News and Analysis
Retail Embraces Omnichannel for the Holidays
Rather than focusing on one platform or tool, retail brands are embracing everything necessary to engage with customers across multiple touchpoints. That could have a major impact on the way shoppers interact with their favorite brands in the coming weeks, and depending on the results, it could lead to changes in the way retail marketing is handled in 2021.
Retailers Unpack Black Friday Spending Data
Criteo analyzed commerce data from 1,005 retailers in the U.S. and 216 million transactions in the fourth quarter of 2020. In the process, they found that sales in the first three weeks of November were up 7% year-over-year in the U.S., indicating that Black Friday sales may have been down 5% because those purchases happened earlier this year than previously.
Adtech Firms Test New Concept with Autonomous Bot Delivery Campaign
While food delivery platforms like Postmates, DoorDash, and GrubHub have all launched no-contact options, they generally rely on human drivers leaving food on the ground outside people’s front doors. With the health risks and potential for mix-ups, it’s less than ideal.
A better solution might be the one being rolled out by Wrapify. Just this morning, the company announched the launch of a first-of-its-kind campaign that could take autonomous bot delivery to the next level.
Commentary
10 Ways Apple Can Rebuild Maps to Become an Innovator in Local
As Apple relaunches Maps, I’m eager to see underlying map data improve, but I’d be even more interested if I knew Apple had a roadmap to improve the local data layer. Here are some things Apple should do if the company truly wants to move beyond its second-place status in local.
How AR Will Fundamentally Change Search, Participating in an ‘Internet of Places’
Online-to-offline (O2O) commerce is one area where AR will find a home. Just think: Is there any better technology to unlock O2O commerce than one that literally melds physical and digital worlds? AR can shorten gaps in time and space that currently separate those interactions (e.g. search) from offline outcomes.
Why Local Media Firms Are Banking Big on Marketing Services to Grow Revenue
In an under-the-radar move to grow their revenue substantially, local media companies are putting major resources into developing a broad suite of digital marketing services (DMS). Media companies make this pivot as B2Cs rethink their own marketing goals, aiming not just to reach potential consumers but to convert them into paying customers, closing the path to purchase.
Latest Posts
Street Fight Daily: Walmart Acquires ModCloth, Marketing Tactics Divide Consumers by Generation
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Millenials Follow Brands; Gen-Xers, Contests; Boomers, Promotions… Walmart is Acquiring ModCloth, the Online Women’s Fashion Retailer… Introducing Marketing-Stack Management, Powered by Enterprise Machine Learning…
ShopChat Comes Out of Stealth with a Mobile Shopping Keyboard
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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.
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Meta Is Automating Ads, But Brands Still Face a Bigger Problem