Stack: The Rise of ‘SMB OS’
SMB OS includes the full range of business services that traditionally fall outside of – but are related to – advertising. It’s POS systems, supply chain, payroll, insurance, appointment scheduling, online ordering, CRM… even HR.
Street Fight Daily: Attribution Companies Thrive as AdTech Wavers, Lyft Partners with Taco Bell
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Ad Measurement Companies Are Thriving Even As AdTech As a Whole Falters… Lyft Partners with Taco Bell, Demonstrating How Ride-Hailing and Local Can Play Off Each Other… Improved Social Media Metrics Mean Influencer Marketing Gains Value…
Scorpion Acquires Driven Local, Building Out Its Franchise Business
Internet marketing company Scorpion has announced this morning that it acquired digital marketer Driven Local. Together, they plan to offer technology, services, localized video ads, and campaigns for local and multi-local businesses across markets such as healthcare, legal, franchise, and home services.
Amid an Array of Metrics, Gannett Seeks to Know the ‘Why’ of User Choices
Gannett’s newspaper chain has 110 million unique digital visitors each month putting it in the exosphere of news and information sites. But these days Jason Jedlinski, VP of product management at the company, is more focused on quality than quantity — what those many millions of users want to read and why.
Frankly Launches Audience Targeting Platform for Local Sales Teams
Local media companies are getting a new way to scale their digital campaigns and more precisely target audience segments. Programmatic ad-buying platform Frankly has announced the launch of an audience extension solution, which expands the number of ways and places where local publishers can reach defined audiences.
Street Fight Daily: Uber Goes Deep on Advertising, Marketers Set Sights on Echo Show
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Uber Is Upping Its Ad Spend and Doubling Down on Data… Marketers Find a New Video Platform: Amazon Echo Show… Google Struggles to Push Its Newsfeed t0 Android Devices…
Case Study: Mattress Brand Targets Ads to Warm-Weather Locations
When temperatures rise, people get uncomfortable in their beds. This universal problem is something that the advertising team at the direct-to-consumer mattress brand Purple decided it could capitalize on to drive sales with a location-targeted ad campaign launched last year.
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Meta Is Automating Ads, But Brands Still Face a Bigger Problem