News and Analysis

Adjust Leverages AI to Neutralize Ad Fraud

Advertisers and brands are expected to lose an estimated $50 billion as a result of ad fraud by 2025, with one of the most problematic types of ad fraud involving bots designed to mimic human behaviors. Using bots, fraudsters can imitate clicks and engagement KPIs on ad campaigns, wreaking havoc for mobile ad vendors and the advertisers that work with them. So what’s the solution? Firms like Unbotify are pioneering a new approach to bot detection and digital fraud prevention using artificial intelligence and machine learning. Unbotify’s solution analyzes human behavior patterns within websites’ and mobile apps’ user flows in order to differentiate between bots and humans.

Data Science as a Solution: conDati Opens Doors for Digital Retailers

The pitch is that today’s marketers with omnichannel inspirations need a machine learning-driven platform that will not only assess the success of campaigns across several media but also point them toward paths for future success. That’s an expensive technical infrastructure to create in-house, and conDati’s betting its solution is worth the spend.

Want to Know How Long the Wait For that Hot New Restaurant Is? There’s a Google Integration for That

Building on the Reserve with Google offerings that have made the tech giant’s SERPs the new homepage of local businesses, Google seems to be adding a feature that allows people searching for local restaurants to sign up for a waitlist. Busy folks with a penchant for busy eateries rejoice. 

Commentary

Brands, Meet the Data Amplifiers

Data amplifiers distribute and publish your data to a broader audience than you could ever do on your own — what I call the “network effect.” Your brand becomes more visible because your business data becomes more open and accessible to the influencers who are in a position to help customers find your business.

Retailers Shift Focus to Offline Affiliate Marketing

Location analytics represent the new battleground in retail, but imagine if you could apply the same analytics for online attribution to offline purchases. Offline affiliate marketing does just that, giving retailers the tools to analyze data from in-store purchases similar to what they can do for online purchases.

Yodle Weighs in on How Google’s SERP Change Has Affected Online Ads for SMBs

With a few weeks of empirical data, we now have a much clearer sense of how or if this change has affected local AdWords campaigns. At Yodle, we have seen a negligible effect on the performance metrics of the search engine marketing (SEM) campaigns we run on behalf of our local small business clients.

Latest Posts

Street Fight Daily: Thumbtack Is Now a Unicorn, Amazon Leverages Existing On-Demand Workforce

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Thumbtack Becomes Latest Unicorn, Raises $125 Million at $1.25 Billion Valuation (Forbes)… Amazon Taps ‘On-Demand’ Workers for One-Hour Deliveries (Wall Street Journal)… Walmart Doubles Down on Online Grocery Shopping with Curbside Pickup (TechCrunch)…

Redpoint Ventures’ Dharmaraj: There Will Be Many Different Craigslists

“It’s about establishing trust and community. I think there will be many different Craigslists, each for your own local community. That’s where something big can be built in the local space — a Craigslist that’s organized by neighborhoods, rather than by cities,” said Redpoint Ventures partner Satish Dharmaraj about local “unicorns” waiting to emerge.

Street Culture: HR Strategies for Startups

Hiring isn’t rocket science. It’s pretty simple to create basic procedures that turn hiring into a standard company practice. But it does takes time and concerted effort. For Cat Hernandez, talent partner at investment firm Primary Venture Partners, it starts with making sure that everyone in the company is closely aligned with whatever the company is trying to achieve.

Street Fight Daily: Google’s New Ad Targeting Techniques, Uber Launches UberEVENTS

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Google Targets Intent with Email, YouTube, and Search Matching and App Campaigns (TechCrunch)… UberEVENTS is Launching in New York (Tech.Co)… How Much of Your Audience Is Fake? (Bloomberg)…

Openings and New Hires at Yext, Acquisio, and ServiceTitan

Every two weeks, Geoff Michener covers some of the latest job changes taking place in this dynamic industry. In this week’s column, Yext hires a slew of new executives, Acquisio brings on local marketing expert Sebastien Provencher as VP of product, and ServiceTitan appoints a new head of sales.

LBMA Podcast: Apple Buys Mapsense, Wycombe Wanderers Outfits Players with GPS Trackers, Zonetail Raises $2.3 Million

On the show: Apple buys Mapsense; Wycombe Wanderers outfits players with GPS trackers; Pokemon GO brings game to the physical world; Zonetail raises $2.3M; Where2GetIt becomes Brandify. Plus, news from Under Armour, Sports Authority, and MapMyFitness; Socialgist and Foursquare; and AdMobilize and Verizon.

6 Strategies for Segmenting Website Visitors for Real-Time Personalization

Marketing strategies like real-time website personalization have gone mainstream. But marketers still need help understanding the best ways to segment website visitors to get the most out of their personalization efforts. Here are six strategies from three top industry experts that detail how to segment site visitors for real-time personalization.

Street Fight Daily: Goldman Sachs’ Advertising Report, App Search Company Tests Mobile Ads

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Goldman Sachs: Online Advertising About to Be ‘Fundamentally Restructured’ by Apple, Google, and Facebook (Business Insider)… App Search Engine Quixey Now Taking a Crack at Mobile Ads (Recode)… Shopify Partners with U.S. Postal Service to Woo More Retailers (Reuters)…

Same-Day Delivery: The Linchpin in the Battle for the Last Mile of Commerce

Consumers are more impatient and time-starved than ever. At least that’s the impression one could derive from the seemingly unending string of same-day delivery announcements from major retailers, restaurants, convenience-store chains, startup enablers, and technology companies. The driving force behind their renewed focus on ever-shorter delivery windows: conquering the elusive last mile of commerce.

How Hearst Newspapers Became the Leader in Its Peer Group

Under president Mark E. Aldam, Hearst Newspapers is going full bore on digital, creating in-house digital marketing services and betting big on programmatic advertising. In our interview, Aldam explains how Hearst has become a top performer in the still financially challenged newspaper industry.