News and Analysis

BeOp Launches in US, Pointing to Contextual Campaigns’ Resurgence

Is contextual ad targeting the answer to our cookieless future? As brand advertisers plan for a world without third-party cookies, they’re homing in on contextual ad platforms as a possible solution to their advertising woes. That push is leading to the development and growth of a number of platforms focused on contextual, conversational, and cookieless advertising.

Innovation Brief: Yum Brands, Discord, and Robots

Welcome to Street Fight’s new Innovation Brief series. On a semi-weekly basis, it aggregates and analyzes happenings from across the technology and media spheres. This week, we look at text-to-order QSR, Microsoft’s Discord ambitions, and Boston Dynamics’ latest. 

What Substack’s Success Portends for Digital Marketing

Substack’s success points to the power of email as a means of owning an audience, which will only grow in importance as privacy restrictions proliferate.

Commentary

How the Ad Industry Encourages Poor Data Quality

Digital advertising is an incredibly sophisticated industry, yet when it comes to selling in the data store, vendors lack incentive and opportunity to focus on quality. Instead, they’re restricted to sales tactics—none of which are good for buyers, brands, or the industry.

Untangling the Location Data Ecosystem

As the location data industry progresses as a community, companies in our ecosystem naturally form into a kind of pyramid—NOT a hierarchical one but one that reflects how the different location companies fit into the ecosystem, who does what, their limitations, and their areas of focus.

Why Local News Sponsorships Are More Relevant than Ever

LION Loses Director DeRienzo to Hearst, but ‘Indie’ Summit Doesn’t Miss a Beat

To find out what the Summit of Local Independent Online News Publishers accomplished, I went to longtime journalist Steve Beatty, who was editor and CEO of the award-winning, investigative website The Lens in New Orleans for eight years before joining LION as a consultant last January and who, with DeRienzo’s departure, has been named interim director.

Latest Posts

Street Fight Daily: Snap Launches Location-Sharing Feature, Walmart Goes After AWS

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Snapchat Launches Location-Sharing Feature Snap Map… Walmart to Vendors: Get Off Amazon’s Cloud… Inside Travis Kalanick’s Resignation as Uber’s CEO…

Why Voice Search Is the Future

Voice presents tremendous opportunities for location marketers to build their businesses, too. Companies such as Domino’s Pizza and Starbucks are tapping into voice to drive commerce, but the best way to capitalize on voice is to let consumers define your approach.

Case Study: Hospitality Group Uses CRM to Understand Customer Patterns

At Philadelphia-based Garces — which has more than a dozen restaurants spread across the East Coast — getting inside the minds of consumers and more strategically managing guest feedback has become a top priority.

Street Fight Daily: Uber CEO Resigns, Instagram Stories’ Rapid Growth Continues

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Uber Founder Travis Kalanick Resigns as CEO… Instagram Stories Is Still Growing Quickly And Now Has 250 Million Users… DMA Report Finds Programmatic and Mobile Payments Leading Tech Adopted by Marketers…

#SFSNYC: Research Roundtable Shows Nuance of Defining Local and Mobile Effectiveness

Last week’s Street Fight Summit showcased a variety of research on local marketing. Analysts showed evidence of mobile’s impact and improving its performance, and reinforced that companies selling marketing tech and services must address ROI and attribution.

Insticator Uses Trivia to Make a Serious Case for Ad Revenue

Insticator says its quizzes and polls generate 15 billion ad impressions each month, increase average website revenue by 160% a month and heighten average user engagement by 44%. We reached out to Kiersten Toye, who is in charge of the marketing team that works with client publishers at the company.

Street Fight Daily: Blue Apron Prices IPO, How Retailers Can Respond to Amazon’s Disruption

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Blue Apron and Delivery Hero Price IPOs Following Amazon’s Big Buy… How Retailers Will Have to Adapt to Avoid Getting Eaten by Amazon… The Race Is On to Challenge Google-Facebook Duopoly in Digital Advertising…

Report: Delivery Apps Don’t Cannibalize Restaurant Visits

Sense360’s analysis found no evidence that delivery apps lead to significant drops in restaurant visits. The analysis also found that consumers who download delivery apps tend to have higher incomes, and visit fine dining restaurants 2.5x more frequently, than those who haven’t downloaded these apps.

Making Sense of Posts in Google’s SMB Product Portfolio

“In local, most businesses do not have a transaction so Google wants to control the action,” Mike Blumenthal tells David Mihm. “If they can sell an ad, great, and if not then they take credit for a click or a call, driving directions or response to a CTA (and gather the data of those activities).”

Street Fight Daily: Winners and Losers in Amazon/Whole Foods, Walmart Counters With Bonobos

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Amazon Is Buying Whole Foods for Almost $14 Billion… Walmart to Buy Men’s Wear Company Bonobos for $310 Million… Local Store Pages on Facebook Deliver for Brands…