News and Analysis
Voice is Rising as Medium for Local Discovery
Voice is not only booming as a search tool but also seems to be cannibalizing search volume from the medium that last revolutionized the practice of digital discovery: mobile. That’s the headline from Stone Temple Consulting’s third annual survey of consumers regarding their use of voice-enabled devices.
How Marketers Are Making In-Store Metrics More Reliable
In-store marketing platforms are designed to spit out all different types of metrics. Return-on-ad-spend (ROAS), customer acquisition costs (CAC), cost per visit (CPV), and customer lifetime value (CLV) are just a few of the metrics that marketers regularly track. But how reliable are these metrics, and what do they mean for big-picture business growth? The ad tech company S4M is aiming to answer that question. The company recently released a new feature as part of its FUSIO drive-to-store platform.
Local Search Association Crowns the Best Solutions in Local
At its annual conference in Dana Point, CA, this week, the Local Search Association recognized the best solutions in location-based search and advertising with its annual Ad-to-Action awards. Award winners, who competed in a field of over 80 entries and were selected by judges representing companies such as Google, Amazon, and Walmart, included Brandify, PlaceIQ, and Vendasta.
Commentary
Survey: How National-to-Local Marketers Plan to Grow Their Digital Budgets
Street Fight recently surveyed decision makers at over 200 national-to-local marketers and found nearly half of them spend a third or more of their digital marketing budget in support of their franchises, branch offices, and distributors.
The Context for Contextual Marketing Is Changing
The idea behind contextual marketing makes a lot of sense. But in practice, contextual marketing is getting pretty hairy, especially for location-based marketing. That’s because context is getting more complicated
Google Finally Reveals How to Improve Your Local Ranking
Google has significantly updated its help page on the topic of local ranking to include, for the first time, specific common-sense guidelines showing businesses how they can increase the likelihood that online searchers will find them in Google Maps on desktop and mobile.
Latest Posts
Ad Blocking and iOS 9: How Bad It Could Get and What Publishers Can Do
The impact of Apple’s decision to allow ad blocking apps on devices running the latest version of the company’s mobile operating system continues to reverberate across the advertising and publishing landscape. A recent report by web design and development agency 10up predicts potentially steep revenue losses for publishers. Both advertisers and publishers are closely monitoring user adoption of ad blocking apps and considering possible responses.
Rocket Fuel’s Medici: Within Two Election Cycles, Everything is Going to Be Done Programmatically
“In politics, advertising is definitely still a TV-centric world. But we’re moving in a direction where the voter is going to be a 360-degree touchpoint, and the media accessibility is going to be very easy. Everything is going to be done programmatically, and I think you’ll see that shift within two election cycles,” said Rocket Fuel national director of politics and advocacy JC Medici.
Street Fight Daily: Amazon Launches Etsy Competitor, Controversial Verizon ‘Supercookie’ Is Back
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Amazon Challenges Etsy with Strictly Handmade Marketplace (New York Times)… Verizon to Combine Its ‘Supercookie’ Data with AOL for Online and Mobile Targeting (Marketing Land)… Why a Twitter/Square Hookup Would Make Sense for SMBs (AdExchanger)…
Online Reviews Providing Insights That Help Brands Compete
The evidence is in. Reviews on social media have a material impact on the capital investments made by nationwide brands. The key is strength in numbers: A national brand will be more likely to have the critical mass of reviews required in order to move beyond anecdotal evidence and glean statistically significant results.
Report: Getting the Most out of Hyperlocal Social Media Marketing
A new report from Street Fight Insights found that many local businesses don’t feel they’re getting return on their social media efforts. That’s in spite of the fact that two-thirds of them are using social media for marketing, and many plan to increase their efforts. Companies in the connected local economy value chain looking to best serve merchants should supply them with tools and services to measure the impact and efficiency of their social media marketing programs.
Street Fight Daily: Postmates’ Super-Speedy Food Delivery, Apple Approves Native Ad Blocker
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Postmates Takes on Uber and Sprig with Quick Food Delivery Service Pop (Recode)… Apple Approves an App That Blocks Ads in Native Apps (TechCrunch)… Amazon Commands Almost Half of All Product Searches, and Marketers Are Ignoring Omnichannel (VentureBeat)…
Urgent.ly’s Spanos: On-Demand Is How Everybody’s Going to Get Service for Everything
“I’ve long been a believer that on-demand is going to revolutionize every service sector in the economy. There will be different flavors of it, based on the characteristics of particular verticals. Five years from now, this is how everybody’s going to get service for everything,” said Urgent.ly CEO Chris Spanos.
Editor’s Take: The Perils of Uberization for the Local Economy
On-demand is a convenient rubric for speaking about a certain type of currently faddish platform, but not every underlying service or product is the same. Transportation is not the same as home services or restaurants. By extension, not everything Uber does will work equally well outside of its particular niche. Demand-based pricing is a prime example.
Case Study: Hotel Attracts Luxury Travelers with Guest-Facing Mobile Tech
As London’s boutique Lanesborough Hotel began what would become a 19-month, multi-million dollar refurbishment in 2014, executives started looking for strategic ways to appeal to guests with luxury tastes. To go along with the newly renovated rooms, which reopened in July, the team decided to add a technology component that would be unlike anything travelers had ever experienced.
Street Fight Daily: What Dorsey’s Twitter Gig Means For Square, Google to Roll Out ‘Now on Tap’
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Jack Dorsey’s Dual CEO Role Raises Questions for Square (New York Times)… Now on Tap, Google’s Mobile Search Trojan Horse, Is Out of the Gate (Recode)… Pinterest Expands Buyable Pins to More Ecommerce Platforms, Reaching Thousands of Merchants (TechCrunch)…
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AI Won’t Fix Advertising – It May Scale Its Chaotic Nature