News and Analysis
Retail Prepares for a Covid-Inflected Holiday Season
The coronavirus pandemic has accelerated the shift from brick-and-mortar commerce to digital transactions. It has also forced brick-and-mortars resisting the hybridization of their own businesses to adopt digital methods, turning restaurants and apparel stores alike into both brick-and-mortar establishments and online sellers.
Against that backdrop, retail’s biggest quarter will present novel challenges this year. Retailers will need to optimize for online transactions and contend with fragmented national and global landscapes where it may be safe to go to stores in New York but not in Los Angeles.
Coronavirus Boosts OTT Viewership and Opens New TV Ad Opportunities
To be sure, kids are not the only ones spending more time staring at the TV screen. The coronavirus has catalyzed a golden age for TV viewership and non-traditional formats such as over-the-top viewing in particular, said Sean Buckley, COO of global video advertising platform SpotX.
SpotX announced a strategic investment in CTV and OTT-focused ad serving platform SpringServe Monday. I checked in with Buckley to find out how the partnership will benefit both companies and how the coronavirus year has affected TV viewership as well as video advertising.
Can a Pandemic Inflect Local Commerce Tech? Part II
What about the tech adoption accelerants happening on the supply side? Tech giants who provide marketing and operational tools for local businesses have been in hyperdrive over the past few months to roll out new Covid-era features.
Here are three areas where we’re seeing the most activity … and where we could correspondingly see the most local business evolution.
Commentary
Will the ‘Sustained Outrage’ of One W. Virginia Newspaper Survive Auction Block’s Hammer?
The biggest heartbreaker is what happens to those families whose long-held newspapers were dedicated to publishing all the news without fear or favor. This is the story of one of those families, the Chiltons, and their paper, the Charleston (W.Va.) Gazette-Mail, which the Chiltons owned for 111 years.
Image Recognition and Smartphone Ubiquity Create Opportunities for CPGs in Emerging Markets
The combination of advancements in image recognition technology and a growing global network of smartphone owners is shaping up to be a powerful duo for data intelligence abroad for CPG brands.
Back to Basics: Why Every Business Should Invest in SEO
Contributor Kelsey Taylor goes back to the basics, laying out a case regarding the fundamental usefulness of SEO that might be presented to local business owners or industry newcomers.
Latest Posts
Street Fight Daily: Apple Taps Drones to Improve Maps Data, Brands Leverage Apps for Loyalty
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Apple Said to Fly Drones to Improve Maps Data and Catch Google… How Brands Are Leveraging Their Apps to Provide Value, Maintain Loyalty… Instagram to Overtake Twitter as Marketing Channel…
Broadstreet CEO: ‘Value’ in Local Publishing Is More Than Scale
Kenny Katzgrau talks with us about what he calls the “growing divide” between publishers, like local newspaper groups, who pitch advertisers with the scale of big numbers of pageviews, and independents, who emphasize value.
5 Tools For Evaluating Which Hyperlocal Ads Work Best
There are a number of tools already available for marketers looking to decide which hyperlocal ads are working best, many of which go beyond basic click-through rates and engagement rates to generate a complete picture of advertising successes and misses.
Infographic: The Fight for Leads
In the battle to find and convert customers, a range of tools are at the disposal of marketers. This infographic highlights eight winning tactics being used by marketers in health care, automotive, marketing agencies and law firms. It is the final post in the “Fight for Leads” series sponsored by CallRail.
Street Fight Daily: Business Discovery in the Voice Search Age, Mobile ROI Eludes Marketers
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… SEO’s Path Forward in the Age of Google Assistant, Home, and Amazon Echo… 67% of Marketers Can’t Measure Mobile ROI… Among Marketers, IoT Is Seen as Critical Emerging Technology…
State of Hyperlocal Report: What’s Hot in Local Marketing and Commerce
social media, data and analytics, and mobile—especially geotargeting—are the hot technology investments for marketing and commerce. The investment in data and analytics is in part driven by the biggest overall industry challenge, online-to-offline attribution measurement, and one of the most difficult issues facing individual companies, proving ROI to customers.
With New Partnership, Commerce Signals and PlaceIQ Marry Location With Transaction Data
Commerce Signals this week rolled out its new centerpiece product, called databridge. The platform lets marketers see unfiltered transaction data directly from financial institutions when purchases are made. This transaction information is being combined with location data in a new partnership with PlaceIQ.
Street Fight Daily: Meal Kits Cut Into Local Supermarket Spending, Tracking Google’s Shift to Mobile-First
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Popularity of Meal Kits Sees Steady Rise, Cutting Into Supermarket Spending… Google’s Shift to Mobile-First: Mobile Moments That Matter… Gett Secures $100M Loan from Sberbank to Expand Its On-Demand Ride Service…
LBMA Podcast: British Petroleum, Crust Pizza, Simpli.fi
This Week in Location Based Marketing is a weekly video podcast from the Location Based Marketing Association with Asif Khan and Aubriana Lopez. On the show: Galleries Lafayette, Royal British Legion, Coca-Cola, xAd buys Weatherbug, DAC Group, Yelp + SweetIQ, and AirBnB.


















































Meta Is Automating Ads, But Brands Still Face a Bigger Problem