News and Analysis

3 CRO Techniques That Actually Convert Visitors

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The web is filled to the brim with quick conversion rate optimization tips. These include changing the color of your CTAs, making headlines catchier, and changing the background image of your landing page, among many others. While these strategies have shown results, there are a few effective CRO techniques that are often overlooked. In this article, I discuss less common CRO techniques that have the potential to drive significant results. 

Mobile Video Struggles Persist While Tolerance for Them Decreases

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It looks like the quality mobile content experts say we can expect from 5G will be much appreciated by consumers. Mobile video is more popular than ever, among both consumers and digital advertisers, but the medium is plagued by slow load times and suboptimal ads. That’s per a new report out from mobile video vendor Panthera.

6 Pure-Play Online-to-Offline Attribution Platforms

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In a pure-play model, vendors focus exclusively on a certain number of core competencies. Not only does this help those companies to differentiate themselves from firms with broader offerings, but it also gives brands confidence that the vendor is an expert in the market. As online-to-offline attribution takes off, pure-play vendors are taking the lead in innovation, finding new ways to connect digital campaigns to foot traffic and in-store sales. Here are six vendors making a difference in the space right now.

Commentary

Maps.me Offers Open Source Alternative to Google and Apple Maps

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I’m impressed by the level of detail and by some key differentiators that make Maps.me seem like a fresh approach to mobile navigation. Indeed, I can see the app eventually finding favor in the U.S. marketplace. Even before that happens, local marketers should take note.

Bringing Brands Into the Fold, inMarket Touts Its ‘Three-Sided’ Beacon Network

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inMarket’s strategic product is not the app, the value is created by their network. Their network links dozens of publishers’ apps to retailers that host inMarket beacons and, the third stakeholder in the network, the brands, whose products are being promoted. In this video, CEO Todd DiPaola talks about the importance of this network.

Tackling the Problem of Measurement in Local

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“Google’s always had the disadvantage of being a more complex and opaque product than Facebook,” writes David Mihm, “but it feels like they’ve made almost zero progress on this front in the last eight years.”

Latest Posts

Street Fight Daily: Bing, Yahoo Take Bite of Google’s Search Share, Native Ads Get FTC Guidelines

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Microsoft and Yahoo Search Share Grows, Still Trails Google by Miles (Ad Age)… The FTC Is Cracking Down on Native Advertising (Fortune)… A Former Topsy Employee Has an Interesting Theory on Why Apple Shut Down This $200 Million Acquisition (Business Insider)…

5 Keys to Small Business Success in 2016

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It’s no longer enough to just have a Facebook page or a website that’s optimized for mobile. To stand out in an increasingly competitive marketplace in 2016, local merchants will need to dig in and start using hyperlocal technology to its full potential.

Top 5 Exits in Local Tech of 2015

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The local technology space saw plenty of M&A activity in 2015 and remains poised for another busy year in 2016. Rampant expansion of certain areas such as on-demand services and delivery apps makes further consolidation likely. The startup scene saw its share of healthy — if not billion-dollar — exits as well. Here’s a recap of the five of the biggest exits in the local tech industry in 2015.

Street Fight Daily: Instagram’s Massive Ad Spending, Capitalizing on Consumers’ ‘Zigzagging’ Journeys

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Ad Buyer: Spend on Instagram Has Increased ‘Something Like 11,000%’ Between Q3 and Q4 (Business Insider)… The New ‘Zigzagging’ Customer Journey: Think Local, Act Mobile (GeoMarketing)… Google Plans New, Smarter Messaging App (Wall Street Journal)…

Daily Voice Shows Scale and High CPMs Can Mix in Hyperlocal News

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Trying to scale community news has many pitfalls. Sites that go for scale can end up publishing glorified “bulletin boards” as they seek to spread budget-limited journalistic resources across multiple communities. The end result can be bottom-fishing remnant CPMs that can be as low as $1. Carll Tucker, CEO of six-year-old Daily Voice, which recently expanded into North Jersey, says its scaling model has produced average CPMs that “hover a few pennies under $8.”

10 Top Location-Based Marketing Campaigns of 2015

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Beacons emerged two years ago but only seemed to come into their own in 2015. Despite hurdles to overcome in terms of consumer acceptance, marketers don’t lack impressive numbers for engagement and store visitation, particularly when combined with more commonplace techniques such as geofencing and targeted mobile ads. We asked our friends at GeoMarketing to look back at 10 campaigns that pioneered in the space in the past year.

Street Fight Daily: Foursquare Raising a “Down Round,” Google and Ford Partner for Driverless Cars

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Foursquare Raising Round to Capitalize on Data Business (TechCrunch)… Google Is Partnering with Ford to Build Self-Driving Cars (Business Insider)… With 100,000 Sellers Connected, Square’s App Marketplace Builds a Bridge (TechCrunch)…

ReachLocal Retrenches to Focus on Markets with ‘Potential for Positive, Sustainable Economics’

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Local digital marketing firm ReachLocal has been engaged in a lengthy turnaround effort. It announced last week that it was exiting direct sales in the U.K. and focusing on markets with “potential for positive, sustainable economics.” The announcement indicates ReachLocal is still focused on cutting things that aren’t working rather than regaining growth momentum.

Ad Blockers: One Big Distraction from the Real Issue

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In a year of overblown topics, the grand prize goes to mobile ad blockers. The backlash is not only disproportionate to real impact but also has fueled the wrong conversation. Instead of fighting ad blockers — or fueling them in the case of biased reports — the ad industry should ask itself how it got in this position to begin with.

Street Fight Daily: Amazon Could Launch Air Delivery Service, Yelp’s Stoppelman Goes After Google

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Amazon in Talks to Launch Its Own Air-Cargo Business (Seattle Times)… Google Has Lost Its Mind, Says Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman (Recode)… Etsy Launches Trendy Local Maker Guides for U.S. Cities (The Next Web)…