News and Analysis

SMBs Warm Up to New Tech But Are Skeptical of Impersonal Interactions

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A freshly released report from SMB software firm Broadly uses data from a survey of 300 SMB leaders to paint a picture of the American SMB in 2019: gradually embracing mobile-first communication, skeptical of innovation that undercuts human connection, and ambivalent toward large digital marketplaces like Amazon and Etsy.

Visual Search Moves Beyond Experimentation and Into Prime Time

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After years of experimentation and broad discussions about how visual search would someday take hold, it’s clear that the future has arrived. Visual search has moved into the mainstream, and companies like Pinterest, Instagram, and even Google are paving the way for consumers to engage more deeply with the products they find online.

As visual search moves into the mainstream, questions are intensifying over what impact the medium will have on SEO and traditional search metrics.

Google Integrates Food Delivery into Search, Maps, Assistant

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More or less following the model of Reserve with Google, which has seamlessly integrated the process of reserving a table at a nearby restaurant into SERPs, Google is now integrating food delivery into search, Maps, and Assistant, keeping consumers on Google properties for the entire journey as they make transactions via third-party couriers.

Commentary

Will Native-Social Ads Dominate Mobile?

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The majority of mobile ad companies that don’t evolve their janky and interruptive banners will be displaced. A new era of mobile ads will be defined by intelligent formats that speak to the affinities of buying-empowered millennials (who are now almost 40 by the way).

Survey: Merchants Gain Social Media Sophistication, Rate it Most Effective Tactic

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Over the past several years, Street Fight has seen these local merchants shift their marketing budgets away from traditional media like newspapers, print Yellow Pages, and local broadcast towards digital marketing and media. That trend continues in a new survey that we conducted earlier this year.

How Does Google Determine the Authority of Local Entities?

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“Each of these sites that Google trusts might calculate authority in a different way, but if Google can verify the relationship to the local entity, they can apply that authority to the ranking of the local listing,” writes Mike Blumenthal to David Mihm.

Latest Posts

Service Marketplace Lead Gen — What Color Do Disruptors Bleed?

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Marketplaces are sexy. They have disrupted long-standing lead-gen sources like Google, Craigslist, HomeAdvisor, and Angie’s List — all of which caused disruption within yellow pages years before.

Street Fight Daily: Lyft Launches Waze Integration, ‘Platform Relationship Specialists’ Emerge

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Waze Integration for Drivers Rolls Out Nationwide in Lyft’s Mobile App (TechCrunch)… The Rise of the Publishing Platform Specialist (Wall Street Journal)… Publishers See Rising Premium on Mobile Advertising (AdExchanger)…

Raise Report: New funding for DoorDash, Handshake, GoCardless

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Marley Spoon, a startup that delivers ingredients needed for specific recipes to users, has raised $17 million and some of the other top funding news of the past week in this week’s Raise Report.

Promotions and New Hires at Amazon, Nuts.com, and Gorilla Logic

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An internal promotion at Amazon and some new personnel changes at Delivery.com and Gorilla Logic in the latest Movers & Shakers column.

Street Fight Daily: Apple Pay Coming to Mobile Web, DoorDash Moves Into Yelp Territory

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Apple Pay Moving to the Mobile Web, Could Give Big Boost to Mcommerce (Marketing Land)… DoorDash Takes On Yelp, Offers ‘Objective’ Restaurant Quality Scores (VentureBeat)… Microsoft Tells Possible Yahoo Buyers It Would Consider Backing Bids With Big Bucks (Recode)…

A ‘Network and Brand,’ 30A Aims to Add $1 MIllion Revenue in 2016

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Mike Ragsdale’s 30A is successfully covering the Santa Rosa Beach communities in Florida, covering daily minutiae while capturing what’s special about the place. The site is also pulling in seven figures. Can others learn from him?

7 Ways Local Merchants Can Foster Customer Loyalty

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Random rewards and eco-friendly initiatives are among the suggestions experts in local marketing offer SMBs who are looking to foster customer loyalty and bridge the gap between the virtual and the actual.

March Brand Battle: Marriott Residence Inn vs. Hilton Garden Inn

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Spring break is a big time for family travel across the U.S. According to travel booking site Orbitz, 61% of spring travelers will be families. What are they looking for? The March Brand Battle pits two affordable luxury hotel chains, Marriott Residence Inn and Hilton Garden Inn, against each other in a fight for local-mobile hotel domination as they head into the spring break season.

How Retailers Can Bring Home the Beacons

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Beacons will become standard when retailers use them to identify their businesses in the same fashion they publish their address or phone number. They will also become a standard when the industry starts treating them like a standard. That will solve the chicken-and-egg problem.

Foursquare’s Attribution Solution a Step in the Right Direction, but Still Leaves Gaps for Marketers

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Foursquare—the location-based social network that now calls itself a “location intelligence” company—recently stepped into the analytics business. The company’s entree is a product called Attribution Powered by Foursquare that is intended to help brands measure how media impacts foot traffic in brick-and-mortar locations. To fuel this intelligence, the company pulls data from a panel of […]