News and Analysis

Earnings Season Teases Retail’s Next Normal

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Earnings results that rolled out from retail giants over the past week further demonstrate what our next normal will look like. Specifically, Walmart and Target both hit record numbers. This is partly a function of Covid-era circumstances, but it is also due to each retailer’s active e-commerce momentum.

The earnings validate consumer acclimation to digitally infused local shopping. What’s more, other retailers and down-market businesses will look to replicate this success. This can all therefore be viewed as a leading indicator for retail’s next normal.

Super Bowl Advertising

More Americans Are Using Delivery. The Change Is Here to Stay

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Delivery has perhaps been the industry most clearly affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. When physically going to brick-and-mortar stores became a life-or-death exercise, delivery, which had already grown under the rise of e-commerce, became an even more essential part of how local commerce functions.

Khaled Naim, co-founder and CEO of delivery software company Onfleet, touched on how delivery has changed in the past months, how long those changes will persist, and what technologies are fueling the widespread increase in deliveries.

Consumer Concerns Shift from Covid-19 to Economic Uncertainty

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Local businesses have been forced out of their comfort zone this summer as the economic impact of Covid-19 lingers and uncertainty persists into the final weeks of summer. With so many questions unanswered, businesses are searching for resources to help guide their decisions in marketing and general operations.

A number of martech firms are looking to fill the information void by launching their own Covid-19 resource centers and consumer data projects. The location-powered advertising and analytics firm Blis launched its own consumer sentiment tracker, with data from consumers in the United States, United Kingdom, United Arab Emirates, Singapore, and Australia.

Commentary

LBMA Podcast: Google Pay, Rival & Ticketmaster, Sears & Amazon

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On this week’s edition of the Location-Based Marketing Association podcast: Urban Airship + Google Pay, Aceby app, JetBlue’s pizza to LA, Rival takes on Ticketmaster, 7-Elven goes AR for Deadpool 2, Google Duplex, Sears and Amazon team-up.

With Rover, David Arkin Takes a Mobile-First, Enjoyable Approach to Local News

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American Hometown Publishing details how the company’s brand-new publication Rover—launched two weeks ago in suburban Nashville—aims to present news to its readers as an “enjoyable experience.”

Google Maps Is Becoming More Personal and Useful, and Businesses Can Reap the Benefits

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In recent months, Google has launched a number of changes to Maps. Users will win with the more personalized and intuitive future of the app. Businesses will win, too—so long as you manage your location data, content, and reputation.

Latest Posts

Swirl Launches Direct Facebook Integration for Online-to-Offline Attribution

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Retailers using Swirl’s platform can now connect “verified” real world store visits to Facebook ad impressions and more accurately measure the direct impact that Facebook ad campaigns are having on the way consumers move around inside their stores.

Newspapers Have High Level of Trust, but Will They Capitalize on It?

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The key will be not how Facebook shares its revenues or tinkers with its news-feed algorithm. How successful newspapers are in achieving sustainability will depend on the richness of the connections they build with their audiences.

Street Fight Daily: Square Launches POS App for Retailers, GrubHub’s Sales Surge

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Square Launches Dedicated Point-of-Sale App And Service for Retail Merchants… Grubhub’s Sales Surge… The Washington Post Rolls Out Customizable Content Ad Unit…

7 Fresh Ways SMBs Are Using Social Media for Marketing

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In order for business owners to maximize the impact of their expanded social media budgets, they need to think outside the box and try new tactics for reaching consumers online. Here are seven examples of fresh new ways that small and mid-size businesses can use social media for marketing in 2017.

Mobile Marketing and the YouTube Cookie Shift

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Google recently announced that YouTube will turn to logged-in user data to verify views and ensure that relevant advertising reaches the right consumers. This will allow publishers, brands, and marketing to draw on all the highly contextual demographic and behavioral data that Google gathers from mobile consumers.

Street Fight Daily: Target’s Data-Driven Strategy, MarTech Focus Shifting From Platforms to Data

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How Target is Leveraging First-Party Data to Survive a World Hostile to Brick-and-Mortar (AdExchanger)… Marketing Tech Shift: It’s Data, Not Platforms (eMarketer)… Retale Acquires Shopping List App Out of Milk (VentureBeat)…

BUST: A Hard Landing as Soft Surroundings Files for Bankruptcy

Foursquare Analysis Shows Where Customers Go When Retailers Close

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Using both explicit and passive location data from its Foursquare City Guide and Foursquare Swarm apps and websites, the company analyzed consumer visits at Macy’s and Kmart locations that closed in 2016. Foursquare also looked at foot traffic at competing retail stores around the same time period.

Google Analytics for Brick-and-Mortar? Spatially Targets Where to Set Up Shop

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Hillit Meidar-Alfi, the company’s founder and CEO says the service “is building the most powerful platform for location search and analytics with applications for small and medium businesses, marketing technologies, ecommerce, real estate, and more. Businesses using location analytics will have a significant competitive advantage over those that do not.”

Street Fight Daily: Google Updates AMP, Facebook Leverages AI for Advertising

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Google Now Lets You View and Share a Publisher’s Own Links on AMP… Facebook Leverages AI to Improve Advertising… Micro-targeting, Measurement Can Help Unlock In-App Brand Dollars…

The AI Wars in Local Have Already Begun

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This AI-centric battle is being waged by heavier contenders than any before it, including Apple (Siri), Amazon (Alexa), and Google (Assistant). They’re each basing battle plans on their current positioning and biggest assets, and the winner will sway the next era of local commerce.