News and Analysis

Roundtable: How Google’s Third-Party Cookie Announcement Will Disrupt Search, Ad Tech

Google indicated it is making the change to boost user privacy on the Web, and the company believes digital advertising can survive on the back of evolving, more privacy-aware data sources. Chief among those sources, at least in the case of Chrome, will be Google’s privacy sandbox, which will offer advertisers and ad tech companies personalization opportunities based on browser data without granting them direct access to user-level information.

To size up the impact of Google’s announcement on ad tech and hyperlocal marketing, we turned to a slate of industry professionals for their takes on the move.

What Consumers Believe About Ads: Effectiveness, Creepiness, Transparency

The good news for advertisers is that members of Gen-Z, while finding ads just about as threatening to privacy as respondents of every other age group, appear to see their benefits, too. Forty-six percent of Gen-Zers said personalization can be beneficial, compared to 30-36 percent of older age groups. About three quarters of respondents in all age ranges said personalizations imperils privacy.

Gimbal App Gives Consumers More Choice, Privacy Controls

While the digital marketing industry waits for full enforcement of California’s Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) to go into effect later this year, the mobile advertising, location solutions, and data company Gimbal is actively working to position itself as a leader in the consumer privacy space. The company recently launched a mobile app called LocationChoices, which gives consumers more control over how their data is used. Gimbal is also building a coalition with other industry players that would give participating vendors a way to systematically honor the requests of individual consumer opt-outs.

Commentary

Can Yelp Extend Its Moment in the Sun?

“[Yelp has] not been very innovative in approaching the many needs of the SMB markets,” Mike Blumenthal writes to David Mihm. “It would seem that there could be (or should have been?) a raft of functionality that they could provide from appointments to customer follow-up that would be a natural fit.”

school chalkboard

How Brands Can Use Location to Ace Back-To-School Ad Campaigns

Brands could be throwing their back-to-school ad dollars to the wind if they are only taking a standard location approach. In fact, the study found that brands could wasting more than 80 percent of their back-to-school media on the wrong audience if location data isn’t used correctly .

What Will Amazon Do With Whole Foods?

Whole Foods will represent a brand-new challenge to the company that has come to define online commerce. How can shopping in a physical store be disrupted and transformed by the same kind of thinking that created the world’s biggest virtual marketplace?

Latest Posts

5 Steps to Identifying the Channel Partners That Will Grow Your Business

It’s no surprise they call the golden rule of channel sales the 90/10 rule where 90% of the sales are going to come from 10% of your partners. The best approach to this problem is to come up with frameworks you can use to focus on those most likely to end up in the winner bucket.

Street Fight Daily: Gannett Acquires Jersey Papers, Walmart Responds to Apple Pay

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Gannett Buys the Bergen Record and Other New Jersey Papers… Walmart’s Answer to Apple Pay is Now Available in All Walmart Stores… Used-Car Mobile Marketplace, Shift, Launches…

Super Retailers Face Super Location Data Problems

Managing location data across hundreds and thousands of locations requires dedicated resources to scale the data and change it. Just as importantly, a business must treat location data as a competitive asset, organized and managed like inventory.

7 Ways Booking Platforms Can Utilize Location Technology

Booking vendors use location technology to personalize and streamline the online scheduling experience for consumers. This, in turn, benefits the businesses that use these platforms because it makes their clients more likely to schedule more frequent appointments.

Street Fight Daily: Angie’s List Strikes Paywall, Google Maps Enables SMB Discovery

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Angie’s List is Now Free, and What That Means for SMBs and Local Search… Google Maps Makes It Easier to Find Local Businesses On Your Route… Square and Facebook Serve Up Offline Attribution for an Ohio Eatery…

Why Enterprise Marketers Are Such an Elusive Market

A new report based on insights collected from 200 executives at some of the biggest brands and retailers, reveals a lingering preference for traditional media over digital. But it offers a glimmer of hope where it shines a light on the pain points that are keeping digital from realizing its full potential with enterprise marketers…

Is Google Shrinking the Local Pack?

The reduction of local search real estate represents a huge challenge to marketers, who must work even harder to ensure their clients’ listings can compete in a shrinking field. It also suggests that a strategy combining organic and paid efforts is becoming ever more important.

10 Reasons That On-Demand Services Fail

Hundreds of startups have flooded the market with “Uber for X” models in the past few years, but the landscape in 2016 is filled with just as many failures as successes. We asked some of those that have found success to map out the potential pitfalls that they and other have encountered along the way.

Street Fight Daily: Amazon Boosts Alexa Ordering, What Businesses Need to Know About Chatbots

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Shipping Could Be the Next Billion-Dollar Opportunity for E-Commerce Retailers… Survey Says Most Businesses Already Use the Internet of Things… Startups Should Be Watching as the Supreme Court Decides Samsung versus Apple…

Openings and New Hires at Adelphic, ClickBank, Web.com

Every two weeks, Geoff Michener covers some of the latest job changes taking place in this dynamic industry. This week’s edition includes moves and new openings at Serviz, CBS Interactive.