News and Analysis

Retailers Are Using AI for Onboarding, Associate Retention

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The retail landscape is going through an evolution, with mom-and-pop stores on Main Street being replaced by e-commerce outlets that rely on sophisticated algorithms to manage virtually every aspect of business operations.

While most headlines about the transformation of retail focus on the consumer-side of the equation, there’s even more change going on behind the scenes. Competition between e-commerce and brick-and-mortar is forcing innovation in the way retailers approach the challenges that come with onboarding and retaining in-store associates.

Retailers Leverage Prime Day to Boost Offline Sales

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Unlike other shopping “holidays,” like Black Friday and Cyber Monday, Amazon Prime Day is specific to a single retailer. But as the event grows, other retailers—both online and offline—are finding ways to leverage the anticipation that consumers are feeling.

Last year, 63% of Prime Day shoppers said they visited competing websites to compare prices. This is a major opportunity for online retailers to capitalize on the spike in traffic and provide consumers with personalized and targeted offerings and exclusive deals.

This Company is Forging a New Path for Digital Advertising with a Focus on Consumer Consent

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Brave is an example of how privacy-forward digital advertising business models that foreground consumer content can work for all parties. Users are not tracked all over the Web and choose how many ads they would like to see; they will also soon get rewards. In return, advertisers can be sure that the people seeing their advertisements are actually interested in looking at ads, and they can also boost loyalty or reach new customers by offering rewards for ad viewing.

Perhaps most importantly, with GDPR in place for more than a year and CCPA and other state privacy laws in the works, advertisers and platforms are less likely to get sued.

Commentary

Mobile Marketing and the YouTube Cookie Shift

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Google recently announced that YouTube will turn to logged-in user data to verify views and ensure that relevant advertising reaches the right consumers. This will allow publishers, brands, and marketing to draw on all the highly contextual demographic and behavioral data that Google gathers from mobile consumers.

The AI Wars in Local Have Already Begun

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This AI-centric battle is being waged by heavier contenders than any before it, including Apple (Siri), Amazon (Alexa), and Google (Assistant). They’re each basing battle plans on their current positioning and biggest assets, and the winner will sway the next era of local commerce.

Small and Large Local Marketers Have Remarkably Similar Spending Focus

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A survey of 200 U.S. small and medium businesses conducted late last year revealed that 70% said they would be increasing their digital and online marketing budgets in 2017. Fewer than a third said budgets would stay the same, and only 2% said they were cutting back.

Latest Posts

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 […]

Street Fight Daily: DoorDash Raises $127 Million, Billy Penn to Expand Its Local News Model

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… DoorDash Raises $127 Million in ‘Down’ Round (Wall Street Journal)… Can the Billy Penn Model for Local News Work Beyond Philadelphia? We’re About to Find Out (Poynter)… Yahoo Ad Revenue to Drop Nearly 14% This Year (eMarketer)…

PlaceIQ’s Mandeep Mason on Looking at Location from an International Perspective

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PlaceIQ’s EMEA General Manager, Mandeep Mason, discusses international expansion, why this is a good time for local marketing, and why local analytics need to be part of any overall media plan.