News and Analysis

Startups Adapt to Shifting Privacy Standards

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Two steps forward, one step back. That’s what it can feel like to be a technology provider in the location marketing space right now, struggling to strike a balance between the demands of brand marketers and growing concerns over consumer privacy and data regulation.

That push and pull is challenging vendors in the location marketing space. At the same time their firms should be seeing exponential growth, data regulations—including the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and California’s forthcoming Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA)—are establishing new rules for innovation.

But some companies are embracing the regulation as a challenge to innovate in its own right.

Vendors Rush to Bring Privacy Verification Solutions to Market

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The demand for data privacy is at an all-time high, just as consumer trust in the technology space is at an all-time low. Advertisers are grappling with wasted ad spend and uncertainty over ad verification. The market is in disarray, and technology vendors are hoping they have a solution to the problem.

Just this month, the offline consumer intelligence and measurement company Cuebiq launched a new verification solution for third-party data. The solution gives advertisers verifiable proof of compliance with the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA).

Inform Your Multichannel Customer Experience Strategy

Consumers Welcome Some Automated Business Messaging, But Humans Must Tag Along to Help

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More than half of consumers are frustrated by customer-service situations in which they can only interact with automated agents, and nearly one in five even reporting feeling angry in those situations. That’s per a new survey of U.S. consumers conducted by The Harris Poll and commissioned by call tracking and analytics firm Invoca.

Commentary

Google Maps Holiday Controversy Reflects Deeper Issues in Local Search

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In cases where community values are not unanimous, public companies are faced with an ethical question, and their answers can help to shape perceptions among users. For many, the removal of a Confederate holidays from Google Maps signals that it is truly a thing of the past.

Why Developing a ‘Near Me’ Strategy Has Become Critical for Local Marketers

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Mobile is no longer just an important or necessary element of a marketing strategy — it’s vital for the livelihood and existence of a brand. And it has led to a critical shift in shopper behavior that brand marketers are rushing to understand and adapt their digital marketing strategies to.

Why 2017 Will Be the Year of the ‘Micro Moment’

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A micro moment is the point at which a consumer searches for nearby information, for things to do, buy, or learn in real-time. Essentially, it’s a description of a new consumer mindset: one that has switched from regularity to spontaneity in shopping and learning habits, due to ubiquity of smartphones.

Latest Posts

Street Fight Daily: Amazon’s Powerful Lobbyists, comScore and Viacom Announce Multiplatform Deal

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Amazon Leans on Government in Its Quest to Be a Delivery Powerhouse (New York Times)… comScore Says Multiplatform Deal with Viacom Will Transform How Ads Are Bought (Adweek)… Uber’s Quest to Catch the Tourist Buck (VentureBeat)…

Can LifePosts’ Digital Obits Provide Clues for Sustainable Local Publishing?

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LifePost’s digital obits are offering a way to commemorate people and pets in a dedicated place outside of social media. The idea has drawn support from Twitter ex-CEO Dick Costolo, among others.

Street Culture: Multi-Location Brands Connect Employees With Beekeeper

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Beekeeper is like Slack but for companies with employees who are on the move, waiting tables and parking cars. The mobile-based communications platform is growing quickly and meeting a current need in the marketplace.

Street Fight Daily: Airbnb Plans to Expand Service Offerings, On-Demand Assistant App GoButler Pivots

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Airbnb Plans to Offer Add-On Travel Services This Year (Bloomberg)… GoButler Pivots to Fully-Automated Service, Starting with Flight Search and Discovery (TechCrunch)… Can LifePost’s Digital Obits Provide Clues for Sustainable Local Publishing? (Street Fight)…

Brands, Meet the Data Amplifiers

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Data amplifiers distribute and publish your data to a broader audience than you could ever do on your own — what I call the “network effect.” Your brand becomes more visible because your business data becomes more open and accessible to the influencers who are in a position to help customers find your business.

Retailers Shift Focus to Offline Affiliate Marketing

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Location analytics represent the new battleground in retail, but imagine if you could apply the same analytics for online attribution to offline purchases. Offline affiliate marketing does just that, giving retailers the tools to analyze data from in-store purchases similar to what they can do for online purchases.

Drawbridge CEO: ‘Programmatic Has Led the Charge for Cross-Device’

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Kamakshi Sivaramakrishnan founded programmatic ad platform Drawbridge in 2010 after a stint at Google. She spoke recently with Street Fight about Drawbridge’s solutions, the ever-changing nature of mobile targeting, and the constant misinterpretation of the word “programmatic.”

Street Fight Daily: Google to Further Penalize Mobile-Unfriendly Websites, More Layoffs at LivingSocial

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Google’s Latest Mobile Search Algorithm Update Makes Having a Mobile-Friendly Site Even More Important (TechCrunch)… LivingSocial Is Laying Off More Than 50 Percent of Its Staff (Recode)… Uber Debuts Family Profiles to Let You Pay for Others’ Rides (TechCrunch)…

Yodle Weighs in on How Google’s SERP Change Has Affected Online Ads for SMBs

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With a few weeks of empirical data, we now have a much clearer sense of how or if this change has affected local AdWords campaigns. At Yodle, we have seen a negligible effect on the performance metrics of the search engine marketing (SEM) campaigns we run on behalf of our local small business clients.

How Badly Do Consumers Really Want Grocery Delivery?

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Instacart is bumping up against the realities of the economy. There are two countervailing trends that are working against the idea of grocery delivery: frugality, and shopping-as-entertainment.