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
New Street Fight Report: Selling to Local Merchants
Street Fight’s latest report on local merchants is a companion piece to our annual survey of local small and medium-sized businesses, that focuses on vendor strategies for selling local marketing services and up-selling add-ons or suites of offerings.
Using Social Media for Enterprise Local Marketing: Comparing Twitter and Facebook Marketers
Surveys suggest social media is pretty influential for shoppers, particularly young ones, although they gravitate to Instagram and Snapchat. Big brands are taking heed. Although packaged goods giant P&G said it was paring back its most highly-targeted Facebook ads, it recently confirmed that it was maintaining its overall Facebook spending.
The Place of Newspapers in the Local Marketing Ecosystem
“Digitally speaking, NextDoor is encroaching on a space that local papers really should own.” David Mihm tells Mike Blumenthal. “It’s basically a glorified forum that in my view would be every bit as successful, if not more so, if hosted by a truly local entity.”
Latest Posts
Street Fight Daily: 80% of News Site Traffic from Facebook/Google, Walmart Expands 2-Day Shipping
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Amazon Revamps Alexa Skills to Stay On Top of Smart Home Market… Online News Sites Get 80% of Traffic from Facebook and Google… How Uber and Lyft Have Changed the Game for All Travel Brands…
As Gannett Acquires ReachLocal, Some Lessons From Its U.K. Exit
As news filtered out earlier this week that media giant Gannett had bought ReachLocal for $156 million, it capped off several years of speculation in the local marketing industry about where the public company would end up. As a former ReachLocal employee (2010-2014) now living in Norway, I’ve watched the company as it has faced steep challenges […]
Two Views of Community News — From 30,000 Feet and at Ground Level
There are plenty of bad prognostications about the future of the community news business out there. But if you look at what is actually happening company by company, site by site, the view is not universally grim. There are a number of players making serious progress in digital revenue.
Street Fight Daily: Facebook Demotes Publishers on News Feed, Yelp Launches ‘Knowledge’ Platform
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Facebook to Change News Feed to Focus on Friends and Family, Not Publishers… Yelp Announces Expanding ‘Knowledge’ Social Analytics Platform… Google Launches Two New APIs to Improve App Intelligence and Context…
Are Community Networks the Final Frontier for Local Publishers?
What if local publishers changed their strategy to focus exclusively on engaging and connecting their community at large? It still requires the great content that they create daily, but also a powerful and relevant search experience for users, more calls to action, and a more native and engaging mobile experience.
How Much Do You Know About Your SMB Customers?
They say that what you don’t know can’t hurt you, but when it comes to landing SMB clients, that’s simply not the case. That’s why we went out to more than 500 local merchants and asked them about their experiences in local marketing. The result? The Local Merchant Report…
Rover’s New Location-Based Mobile Marketing Platform Focuses on ‘Experiences’
“Advertising is not the hard part; the hard part is getting end users to care about location-based content,” CEO John Coombs told Street Fight. “Proximity and location is about more than push notifications and coupons. It’s really about experiences.”
Street Fight Daily: Twitter Launches Dashboard for SMBs, Pinterest Adds Shopping Cart
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Pinterest Adds a Shopping Cart and Visual Search to Challenge Amazon… Twitter Courts SMBs With New Dashboard App… Why Publishers’ Engagement Metrics Are All Over the Map…
How Businesses Can Take Advantage of the Massive Opportunity in Local Data
The difficulty of accessing local data has been changing with the rise of smartphones. We no longer have to guess and approximate where consumers go, because mobile phones can provide data that paints a much richer picture of where, when, and why users visit the world around them.
Case Study: Non-Profit Searches for Cost-Effective Marketing Solutions
Community support is essential for any local organization, and particularly for non-profits like Keshet Dance Company, which relies on partnerships and sponsorships to fund its socially-driven programming for at-risk youth.
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AI Won’t Fix Advertising – It May Scale Its Chaotic Nature