News and Analysis

Google’s Latest Privacy Play Has Big Implications for the Open Web

Connecting the Dots on Google’s Visual Road Map

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Google continues to double down on visual search and navigation. Its latest move came last week with updates to its Live View visual navigation to help users identify and qualify local businesses. This follows soon after its Earth Cloud Anchors that will let users create digital content on physical places.

Both developments tell us something about what may well be the future of local search: augmented reality-enhanced visuals.

How Brands Can Rise, Retain, and Return Stronger Than Ever this Holiday Season

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Prior to Covid-19, traditional demographics still directed many brands’ targeting strategies. However, the pandemic has laid bare just how flawed this method can be. We believe that the best measure of what someone will purchase in the future is looking at what they’ve purchased in the past. This holds true even in an uncertain market and is invaluable for retailers as the holidays approach. 

Crucial Attribution and Targeting Tools

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The lines in the traditional funnel have blurred. Consumers may enter and pursue a non-linear route before making a purchase or moving on. The path from awareness to decision is no longer predictable in an omni-channel environment. A progression that works for one type of consumer may have no relevance for another. These changes necessite another look at attribution models.

Commentary

DexYP (and Other Publishers) Transition to Digital, But Limited Revenue Suggests Bleak Long-Term Prospects

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“DexYP seems to be doing as many things right as one can expect from a huge Yellow Pages entity. But somehow they, and other publishers, need to transition to a more consultative higher-price point position,” David Mihm tells Mike Blumenthal in this edition of their biweekly column.

LBMA Podcast: Ninth Decimal and Branded Cities, Swrve, Burger King

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On this week’s Location-Based Marketing Association podcast: Swrve’s Payload, UnDigital, Branded Cities + NinthDecimal, Tommy Hilfiger, Singapore Airlines, and Burger King France.

Local News Publishers Still Mired in Ad Fraud, New Pixalate Data Shows

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According to new research from Pixalate, a cross-channel fraud intelligence company that works with brands and platforms to prevent ad fraud and improve ad inventory quality, about a quarter of all smartphone app video and smartphone app display activity is “invalid traffic” (the technical term for what is largely fraud).

Latest Posts

A Look at Google’s ‘Quality Rater Guidelines’ Over Time: How to Put Information Into Action

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Google is vague on a lot of things, but every now and then we get a glimpse into what the search giant values and deems important — as we do in the recently updated Quality Rater Guidelines.

TownNews’s ‘iQ Engage’ Sorts Through Signals to Help Publishers Keep Users Reading

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TownNews.com has come up with a way for local publishers to cut their bounce rates — and the happy result is longer sessions and more click-throughs to advertising messages. That means more monetization for publishers and, ultimately, more users-turned-into-consumers buying products and services.

Street Fight Daily: Facebook at 10, Spotify Expands ‘Branded Moments’

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Marketers Still Struggle with Measurement, Attribution… Brands Can Now Target Spotify Playlists Ads Based on the Time of Day… Uber Confirms Ford Veteran Marakby is Leaving After One Year…

Frustration With Digital Marketing Vendors Boils Over for One SMB

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If it’s possible to distill the 30 million small business owners in the U.S. into a single persona, Marc Reisner strikes our columnists as a great candidate: “Marc has been disillusioned by past performance and that poor performance has understandably tarred the entire industry with the same brush.”

7 Ways That Brands Can Make Chatbot Conversations More Authentic

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Chatbots are transforming the customer experience and quickly moving into new sectors — but before marketers can expect conversation-mimicking software and artificial intelligence to replace live customer service representatives, they’ll need to find ways to overcome some consumer obstacles.

Street Fight Daily: Uber Opens Up On Finances, Walmart In Talks to Buy Bonobos

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Uber, Lifting Financial Veil, Says Sales Growth is Outpacing Losses… Walmart is in Advanced Talks to Acquire Online Men’s Retailer Bonobos… From ‘Zombie Malls’ to Bonobos: America’s Retail Transformation…

Street Culture: Why Telecommuting Makes Sense for Many Tech Startups

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“If you have the right team, the right employees, then they don’t have to be there physically,” says Kristen Stiles, co-founder and CEO of babysitter-finding app Sitter.me. “If you don’t trust your employees to work at home, you shouldn’t have hired them in the first place.”

How Brands Can Find the ‘Advertisable Moments’ They’re Missing

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Advertisable moments exist in a range of digital and physical contexts beyond TV sets and even beyond desktop browsers — and if a brand wants to capitalize on all available moments (especially those proverbial micro-moments) it has to look for ad opportunities in unexpected places.

Street Fight Daily: Google Uses Image Search for Retail, Instagram’s Snap Clone Surpasses Snap in Users

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Google is Trying to Turn Image Search into a Shopping Tool… Instagram’s Snapchat Clone is Now More Popular than Snapchat… The Weather Company Opens Its Data Trove to Marketers on Outside Platforms…

Yext Shares Up Sharply in Initial Day of Trading, Portending Well for Local

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Yext’s shares jumped nearly 22% in the company’s initial day of trading, with the price rising as high as $14.25 per share before settling to $13.41 at close. The strong opening was a hopeful message from Wall Street for the local marketing industry, which has been looking to Yext’s IPO as a bellwether.