News and Analysis
Foursquare Acquires Placed, Announces $150M in Funding
Foursquare and Placed are location tech’s new power couple.
The location intelligence firm is acquiring Placed, which had previously been bought by Snap for its top-rate online-to-offline attribution solution, and the two will offer one of the most powerful attribution solutions in the location industry, to be called Placed powered by Foursquare.
As ad tech faces tougher times and a privacy-driven crackdown on data collection and ad targeting practices, more mergers and acquisitions are likely to transform the industry’s terrain. Teaming up and stockpiling as much first-party data as possible, thereby eliminating the need for less compliant modes of data harvesting, will boost the longevity of some firms while others flounder.
SMBs Warm Up to New Tech But Are Skeptical of Impersonal Interactions
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.
Commentary
State of Hyperlocal Report: What’s Hot in Local Marketing and Commerce
social media, data and analytics, and mobile—especially geotargeting—are the hot technology investments for marketing and commerce. The investment in data and analytics is in part driven by the biggest overall industry challenge, online-to-offline attribution measurement, and one of the most difficult issues facing individual companies, proving ROI to customers.
How Brands Can Get More Out of Their Brick-and-Mortar Marketing
Marketers that fail to see local storefronts as a critical channel are missing out on a rich sales opportunity. Brands invest $70 billion in local markets each year, but a significant portion of that spend often goes to waste because they fail to work collaboratively with their local partners.
Latest Posts
Street Fight Daily: Yelp Data Now Available to Marketers, Ads Coming to Facebook Messenger
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Yelp Agrees to License Its Data to Sprinklr, All the Better for Marketers to Understand Their Consumers (AdAge)… Facebook Plans to Put Ads in Messenger (TechCrunch)… Yahoo Warns of Industry-Wide ‘Pause’ in Mobile Growth for 2016 (VentureBeat)…
New Alignable Rankings Shed Light on What SMBs Really Think of Tech Vendors
Alignable, a social networking platform for small business owners, has released its first quarterly SMB Trust Index which shows what small businesses think of a variety of small business technology brands. The index features a Net Promoter Score (NPS), which ranks products and services by user
Street Fight Daily: Google Fresh Expands to Grocery Delivery, Nextdoor Arrives in Europe
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Google Launches Grocery Delivery Service in San Francisco and Los Angeles (TechCrunch)… Nextdoor Launches in Europe (The Next Web)… Report: Apps Convert Better for Retailers than Mobile Web or Desktop (Marketing Land)…
Local News and Ad Industries Eye Sweeping Realignment With Users (Part 1)
The solution to digital news media’s woes, according to Bill Densmore, will necessitate a total transformation of the news industry to create more transparent and mutually beneficial relationships among publishers, users, and advertisers. It can happen through what Densmore calls the “Information Trust Exchange.”
Yext Integrates Google Into PowerListings, Extends Real-Time Updates for Both SMBs and Enterprise
Yext today announced a new integration with Google that will allow the company to offer real-time updates to all of its customers across Google’s suite of listings products. The integration eliminates manual submission, and allows all of the Yext’s customers to adjust how information is displayed on Google in real time.



















































Authentic Storytelling: Real-Life Scenarios Showcase Brand Values and Build Trust