News and Analysis
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.
This Company is Forging a New Path for Digital Advertising with a Focus on Consumer Consent
Brave is an example of how privacy-forward digital advertising business models that foreground consumer content can work for all parties. Users are not tracked all over the Web and choose how many ads they would like to see; they will also soon get rewards. In return, advertisers can be sure that the people seeing their advertisements are actually interested in looking at ads, and they can also boost loyalty or reach new customers by offering rewards for ad viewing.
Perhaps most importantly, with GDPR in place for more than a year and CCPA and other state privacy laws in the works, advertisers and platforms are less likely to get sued.
Commentary
How Facebook Finally Reconciled Commerce and Connections
The social media giant recently rolled out a suite of new experiences for Facebook Pages — most powered by third party technologies. These collaborations mean more engagement, visibility, and revenue for the companies that provide them; but what does it mean for Facebook?
Building the Essential Digital Marketing Bundle for Local Businesses
“Last time we identified our essential digital bundle for small businesses,” says David Mihm to Mike Blumenthal. “This week I thought we might tackle how agencies and media companies might go about building and selling that bundle — and why there seem to be so few who are actually doing it.”
Local’s Next Hurdle: The Impressionable Use Fallacy
No matter how good the targeting, creative, and “right person, right place,” the vast majority of our time contains urgencies that render us immune to push-based mobile ads. It’s basically a question of how often we’re actually idle, and therefore impressionable to being rerouted from a deliberate course.
Latest Posts
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.
Street Fight Daily: Facebook Puts Focus on Pages for SMBs, Smartphone Purchases Set to Surge
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Inside Facebook’s Push to Make Pages the Dominant Mobile Tool for SMBs (Street Fight)… Print’s Dead — But So Is Digital (USA Today)… Most Digital Buyers Will Make Purchases via Smartphone by 2017 (eMarketer)…
Lesson From Yodle’s Acquisition: Scaling SMB Performance Marketing Isn’t So Easy
While the acquisition is likely welcome news for Yodle’s backers and Web.com’s shareholders, the resounding message for SMB performance marketing vendors is one of caution. The real problem facing large performance marketing vendors like Yodle is that of customer retention.
Street Fight Daily: Alibaba Buys 5.6% of Groupon, Apple and Google Struggle for Upper Hand
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Alibaba Gets New Learning Opportunity with 5.6% Stake in Groupon (Bloomberg)… ‘Apple’s Bargaining Power Over Google Is Weaker Than Previously Thought’ (Business Insider)… The Battle for App-Specific Maps (VentureBeat)…
Openings and New Hires at Factual, Yext, xAd and ZypMedia
Every two weeks, Geoff Michener covers some of the latest job changes taking place in this dynamic industry. This week’s edition includes a new company for SinglePlatform founder Wiley Cerilli, a new gig at Soleo for Jovana Riddle, and a chief people officer appointment at Verve.
Raise Report: Fresh Funding for Branch Metrics, Spotcap, Geofeedia
Every two weeks, we round up some of the biggest fundraises taking place in hyperlocal marketing, commerce, and tech. This week’s edition includes new cash infusions for IdealSpot, The Bouqs, and JANDI.
LBMA Podcast: Citymapper, Land Rover, Indoo.rs, and Micello
On the show: Order Domino’s from Amazon Echo; Los Angeles GeoHub; Ace Hotel + WeTransfer; Starbreeze’s Starcade virtual reality arcade; Land Rover’s #hibernot Instagram campaign; Screenvision & Mobiquity bring beacons to the movies.
Street Fight Daily: Web.com to Acquire Yodle, Foursquare Latest to Embrace On-Demand Delivery
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Web.com to Buy Online Advertising Firm Yodle (Wall Street Journal)… Foursquare Adds Deep-Linking Integration with Delivery.com (The Next Web)… Groupon Soars 23% on Favorable Earnings (TechCrunch)…
CourseHorse Co-Founder: People Are Spending Locally in Adult Education
The company, which recently raised $4 million in Series B funding, powers a local discovery engine connecting students and classes (and taking a commission on every registration). Street Fight spoke to co-founder Nihal Parthasarathi about the various local opportunities in ed tech and adult education.
The Physical Web: How a New Type of Beacon Is Disrupting Proximity Marketing
The newer Eddystone-URL is truly disruptive. This web approach, also called the Physical Web, follows the unstoppable trend toward lessening friction, and will ultimately be the dominant beacon technology. Marketers should be aware of this trend.
Street Fight’s Big 3
Street Fight Columns
Street Fight Categories
AI Won’t Fix Advertising – It May Scale Its Chaotic Nature