News and Analysis
After Foursquare Acquisition, Placed Founder David Shim Talks Teaming Up With a Major Competitor
How did a Seattle-based ad tech company move up the ranks to become an industry darling, less than eight years after its launch? And how does the new relationship between Foursquare and Placed, which was previously the biggest competitor to the company’s Foursquare Attribution product, impact the location industry at large?
To find out, we caught up with Placed founder and CEO—and now president of Foursquare—David Shim. Here are his thoughts on what it’s like to go through an acquisition, and how two industry heavyweights who’ve competed for years are finding new ways to work together.
Report: Huge Hole in Location Data Market for O2O Attribution
Good news for the whole location-based marketing industry—a new report from location data firm Factual based on a survey of location data buyers finds the field is getting more effective and better at measuring its results. Nearly 9 in 10 marketers said location data is driving more effective campaigns. Eighty-six percent said it’s growing their customer base, and 84% reported higher customer engagement.
However, while use of location-based marketing is set to grow to 94%, only 24% use it or are planning to use it to establish offline attribution.
5 Privacy-Focused Data Marketplaces
Just 27% of adults feel like they have “some control” over how their personal data is used by mobile apps and services, according to a recent survey by Mobile Ecosystem Forum. The desire to have more say over how personal data is used is leading to a new technology vertical, as next-generation data brokers put together marketplaces where consumers can offer up their own data to brands in exchange for cash and other lucrative incentives.
Here are five examples of services that consumers are using to take control of the data they share with advertisers and keep their private information private.
Commentary
The Accelerating Consolidation of the Digital Ad Market
“The flow of dollars from businesses of all sizes has clearly been away from lower-performance niche platforms into boosted Facebook posts,” writes David Mihm. “We can debate the value of that activity, but relative to the questionable/delayed/opaque performance of so many digital ad products, Facebook seems to have found a sweet spot.”
Just How Big a Deal Are Voice Search and Chatbots for Local?
At Street Fight Summit we raised a little controversy around the potential disruptiveness of voice search to the hyperlocal economy. Street Fight believes voice search is a critical emerging technology, a view that seemingly contrasts with that of many companies on the supply side of hyperlocal.
Reimagining the Mobile Banner: In-App Ad Innovation Spares Brands from Google’s Interstitial Pinch
The future of our work is about designing smarter ways to reach users, so we need to focus on ways to drive engagement, not distraction. And that means finding subtle things that trigger the meaningful interactions. This isn’t 1999; we’re not building banners for last century’s desktop.
So, as January 10 approaches, let’s look at some creative models from the app side of the table
Latest Posts
As Local Search Behavior Evolves, Marketing Spending Will Follow
Merchants and marketers have to be findable and present useful information regardless of the searcher’s context. And that’s where the mechanics of local search marketing get messy. It feels like a great opportunity for tools and managed services that help break down those silos, and measure effectiveness across or between them.
It’s Been a Long Slog, but Digital News Publishers Are Beginning to Innovate
News publishers get beat up regularly for not making a successful journalistic transition from their palmy print days to the hotly competitive digital era. And they certainly deserve it. But I think Neal Mann’s recent full-metal-jacket attack on them in Medium was way over the top.
Street Fight Daily: AOL Merges All Publishing Products, the Scope of Uber’s International Disruption
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… AOL Is Combining All of Its Publisher Products (Business Insider)… Why Uber’s Rushing Into Deliveries Could Reap $24.6B Internationally (Forbes)… For Some Sprint Customers, Watching Ads Cuts Phone Bill (Wall Street Journal)…
Report: Beacon Use Growing, Industry on Track to Deploy Nearly 400 Million by 2020
“The number of sensors is increasing quarter by quarter,” said Unacast co-founder and CEO Thomas Walle. “A lot of companies are still in testing and trialing, but we’re moving out of that phase and into full commercial deployments.”
Basket President: App’s Crowdsourced Price Information Empowers Shoppers
“The difference in prices between stores in a five-mile radius can be as much as 50 percent, based on in-store unadvertised specials, advertised specials, and variance in list price,” says Andy Ellwood. His company, Basket, has built “a massive database” that allows the company to display that price information back to consumers.
Street Fight Daily: How Ad Blocking Affects Ecommerce, Is Food Delivery the New Gold Rush?
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Ecommerce Links Become the Latest Unlikely Casualty of Ad Blocking (Digiday)… The Food Delivery Wars: A Little Bit of History Repeating? (PYMNTS.com)… FiveStars Gets $50M to Help Small Retailers Run Loyalty Programs Like Their Bigger Rivals (TechCrunch)…
6 Social Media Tactics that Reduce Marketing Costs for SMBs
In addition to generating leads, building brand awareness, and adding credibility to a business, a well-implemented social strategy should also lower a merchant’s overall marketing expenses. Social media is oftentimes less expensive than other types of marketing, and can easily be used to leverage a merchant’s complimentary marketing programs.
Street Culture: Startups Bring the ‘Sharing Economy’ to Commercial Real Estate
Commercial real estate has so far been slow to adopt technology solutions, sticking with many of its traditional roles and processes to navigate a crowded, demanding market. But new companies like PivotDesk, TheSquareFoot, Fundrise, and PeerRealty are starting to change that.
LBMA Podcast: Euclid Analytics, Foursquare, and Vistaprint
On the show: Are you ready for a drive-thru supermarket?; GoInStore; Lyft partners with National MedTrans Network; EyeQ to make waves at NRF; 7Eleven helps corrupt with rewards; Google creating a virtual reality division; Shelfbucks acquires Emmoco.
Street Fight Daily: Starbucks’ Continued Mobile Success, UberEats Announcement Targets GrubHub
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Starbucks Mobile Program Reaches 6M Orders Per Month (GeekWire)… GrubHub Stock Hits an All-Time Low After Uber Announces Food Delivery App (Business Insider)… Google Paid Apple $1 Billion to Keep Search Bar on iPhone (Bloomberg)…
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