News and Analysis

food

Walmart Enlists Google to Power Voice-Driven Grocery Shopping

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Partnerships between retailers and tech platforms will provide increasingly important benefits for local discovery as voice becomes a more established search channel. In the age of voice-driven local search, consumers looking for products and services will become accustomed to having only one option surfaced (as Assistant is unlikely to rattle off five choices), which means being a consumer’s first option will be paramount for brick-and-mortars.

online privacy

Interactive Advertising Bureau Europe Catches Heat from Privacy Advocates

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Johnny Ryan, chief policy and industry officer at Brave, a privacy-first web browser, filed a complaint with the Irish Data Commission against Interactive Advertising Bureau Europe on Tuesday evening based on the latter’s alleged violation of GDPR. A statement circulated by Brave on Tuesday identified IAB Europe as a leading lobbyist for the digital tracking industry and accused the company of violating GDPR guidelines with its “cookie wall,” a message encountered by those navigating to its website that requires visitors to consent to tracking from both IAB Europe and third parties.

Report: Education of SMB Marketers a Glaring Hole in Vendor Approaches

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The disconnect between how vendors think they are supporting and educating their clients, and how those clients actually feel they are being supported, can be alarming. BrandMuscle’s report found that local marketers are hungry for marketing knowledge, and yet 18% believe they get “little to no support” from the agencies or marketing teams with which they work. Twenty-eight percent say they get “check-the-box support,” which is still insufficient.

Commentary

What Happens When SMBs Get Social?

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Social networks are transformative, and are the most disruptive when they provide a market segment with opportunities previously unavailable. If you look at the history of how selling has traditionally been done, it’s evident that social will transform sales as well.

Why Social Media Is a Battleground for Prompted Search

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In a world of omnichannel search, a business’s social media spaces are places where consumers can find what brands have to offer at a local level. As consumers search across a larger palette of devices and channels such as social, a brand needs to view its social spaces as battlegrounds for prompted search.

Which Apple Will Show Up For Local’s Next Revolution?

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Apple’s relative inaction on VR/AR thus far could either indicate that the company is missing this next tech shift (which I’ve speculated), or that it’s playing the long game. The latter could involve a deliberately late entrance to VR and AR, just as it did with previous technologies.

Latest Posts

Street Fight Daily: Geofeedia to Expand After $17M Series B, How Patch Succeeds Post-AOL

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Geofeedia Raises $17M to Help Businesses Tap Into Social Location Data (TechCrunch)… Patch Rebounds After Split From AOL (Wall Street Journal)… Why Would Amazon Want To Be the New Barnes & Noble? (New Yorker)…

With New Attribution Feature, Placed Can Tell Whether Your Billboard Is Hot or Not

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Seattle-based Placed announced this morning that with Placed Attribution, which was unveiled back in July, the company can bridge the gap between OOH ads (billboards) and physical store visitations.

Report: More Than 70% of Franchisees Use a Digital Agency

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Franchisees (and their co-op spending) represent an important segment of the local digital marketing ecosystem, and a new report reveals that these businesses are starting to accelerate their adoption of digital media and platforms, and are increasingly working with digital agencies.

Telmetrics Names New CEO, Looks to Prove the Value of Phone Calls — And the Digital Ads That Drive Them

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The call tracking and call analytics company announced this morning that it has named Andrew Osmak its new CEO, replacing David Howard (who assumes the role of chairman of the company’s board). Osmak had been managing partner of Toronto-based Leverage Capital.

Street Fight Daily: Uber Rebrands, Amazon Rumored to be Opening Hundreds of Physical Bookstores

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… The Inside Story of Uber’s Radical Rebranding (Wired)… Amazon Is Said to Be Planning an Expansion Into Retail Bookstores (New York Times)… Yahoo to Cut 15% of Workforce, Explore Strategic Options (Wall Street Journal)…

Cupcakes

Case Study: Bakery Takes Digital Approach to Local Marketing

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Like many local merchants, Heather Zidell has seen the number of customers finding her business through Yelp climb over the years. She decided to take the leap into paid advertising on the platform as a way to ensure that her bakery was being listed ahead of competitors.

Understanding the Context of Local Advertising’s Supply and Demand

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The current election cycle, if nothing else, has demonstrated the importance of context in the supply and demand of local media. In this type of market, the early bird gets the worm. Consumer brands are learning this lesson the hard way and getting shut out of local opportunities that otherwise might have been available.

Street Fight Daily: Alphabet Earnings Show Google Search Still On Top, Local Advertising’s ‘Context’

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Google Search Leads the Way as Alphabet Beats Earnings Expectations (Adweek)… Placed’s Shim: Location-Based Optimization Is the ‘SEO of 2016’ (GeoMarketing)… Yahoo Takes Declining Share of Worldwide Ad Revenues (eMarketer)…

Retale CEO Touts ‘Tremendous Potential’ of Virtual Reality for Shopping

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Retale, a mobile app that brings local circulars to consumers, is jumping right in to VR/AR, launching what it calls “the world’s first virtual reality location-based shopping companion.” Street Fight recently caught up with Retale CEO Christian Gaiser to discuss why the company is betting this technology will become a vital channel for future shoppers.

7 Ways Local Merchants Can Use Messaging Apps for Marketing

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Smartphone messaging apps were used by more than 1.4 billion consumers last year, but very few of the conversations that took place were between shoppers and local merchants. Here are seven examples of ways that local merchants can start using messaging apps to improve customer service and boost customer acquisition right away.