News and Analysis
As Retail Reopens, Voice Tech Takes Center Stage
Voice technology has been on the verge of going mainstream for nearly a decade. Despite big players like Amazon and Google launching their own smart speakers, and millions of consumers using the devices in their homes, investors in the voice technology space have been patiently waiting for the spark that would set off a new touchless world.
That spark is Covid-19.
Rakuten Ready Gives Merchants Access to Advanced Pickup Technology
Industry-wide curbside pickup has surged 208%, but statistics alone do not tell the complete story. Although large retailers were quick to pivot to a pickup-only strategy, small and mid-size retailers were largely boxed out. That’s because the ordering technology used by many large retailers comes with a price tag that small retailers cannot afford, and implementing the most sophisticated programs requires a level of technological sophistication that SMBs don’t usually have.
Rakuten Ready believes it has the answer to this problem.
Social Conversion Rates Climb During Covid-19
Covid-19 has changed the social media playbook, but brands who’ve been quick to adjust are seeing social conversion rates continuing to climb.
In an analysis of data pulled from more than 120 retail websites, the digital experience solutions company Episerver found that social conversion rates have increased steadily during Covid-19 shutdowns, from 1% in April 2019 to 1.2% in April 2020.
Commentary
Local Media Consortium Partners With IAS to Fight Web Ad Fraud
To fight the pervasive web fraud crisis, the Local Media Consortium, which represents more than 75 local news media companies with 1,700+ digital publications, is partnering with the global data firm Integral Ad Science (IAS), which each day measures and analyzes the quality of 500 billion media metrics.
A Vision for One of Tech’s Most Valuable Startups: The Airbnb Card
Airbnb has already created a trusted network. It now merely needs to extend that trust to get local hosts and merchants working together to create great experiences for their mutual customers.
National Brands Must Take Advantage of Tech and Reap Benefits of Going Local
The marketplace is now offering media inventory that can be localized even in channels like national magazine titles. Advances in data management platforms, programmatic exchanges, and ad operations workflows allow national brands to go local at scale in order to reach customized audience segments.
Latest Posts
#SFSNYC: Street Fight Announces Winners of the 2016 Local Visionary Awards
The 13-category competition honors the very best campaigns, companies, ideas, and individuals working in the local marketing and commerce ecosystem. Nearly 200 submissions were received in the competition, and they were judged by a group of innovators and local experts.
#SFSNYC: Finding the Next Billion-Dollar Local Startup
Having a great idea for a new product to launch in the local space is exciting. However, taking an idea and turning it into the next great local company takes money. And sometimes, it takes a lot of money to go from idea to a billion dollar product.
Selling to SMBs: AIDA and The Conversion Zone
I’m often asked by entrepreneurs and venture capitalists alike to talk about what changes throughout the course of the “bell curve ride” in selling to small and medium-sized businesses — and how organizations need to adapt at each stage in order to ensure continued success. Here’s the best way I can explain how it all works.
#SFSNYC: Why Location Data Management Needs Technology and Agency Services
At Street Fight Summit in New York on Tuesday, Brett Fritz, VP of business development at digital performance marketing company DAC Group, spoke about why marketing and location data management should be done by a mix of agency work and technology.
Street Fight Daily: Google Gets Lift from Maps Ads, Facebook’s E-Commerce Strategy
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Google Sees Lift from Maps Ads, Local Mobile Clicks… Facebook Puts Off Monetization of E-Commerce Efforts to Boost their Popularity… BloomReach Acquires Hippo to Create, Personalize, and Measure Every Digital Experience…
#SFSNYC: Soleo Announces Version 2.0 of Local Search API
The local search company announced the launch of its new Local Search API at Street Fight Summit 2016, opening it up to developers to start using in their own projects. This new version brings together natural language processing and its database of over 20 million business listings.
#SFSNYC: How Marketers Are Closing in on the Holy Grail of Mobile Attribution
“What’s super interesting is the fact that we now have a bridge between the digital and physical world,” said Foursquare’s Steven Rosenblatt, talking about how this new rise in data makes it much easier to see what’s going on down to the hyperlocal level.
#SFSNYC: How Local Tech Companies Can Reach Scale in the SMB Ecosystem
Creating new technology for the SMB space is one thing; trying to achieve any sort of scale is something entirely different. Companies either need to bring on a large sales force to go door to door or they need to partner with one of the much larger companies in the space.
The Increasing Impact of Reviews and Google+ (?!) on Local SEO
Some new data has given us some “big time insight” into how Google is using authoritative local sites to inform local search rankings, says David Mihm. Mike Blumenthal agrees, saying that the prominence of local review pages and appears to be “transferring prominence directly to the local entity in a way that is totally independent of links.”
Local Listings Get a Real-Time Update from Brandify
The company’s new digital marketing platform combines the power of tech with the authority of the human brain. Brandify’s Nip Zalavadia, says the platform has the capability to access and analyze huge amounts of data, but also uses real people to address details that often fall through the cracks of automated software solutions.
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Meta Is Automating Ads, But Brands Still Face a Bigger Problem