News and Analysis

Survey: What Marketers Want from Location Data

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Marketers surveyed showed an especially keen interest in understanding how they can integrate location data with other kinds of information. Asked how they deploy location data, 27% said it’s a “key component of a broader strategy to map the customer journey online and offline.” Twenty-six percent, the second-largest segment, said they were interested in learning how to marshal location data in conjunction with other data to achieve more advanced goals than their current practices allow.

Charting the Rise of Conversational AI

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Conversational AI is a broad term used to describe technologies that automate conversations and personalize customer experiences. With the right systems in place, brands are able to understand, process, and actually respond to voice inputs in a natural way. While voice assistants, chatbots, and messaging services like WhatsApp, Kik, and Facebook Messenger can all be harnessed in a conversational AI strategy, virtual assistants like Amazon’s Alexa and Apple’s Siri are the most popular tools adopted by brand marketers today.

How the Rise of Unbranded Search Upends Restaurant, Retail, and Grocery Strategy

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Fueled by the growth of mobile and set to rocket even further north in coming years thanks to voice, unbranded searches like “burgers near me” or “Thai food” are growing as fast as 113% year over year, according to a fresh study by multi-location marketing firm MomentFeed. Unbranded search grew about 30% from 2016 to ’17 and 56% the following year before doubling pace in 2018-19, suggesting the slope of this trend’s adoption could get even steeper in coming years.

Commentary

How the End of Network Neutrality Could Affect SMBs and the Public Interest

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For many years, the government’s assessment of the public interest was to encourage Web access to all. The current FCC, however, contends that this position is better met by eliminating the net neutrality rules — that SMBs will be able to have a variety of ISP options based on their actual needs with the end of the net neutrality rules.

Social Media Gets the Local Spending Growth, Partly by Default

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Social media is widely used — and deemed particularly effective — by SMBs. But when you dig deeper, it looks like most local marketers are using social media as substitute for display advertising (and to reach mobile audiences) rather than as a uniquely local or even “social” medium.

How Voice Assistants Could Transform Local (Part II)

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Voice assistants continue to evolve as a medium for local search, as I examined here last month. But what does it mean for local media players and startups? If consumers are increasingly searching with voice, how do you wedge your way into that conversation?

Latest Posts

Yelp Courts Developers With New Tools for Integration

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The program includes tools for developers to build with the Yelp Fusion API and Yelp’s local data, along with additional integrations. An updated developer portal will give developers better access to search more than 50 million local businesses across 32 countries.

Street Fight Daily: Salesforce Brings AI to the CRM Masses, Yelp Courts Developers with New Program

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Salesforce Brings AI to the CRM Masses with New System, Einstein… Marketers Are Getting the Snapchat Targeting Data They Want. Will It Scare Off Users?… Google Trips App Helps Plan Personalized Travel…

How Apple’s Subtle AR Play Could Impact Local: Sights and Sounds

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Apple just entered augmented reality, without anyone really noticing. Though the iPhone 7 was met with a collective ‘meh,’ the real impact is below the surface, where the world’s biggest company collides with tech’s biggest opportunity.

HomeAdvisor CEO’s Top 7 Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Get Into the Home Services Market

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HomeAdvisor CEO Chris Terrill has been helping people find, furnish, decorate, organize and fix their homes since 2011. Before that, he helped people find mates, watch movies at home, and manage their weight. On Oct. 25th in NYC, he’ll take the stage at Street Fight Summit.

Street Fight Daily: Lyft Foresees All-Robotic Fleet by 2021, Oracle Launches Chatbot Dev Platform

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Lyft Says Robots Will Drive Most of its Cars by 2021… Oracle Launches a Chatbot Development Platform… How Tech Companies Disrupted Silicon Valley’s Restaurant Scene…

Street Culture: Trans-Atlantic Travel Helps Unacast’s Team Build Trust

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Every month, one half of the company’s employees travel to visit the other half of the employees — the engineering team is located in Oslo, Norway and the commercial team is in New York City — as a culture-building activity, giving employees a chance to connect while in the same time zone.

Taking Proximity Tech Beyond Promotional Offers

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Once a beacon program is successful with promotions, many retailers think they only need to maintain what they have. But the technology also affords retailers a number of other opportunities to reach and engage with customers beyond simply delivering offers.

LBMA Podcast: Everyware, Shake Shack, and Carling’s Beer Button

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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: Delta Airlines + Snapchat, Revel Systems & Punchh, OfferUp gets $119M, Hilton Hotels, IKEA’s Dining Club, Trackr + Alexa, and Neiman Marcus.

Street Fight Daily: Instagram Boosts Ads for Brands, Google Acquires Urban Engines for Maps

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Instagram’s Deems Its Brand-Focused, Call-to-Action Ads Work in Progress… Google Acquires Urban Engines to Bolster Location-Based Analytics… Data-Driven Marketing is Driving More Revenues…

As Merchants Flock to Social Media, How Can Community News Sites Keep Pace?

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According to a new survey, SMBs are turning to social media more and more. But they may be doing it not just because they’re getting good results but also because they have better buying experiences with Facebook and others.