News and Analysis

Crack-of-Dawn Black Friday Lines Are Already a Thing of the Past, Data Shows

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How is the increasing appeal of e-commerce and other digital options such as BOPIS—buy online, pick up in-store—affecting retail’s biggest day of the year? One consequence, data from Reveal Mobile indicates, is the end of the notoriously colossal lines that used to mark the beginning of Black Friday. 

What Will AR Mean for Consumer Brands?

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What’s driving AR today? And what does it mean for big consumer brands? Our lead analyst Mike Boland tackles these questions in this week’s Road Map column, which delves into the tech giants’ investments in AR and what they mean for the future of XR-driven brand advertising.

5 Big Takeaways from Black Friday 2018

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As Cyber Monday gets underway, another Black Friday looms behind us. Below are the highlights of brick-and-mortar retail’s big day as we prepare for the windfall expected from its digital counterpart.

Commentary

Why 2016 Will Be a Big Year for iOS 9

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Apple has established a new standard for conducting “nearby” searches, thanks to an enhancement to the Apple Spotlight search functionality. This moves the consumer down the path to purchase in a few significant ways, including proactive local search content and results that change by time of day.

Black Friday Weekend’s Unreported Story: The Rise of ‘Bricks and Clicks’

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The mostly unreported story of Black Friday weekend is that much of the ecommerce growth came from “bricks-and-clicks” retailers, not pure-play e-tailers. The reason: Physical stores offer a critical customer experience and serve as a “brand anchor,” both of which support ecommerce for traditional retailers. Stores drive online sales because they instill a sense of confidence and trust in the consumer.

On-Demand and Deep Linking Becoming More Deeply Linked

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The worlds of on-demand and deep-linking took another step closer when ride-sharing giant Uber announced a new mechanism for app developers to incorporate a button for users to request an Uber driver. Expect to see more of this kind of app integration among on-demand services, giving the market leaders greater scale and distribution.

Latest Posts

6 Strategies for Growing a Business Using App Analytics

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Advertisers are spending $20.7 billion to reach consumers through mobile apps, and they’re looking for ways to measure ROI. We connected with a few industry insiders to ask how marketers should use app analytics to measure the value of their mobile properties.

Street Fight Daily: Google Beacons Could Transform Local Biz, Instagram’s New API

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… How Google Beacons Could Transform Local Business (Search Engine Land)… You’re About To See More Instagram Ads Thanks To Its New API (The Next Web)… The Agency View on Vox Media: ‘The Modern-Day Condé Nast’ (Digiday)…

5 Name-Your-Price Platforms for Local Merchants

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Rather than running storewide sales and discounting more products than necessary, some businesses are taking advantage of name-your-price platforms to sell their goods at whatever price customers are willing to pay.

As McClatchy Goes All In on Digital, Stock Price Sags Further

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In the past several weeks, McClatchy stock has hit record lows — falling from about $5 a year ago to around 80 cents per share now. Why is there such a mismatch between the smart steps the company is taking in digital and its financial performance?

Street Fight Daily: Yahoo Acquires Polyvore, Microsoft Invests $100 Million in Uber

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Yahoo Snags Social Commerce Site Polyvore (Wired)… Microsoft to Invest $100 Million in Uber (Seattle Times)… Attention, Shoppers: Shopping With a Store App Means You’ll Visit More and Stay Longer (Venture Beat)…

What Do the Death of Flash and the Rise of HTML5 Mean for SMB Advertisers?

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HTML5 allows marketers to do more with online display ads than they were able to do before. They can add functionality and interactivity, filling their ads with content and creating something akin to a mini-website delivered across the web.

Openings and New Hires at Yelp, HubSpot and NOMi

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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, Google scoops up a bunch of Homejoy staffers, a biz dev job at Vistar Media, and Gannett is looking for a VP of sales.

LBMA Podcast: UberMedia’s Location Visit Optimization, Carmakers Buy Nokia’s HERE

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On the show: The world’s first virtual reality theme park; the world’s first artificially intelligent ad; MotorMood’s emoticons for drivers; xAd’s Global Location Snapshot; Nordstrom’s rooftoop Instagram installation, and more.

Street Fight Daily: Groupon’s Food Delivery Service, The Missing Online-Offline Link in Retail

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Groupon Challenges GrubHub and Yelp With 10% Off All Delivered Orders (Adweek)… The Missing Link Between Shopper Marketing And E-Commerce (Marketing Land)… A Fragile Moment for Big Media (Recode)…

6 Ways Wearables Will Enhance the Shopping Experience

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In order to take full advantage of the data that wearables provide, businesses need to give consumers a reason to share. Here are six examples of ways that wearables can be leveraged to enhance the shopping experience for customers at brick-and-mortar stores.