News and Analysis

Plain Sight Pivots to Help Local Businesses Drive Foot Traffic

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Founded by James Chapman and backed by Quicken Loans founder Dan Gilbert, Plain Sight originally started as a way for people to explore professional connections based on location.

With local businesses closing by the thousands, Chapman says he’s envisioning the Plain Sight app as a tool for businesses to promote themselves and increase foot traffic. Businesses can use the platform to develop stronger customer loyalty by engaging with consumers directly. In addition to sharing information about how they are keeping customers safe, restaurants and other businesses can also accept free and paid reservations through the platform.

How Political Campaigns Leverage Location Data in an Era of Virtual Events

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Political ad spending is expected to reach record highs this cycle, topping $6.89 billion in the 2019/2020 election period. This cycle’s spending is 63% higher than spending in the 2015/2016 season. Tapping into location data to make that advertising more relevant has taken a bit more creativity than usual.

Ad Tech and Privacy

How Much Is Your Data Worth? A New Tool Will Help You Find Out

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Facebook, Google, Amazon, Twitter, Pinterest, and countless other technology giants have expanded their collection of consumer identity data, even as privacy regulations like the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and California’s Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) have gone into effect. A new tool from Killi serves as an educational resource, giving people a way to calculate the value of their personal data based on the platforms they use every day.

Killi’s new tool asks consumers to enter their email addresses and select the platforms they currently use. The tool references public quarterly revenues and daily/monthly active users, as well as data aggregators like Statista, to arrive at the value amount of each consumer’s personal data.

Commentary

Women in Local Marketing Tech: Are We There? Where Are We Going?

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The challenge is national; the solutions may be hyperlocal. At Street Fight Summit 2018, we gave the audience a brief overview of some of the issues facing women in local marketing tech today and what we can do to keep moving in the right direction.

Facebook’s Perennial ‘Potential’ in Local

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“In Facebook’s pivot to focusing on person-to-person communications and its strong emphasis on messaging, is there an implicit concession that the company will not make Facebook itself the center of its local effort?” Mike Blumenthal asks in this week’s biweekly column with David Mihm.

Gauging the Opportunity to Replace Local Merchants’ Websites

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We asked respondents what they used their sites for, and, considering the functions they deemed most important, whether they could replace them with a list of suggested companies and platforms. Facebook’s company pages and Google’s enriched listings topped the list.

Latest Posts

5 Platforms Connecting Local Customers to their Online Footprints

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More than half of marketers expect cross-channel measurement and attribution to occupy most of their time, attention, and resources in the coming year. Many of these marketers will be exploring new technologies that close the loop on attribution and unlock the hidden connections between web viewing sessions and in-store purchases around the globe.

Raise Report: New Funding for Instacart, Kabbage, Drizly

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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 Goldbely, Peerspace, Workfit, and Cordial.

Street Fight Daily: AirBnB Raises $1 Billion in Series F, Facebook Tests New Measurement Tool

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… AirBnB Just Raised a Massive $1 Billion Round that Values It at $31 Billion… Facebook to Release Advanced Measurement Tool… Brands Cool on Chatbots…

LOAC Notebook: As Platforms Ascend, Some Blunt Words for Legacy Media

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“You’re going to have to change the way you do business,” CBS’s Ezra Kucharz told media executives earlier this week in a keynote at Borrell Associates’ Local Online Advertising Conference in New York. “The world is changing and we have to change with it.”

How San Angelo LIVE! Makes Programmatic Work in West Texas

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When the West Texas oil bust hit San Angelo hard in 2015 and LIVE!’s CEO Joe Hyde turned to programmatic advertising to make up the difference in lost sales from struggling local merchants. To maximize that impact, artificial-intelligence platform Ezoic showed Hyde how to create longer revenue-generating sessions with users.

Street Fight Daily: Amazon Tackles Brick-and-Mortar, WhatsApp Tests Chat Tools for Businesses

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Amazon Confirms Plans for a 10th Book Store, Demonstrating Commitment to Brick-and-Mortar… WhatsApp Tests Business Chat Tools in Search for Revenue… Joe Ricketts, Local News Publisher and Trump Backer, Acquires Gothamist Websites…

Google’s Pragmatic Approach to the Truth, and Its Pitfalls

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If enough people believe something, should Google consider it to be true? In a world where questionable news is very popular, it’s not so surprising that Google’s logical assumptions might sometimes produce unexpected results. After all, trustworthiness at root is a matter of how many people are willing to trust you.

NinthDecimal Decouples Its Data, Expands Partnerships, and Moves Into the Black

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The location data company announced this morning that it has crossed the line into profitability and CEO Michael Fordyce believes NinthDecimal has found an approach that will help it scale up in a big way. Fordyce and chief revenue officer Brian Slitt spoke with Street Fight recently about the need to measure and understand audiences across a myriad of media and channels.

Street Fight Daily: Instacart Amasses $3.4 Billion Valuation, Uber Seeks COO

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Grocery-Delivery Startup Instacart is Valued at $3.4 Billion… Travis Kalanick Wants a No. 2 Executive… Boston-Based Localytics, a Mobile Engagement Platform, Acquires Berlin’s Tapglue…

Spa Facial

Case Study: How a Maryland Spa Owner Tackles Online Marketing

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Laura Correa has made a name for herself in the Washington, DC area with restorative facials and rejuvenating therapeutic treatments, but in order to keep her skin spa afloat and compete against larger chains, Correa stays on top of the latest digital marketing trends