News and Analysis
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.
GroundTruth Acquires Self-Serve Local Ad Platform Addy
The acquisition is part of GroundTruth’s push to equip small businesses with the kinds of location marketing and ad tech-driven solutions previously available only to big brands.
Constellation Agency Helps Drive the Auto Industry into a New Era
The auto industry needs a tune-up. Customer service is getting faster across verticals amid the Covid-19 e-commerce boom. But all auto customers know that the sales experience in that industry has hardly changed — and it’s a hassle. Show up to the local dealership, find out if the car you want is even there, and of course, haggle with the dealer.
Diana Lee’s Constellation Agency is offering a solution.
Commentary
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.
Google and the On-SERP Experience: We’re Just Gettin’ Warmed Up
The introduction of a new Knowledge Graph layer in the form of “Topics” indicates to me that Google’s latest efforts in this arena will extend in two directions beyond Local entities. I see these linkages extending all the way up the search journey to initial consideration and even further down the funnel beyond Local entities.
Biggest Tech Trend for eCommerce in 2019: People-Based Identity
If people-based identity is the new lifeblood of eCommerce, then the identity graph is its beating heart. First- and second-party data keep the heart healthy and strong, while third-party data is anemic and can ultimately lead to system failure.
Latest Posts
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…
Street Culture: Metrics for a Global Community
While some company founders sit down and write out their core values and identify what their company’s culture should be before they even find the people who will help them, others just go with their gut. For Pete Gombert, founder of local marketing company Balihoo, his gut feeling about culture has turned into a whole new company.
Raise Report: Houzz, Quantifi, Pinterest Score Fresh Funding
Every two weeks, we round up some of the biggest fundraises taking place in hyperlocal marketing, commerce, and tech. This week’s edition includes funding for Shipt, Algolia, Clutter, and Dispatch.
Street Fight Daily: Email Finds Success with Millenials, Snap Stock Dips to IPO Price
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… New Research Shows Email is Solid Bet for Millenial Engagement… Snap Stock Falls Back to Its $17 IPO Price… Podcast: Can B2B Marketers Shift to a Mobile-First Mentality?…
xAd Rebrands as GroundTruth in Push to Expand Beyond AdTech
In a signal of where the location technology space is heading, the location-based mobile advertising technology firm xAd announced this morning that it is expanding its scope and rebranding with a new name that better reflects the emerging landscape.
#SFSNYC: Inside Amazon’s Voice-Search Strategy
Dave Isbitski, chief evangelist for Echo and Alexa at Amazon, sat down with Street Fight on Wednesday to discuss Amazon’s voice strategy and the implications of voice-search technology for local businesses.
#SFSNYC: SMB DIY — Is Local Getting Closer to Solving the Self-Serve Conundrum?
At Street Fight Summit on Wednesday, Street Fight columnist Damian Rollison sat down with three digital marketing insiders to discuss how their companies provide value to small and medium-sized businesses — and how to strike the right balance between automation and customer engagement.
#SFSNYC: How Brands Without Brick-and-Mortar Stores Can Market Locally
Brick-and-mortar stores are not the only companies that stand to gain from local strategies: brands without their own physical stores and business-facing enterprises, too, must go local to reach their market potential.
#SFSNYC: Foursquare ‘Trying to Build a Gold Standard of Truth’ for the Industry
At Street Fight Summit Wednesday in Brooklyn, Street Fight’s Laura Rich sat down with Foursquare’s Jeff Glueck to discuss how the company has leveraged its location data to catapult growth and become one of the world’s premiere location intelligence companies.
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Meta Is Automating Ads, But Brands Still Face a Bigger Problem