News and Analysis

Shirking the Tech Giants’ Mobile Wallets, Kroger Unveils One of Its Own

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Kroger is flexing on Apple and Google this week, passing on the opportunity to accept Apple Pay or Google Pay at its stores and choosing instead to launch its own mobile wallet that doubles as a loyalty card, WCPO reported in Columbus.

food

How Online Grocers Are Using AI to Cut Food Prices

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The distinction between real-world supermarkets and online-only grocers has come down to price. The introduction of a new technology to lower prices for consumers may be what the industry needs to finally push it past the tipping point.

Local Search Association Announces New President, Bill Dinan

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The Local Search Association, which brings together over 300 companies intent on connecting enterprises and small businesses alike with consumers, announced on Wednesday morning Bill Dinan as its new president. The announcement follows the retirement of its previous president Neg Norton, who held the role for 15 years.

Commentary

Can Facebook Messenger Become an Effective Local Marketing Platform?

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The pieces are in place for Messenger to become a major new marketing platform. Indeed, the various (mostly mobile) use cases range from customer service to e-commerce. So far, none of my experiences has been great. But there’s huge potential over time.

Why Online Locations Matter Even More in the New Retail Landscape

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In order to compete in the the new information-rich environment, businesses have been presented with a new and complex challenge: to win the battle for consumer attention they have to appear wherever customers are looking.

Displacement and Measuring the Unknown in Multi-Device, Multi-Channel Marketing Attribution

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Now more than ever, conversions are the metric used to measure the value of every pit stop along the customer journey as it moved across multiple devices and channels. Displacement-based attribution strategies help marketers stay in step with consumers.

Latest Posts

#SFSNYC Recap: 5 Key Takeaways from This Year’s Summit

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The annual Street Fight Summit assembled more than 350 marketers, solutions providers, technologists, and media executives to discuss pressing issues and developments in the connected local economy. Here are five key takeaways from the day’s keynotes, panel discussions, and fireside chats.

Street Fight Daily: Uber Seeks to Raise Another $1B, Is Amazon Building Its Own Shipping Network?

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Uber Said to Plan Another $1 Billion in Fundraising (New York Times)… Amazon May Be Building a Team That Will Help It Replace FedEx and UPS (Business Insider)… Mobile Payments Will Triple in the U.S. in 2016 (eMarketer)…

Street Culture: Humility and Good Conversations at Instacart

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On-demand grocery shopping and delivery service Instacart is make headway at disrupting a multi-billion-dollar industry. Driving that effort is a relentless focus on satisfying customers. “One policy we’ve implemented at Instacart is that every employee, from the engineers up to our CEO, goes out shopping once a quarter to get an understanding of being a shopper and how our service affects the customer. Everybody here does it,” says vice president of people Mathew Caldwell.

Openings and New Hires at Thumbtack, Polar, and Yodle

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Every two weeks, Geoff Michener covers some of the latest job changes taking place in this dynamic industry. In this week’s column, Bing loses Duane Forrester, senior product manager in charge of webmaster outreach, newly minted unicorn Thumbtack appoints a CFO and general counsel, Polar hires a Googler as president of international, and Yodle brings on a president for its Brand Networks business.

LBMA Podcast: Pinterest Adds Location to Every Place Pin, Niantic Labs Raises $20M

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On the show: Pinterest Place Pins to add automatic location data; Niantic Labs raises $20 million from Google, Pokémon, and Nintendo; Australia’s Westfield malls and CommBank team up for beacon play; Drinkeasy SMS craft spirits delivery service; Onomichi map provides “cat’s-eye view;” MoveLoot does the heavy lifting; RetailNext acquires Pikato. Plus, news from Shoe Carnival and SIM Partners; Tostitos Canada; and Gimbal and Phigital.

Street Fight Daily: Facebook Wants a Piece of the Search Pie, Alphabet and Amazon Earnings Reports

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Facebook Takes Aim at Search Again (Wall Street Journal)… Google CEO Sundar Pichai Cites “Real Sense of Energy and Focus” for Success (TechCrunch)… Amazon Sales Top Estimates (Bloomberg)…

Sponsored Content: Hyperlocal Strategy Updates Needed for Two National Drug Store Chains

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This month’s Brand Battle, in conjunction with Brandify, compares the local digital marketing footprint of two of the country’s largest pharmacy chains: CVS and Walgreens. The contest was close on several counts, but Walgreens emerged as the winner, edging CVS in five of the six categories evaluated.

The Price of Free Listings

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When the Yellow Pages directory came out once a year, if your business’ phone number was printed incorrectly, you were in trouble. It was the same with local business listings on the internet, except that instead of one or two books, there were thousands of websites carrying your bad data. This added up to a serious headache for multi-location brands and a serious opportunity for solutions providers that could bring order to the free business listings chaos. Here’s a look at how listings management has evolved.

5 Programmatic Ad Buying Platforms for SMBs

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Programmatic buying has a reputation for being geared toward large-scale advertisers buying high volumes of impressions. But more vendors are developing programmatic solutions aimed directly at the SMB market. Here are five platforms that give smaller advertisers the ability to plan, buy, and target digital ads in real-time.

Street Fight Daily: Amazon Gets Creative with Delivery, Dissecting Starbucks’ Mobile Success

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Amazon Tested Package Delivery by Newspaper Trucks (Wall Street Journal)… Why Starbucks’ Order and Pay Is More Than Milk Froth (TechCrunch)… IAB: First Half 2015 Ad Revenues $27.5 Billion, Search Captures 50 Percent (Search Engine Land)…