News and Analysis
With Shoelace, Its Latest Foray into (Local) Social, Google Aims to Do for Friends What Tinder Did for Dating
Perhaps Shoelace is less ambitious than Google+. But is finding friends, or others with whom to socialize, not the most central and yet unachieved aim of social networking? One that hinges on location and would be a gold mine for advertising, as it captures users far down the sales funnel, all the way at the point where they are ready to get together to spend some time at a local business? What if, in the same way online dating has gone from disreputable to de rigueur over the course of 10 years, finding friends online is something young people all do in 10 years, an engineering problem that Tinder rival Bumble is already trying to crack?
That would be a pretty big social network. The ambitions may not be so modest.
Retailers Are Using AI for Onboarding, Associate Retention
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
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.
Commentary
How Cisco’s Meraki Became the Largest Vendor of Bluetooth Beacon Gateways
While Meraki’s routers have long had the ability to broadcast iBeacon packets, in October they released a software upgrade which enables API access to these radios, activating a major new feature. Now customers can use their Wi-Fi access points to monitor beacons from third party vendors.
Under Pressure, Local TV Advertising Still Shows Lots of Opportunity
Local TV ad spending is set to take a big hit next year, projected to decrease at a double-digit pace after an election and Olympics year. Nonetheless, local TV represents a solid opportunity for smart media and marketing tech companies, as TV remains U.S. consumers’ primary time-sink.
The SDK Equation: Four Questions for Restarting the Conversation on Publisher Integration
How can mobile marketing restart the conversation around SDK integration with publishers, industrywide? Let’s start with distinctions and empowerment — key ways that the industry can arm publishers with the knowledge they need to evaluate a good SDK while detecting the badly built versions.
Latest Posts
Case Study: For Lead Generation, Cleaning Firm Prefers Emails to Website Clicks
Despite recent successes with mobile advertising, Herminio Gomes of Sharp Cleaning estimates he currently spends just 4% of his marketing budget on digital channels. The rest is divided between direct mailers, newspaper ads, flyers, and commissions.
Street Fight Daily: Google Changes Desktop Search Ads, Yahoo to Start Reaching Out to Bidders
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Google Makes Desktop Search Look More Mobile-ish to Milk More Shopping-Ads Cash (Recode)… Yahoo Said to Start Approaching Possible Bidders As Soon As Monday (Bloomberg)… What Is Groupon’s Real Value to Alibaba? (Crain’s Chicago Business)…
Location Data Management 101: Seeing the Bigger Picture
Many brands make the mistake of viewing location data as nothing more than plumbing for their local listings — or a component of a listing management strategy. But location data management is much bigger than listing management and data syndication.
Street Culture: DoorDash Aiming to Constantly Improve Both Product and People
Translating the desire to support business owners with successful on-demand functionality relies heavily on DoorDash’s 200 core employees. In 2015, the company expanded from three markets to 22, and CEO Tony Xu says he expects the company to double in size in 2016.
LBMA Podcast: Amazon, The Grammys, Parkhub, and Euclid Analytics
On the show: Gemalto launches LinqUs IoT platform; KeyDuino means fist bumping your car to unlock it; MicroChippy and Bubbledogs create a pop-up Canine Cafe; ParkHub & Verifone parked cars at SuperBowl 50; Verve launches self-serve location platform for SMBs.
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
Survey: SMBs Beefing Up Local Marketing — And Favoring Free Social Over Websites
More and more small and medium-sized businesses are upping their digital marketing game — even though they still don’t have a clear understanding of the relative ROI of various channels. According to Thrive Analytics’ Local Pulse Report, 42% of SMBs are planning to boost their local marketing budgets in 2016.
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)…
How SMBs Can Use Data to Become More Efficient Marketers
Without data to back up their performance claims, many vendors struggle to maintain a positive reputation. Here are six ways that small and mid-size businesses should be using data to improve their marketing efforts.
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Meta Is Automating Ads, But Brands Still Face a Bigger Problem