News and Analysis

Retailers Use Visual Channels to Attract Last-Minute Mother’s Day Shoppers

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Spending on Mother’s Day is expected to reach $25 billion this year, with consumers flocking to department stores and florists in search of the perfect gifts for Mom. The bulk of that spending will happen in the next few days, as foot traffic data from the location platform GroundTruth reveals that Americans tend to wait until the very last minute to shop for Mother’s Day gifts.

What are retailers around the country doing to prepare for the onslaught of last-minute shoppers? More than ever before, retailers are leaning on visual marketing opportunities to drive last-minute sales.

Report: Websites and GMB Profiles Both Essential for Local Businesses

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A whopping 64% of respondents indicated relying on Google My Business to find contact information for local business, suggesting it’s an indispensable platform. Yet consumers still trust local business websites most of all, and only 8% say they never consult a business’ website when making shopping decisions.

Brands Push Forward with Automation, But Privacy and Creepiness Concerns Remain

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“Marketing automation is all the rage. Everyone feels like they need to ‘do it’ or they’ll be left behind. That rush to do the latest ‘new thing’ without thoughtful planning often leads to failure,” says Winston Lord, co-founder of Venga, a guest management platform that uses automation to enhance customer experiences. “It’s critical to build a 360 degree view of your client and your strategy before implementing marketing automation.”

Commentary

Why Mobile Payments Will Heat Up in 2017

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Mobile payments have been inhibited by point-of-sale hardware upgrade requirements and the lack of a killer pitch for either users or merchants. But the movement to chip-based credit and debit cards in the U.S. could help.

Why Location-Based Machine Learning Is the Smart Path to Personalization

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With the right data, a brand can keep the relationship with the customer warm while they’re off-property, out-of-town or on a budget. Offering the right deals and communications that are relevant to real interests means that the relationship between man and machine is getting better all the time.

Local’s Next Battleground: In-Car Media

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A few recent moves have begun to triangulate how Uber might build out auxiliary revenue channels. It will be all about enhancing your ride, then, down the road, an ad model. And it won’t involve in-car signage or digital displays.

Latest Posts

Street Fight Daily: Angie’s List Dropping Paywall, Amazon Strengthens IoT Offerings

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Angie’s List to Drop Paywall for a Freemium Model (TechCrunch)… It’s Amazon Echo’s World; Alphabet’s Nest Just Lives in It (Recode)… When It Comes to Platforms, Agencies Have Snapchat On Their Minds (Digiday)…

Lessons Learned in the Email Marketing Wars About ‘Selling to SMBs’

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Constant Contact’s recent announcement that it would be acquired by EIG, got me reflecting on the past 15 years and how much the industry’s evolution has taught me about what it takes to effectively sell to small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs).

6 Call Tracking Platforms for SMBs

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As SMBs explore new digital advertising opportunities, they’re becoming even more reliant on call tracking platforms to determine what’s working and what’s not. Here are six examples of call tracking platforms that businesses are using right now.

Street Fight Daily: Facebook Reaches 3M Advertisers, Googler Explains AdWords Changes

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Facebook Just Passed 3 Million Advertisers — Here’s Why It’s Doubling Down on Small Businesses (Business Insider)… Google’s Take on the Recent Changes to the Results Page (Search Engine Land)… The Inside Story of Uber’s Big Bet on Food (Business Insider)…

Local Media Companies Tout Events for Revenue Diversification

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At that Borrell Associates event this week in New York, several speakers touted local live events — from awards shows, to beer tastings, to road races — as a potentially lucrative revenue stream with sizable margins, that local publishers could easily expand into.

Unacast Partners With Opera to Let Marketers Retarget Consumers Using Beacon Data

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The partnership potentially represents a shift from the GPS data that advertisers have previously relied upon for recent location ( which only works when users are outdoors and actively using their mobile devices) and toward more granular beacon data in profile creation and retargeting.

Will ApplePay Be the Company’s Next Mega-Business?

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It is a truth universally acknowledged that Apple is currently in need of a really big new product (a la iPhone or iPad) to keep growing. I think the company has ample opportunity to turn the payments industry on its head and make ApplePay its next big product.

Street Fight Daily: The Quiet Success of Ecommerce App Wish, LinkedIn Launches B2B Marketing Tool

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Ecommerce App Wish Has ‘Hundreds of Millions of Users’ (Plus Other Stats About the Company) (TechCrunch)… LinkedIn Debuts New Targeting Feature for Marketers (AdAge)… SoundHound’s Virtual Assistant Launches Out of Beta (VentureBeat)…

As Ad Blockers Proliferate, IAB’s Rothenberg Tells Local Publishers to Stick to Their Guns

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“Ad blocking represents the new normal in the media industry,” he said at Borrell’s local advertising conference in NYC. And if present trends continue, ad blocking could soon “surpass 50% on most sites.”

How Data Is Poised to Significantly Transform Local Marketing

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It is becoming clear that this is the year when our industry effectively leverages data integration across the marketing ecosystem. One significant aspect of this industry evolution is the injection of physical-world data with other data sets, as well as mobile. Mobile data is the glue that connects all data with the broader ecosystem.