News and Analysis

Holiday Sales Are Starting Earlier Than Ever. Here’s Why

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“Retailers are responding to social distancing guidelines [this] year and preparing for potential decreases in spending by kicking off promotions earlier than we’ve ever seen,” says Dosh CEO Ryan Wuerch.

Wuerch says Covid-19 safety protocols require a more elongated approach to holiday marketing. Kohl’s, L Brands, and Macy’s have all referenced pulling forward holiday promotions, and Amazon’s Prime Day later this month seems perfectly timed to pull in early holiday shoppers.

Street Fight’s October Theme: Home for the Holidays

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Entering Q4 means many things, but to us it points to the media and commerce world’s annual culmination. That’s right — in this time warp of a year, we’re entering the holidays. Considering the oddities of 2020, what will this year’s holiday season look like? We know for sure it will not be normal.

Answering that question will be Street Fight’s October editorial focus. Branded with the cheeky title “Home for the Holidays,” (title credit: Damian Rollison), this month’s focus will be defining the holiday shopping dynamics of a socially distanced and sheltered-in-place world. What will be different?

Interactive Maps Help Bring Back Shoppers After Covid Hiatus

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As the pandemic has worn on, marketers have begun to ask what’s next. How do you keep open and click-through rates high, even as consumers shift back from e-commerce to in-person shopping? The answer, for many, involves maps.

Just look at Torrid, the women’s retail chain formerly owned by Hot Topic, with more than 600 stores across the U.S., Puerto Rico, and Canada.

Commentary

LBMA Podcast: VRstudios, McDonald’s, Snapcodes & Cargo

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On this week’s edition of the Location-Based Marketing Association podcast: VRstudios, Fysical Technologies, City of Sacramento, Snapcodes + Cargo, McDonald’s, Cirque du Soleil + Ivanhoe Cambridge. Special guest: Karl Swannie – Echosec. 

Why Local News Sponsorships Are More Relevant than Ever

As Brands Look Closer, Is Local News the Tortoise and Facebook the Hare?

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“An interesting thing is that Facebook has been a leader for so long [that] it’s become oversaturated on the buy side, and prices are going way up. There’s an opportunity for other vendors who can provide similarly granular audience information to seize some of that market share,” says Kitewheel CEO Mark Smith.

5 Tips for a Successful Mobile Coupon Strategy

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Mobile coupons create a sense of urgency, helping retailers drive short-term spikes in revenue and presenting marketers with new opportunities to collect data, track usage, and laser target the right customers. But how do you build a successful mobile coupon strategy?

Latest Posts

ShopChat Comes Out of Stealth with a Mobile Shopping Keyboard

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ShopChat’s newly debuted mobile shopping keyboard works with messaging apps such as Facebook Messenger and Apple iMessage, letting users find and share pictures of products through their smartphones with their friends. Those friends can then give feedback, including emojis, and recommendations about the products.

Yext’s IPO Could Raise All Boats in Local — And Herald Consolidation

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While the company’s long-anticipated announcement yesterday didn’t come as a huge surprise for those following local, the news that it was imminent still packed a punch. So we asked several luminaries to weigh in on what the offering might portend for the broader industry.

Street Fight Daily: McDonald’s Begins Testing Mobile Ordering App, Campaign Monitor Buys Tagga

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… McDonald’s, Late to Mobile Ordering, Seeks to Avoid Pitfalls… Campaign Monitor Acquires Tagga to Boost Email Marketing with Customer Data… How Will the IoT Impact Local Search?…

Commerce Signals and LiveRamp Partner to Create a Sales Data Yardstick

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Data firm Commerce Signals has partnered with LiveRamp to make data more valuable to merchants and advertisers. The collaboration draws upon sales data from banks and financial networks to enable marketing measurement and optimization across digital publishers and devices.

GoDaddy Launches Simple Way to Scale Up E-Commerce Sites

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GoDaddy today is releasing a new Web hosting product that the company says makes it easier for anyone, regardless of their technical proficiency, to run high-traffic, e-commerce sites. It’s also a way for SMBs to gain access to more management and security options for their websites while sticking to a budget.

Street Fight Daily: Yext Files for IPO, Google and Facebook Strengthen Hold on Digital Ad Market

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… New York-Based Yext Files for IPO… Google, Facebook Increase Their Grip on Digital Ad Market… Snap’s Revenue Growth Looks Like It Will Come from More Ads, Not More Users…

How Neighborhood Context Solves the Local Data Problem

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Neighborhoods play an essential role in people’s daily experiences. People seek out neighborhoods where they feel a sense of shared identity, and neighborhoods shape the kinds of businesses that thrive there. For brands with a global footprint, doing business at the neighborhood level requires them to tailor their offerings and contribute to the community experience, beyond just fulfilling a functional need.

LBMA Report Finds Global Expansion of NFC Tech in 2017

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In polling more than 500 marketing executives from around the globe, the study found that the most heavily deployed location-based marketing technology varies significantly from country to country. For example, GPS is the top technology currently deployed in the U.K., while WiFi is the top-deployed technology in the U.S.

Why It’s Too Early to Go All In on Virtual Assistants

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As the so-called customer journey takes new twists and turns, tech companies and agencies should help local businesses and brands differentiate themselves via user experience. Catering to virtual assistants might seem to be the path towards that goal. But it’s probably too early to make huge bets on these technologies.

Street Fight Daily: Intel Buys Mobileye for $15.3B, NJ Journalists Start Local Paper

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Intel is Paying $15.3 Billion to Acquire Mobileye… After Punishing Layoffs, New Jersey Journalists Start Up Their Own Local Paper… Optimizing Digital Marketing Performance to Drive Business Performance…