News and Analysis
What Is 5G? Some Facts and Marketing Implications
As the next generation in mobile connectivity, 5G should promise smoother data transmission, higher-quality mobile streaming, and more efficient energy usage. And it’s those benefits consumers are excited about, newly available data from Verizon Media indicates, with 72% of surveyed consumers excited about faster data transfer speeds and 57% eager for higher-definition video content. But industry watchdogs are skeptical.
How Brands Are Using AI to Fight Back Against Dark Marketing
According to some estimates, as many as 85% of Facebook ads and 60% of YouTube ads are hidden from public view. The practice is even more common on Twitter, where an estimated 90% of ads are hidden. What does that mean, exactly? Rather than posting their messages publicly, major brands are creating social media posts or sponsored content that is only shown to targeted audiences. Unlike organic or boosted posts, these targeted ads don’t show up on the company’s timelines or all of their followers’ feeds.
Consumers Willing to Forgo Privacy, For a Price
New research indicates that consumers are actually more aware of how their personal information is being used today than they were last year, with those ages 55 and above showing the greatest level of awareness. These consumers are increasingly willing to share their personally identifiable information with brand marketers—with one caveat. They want a reward for doing it.
Commentary
Making Sense of Google’s Changes that Just Blew Up Online Ads for Local Businesses
There’s really no way to overstate what a massive change Google’s ad reconfiguring is for everyone in the SEM industry. But it’s going to have a more profound — and even devastating — effect on locally-oriented businesses who had relied on Adwords as a key marketing tool.
How the Google My Business API Changes the Local Ecosystem
The move is a good thing for business owners but even more so for Google itself, which in providing a better means to gather data from business owners will improve the freshness and accuracy of its data.
Location Data Management 101: Seeing the Bigger Picture
Many brands make the mistake of viewing location data as nothing more than plumbing for their local listings — or a component of a listing management strategy. But location data management is much bigger than listing management and data syndication.
Latest Posts
LBMA Podcast: Ikea’s Twitter Vending Machines, Nomadic Uno’s CEO
On the show: SmarTone Telecom complicates the KISS principle; SeeLight helps the blind cross the street; Area360 raises $3.5M; Yogrt rakes in $3M. Plus news from Mondelez Shopper Futures, Unacast and Coke, Walgreens, InMarket, Millennial Media, and AOL.
Street Fight Daily: Google Introduces Android Pay, Foursquare Wants to ‘Fake’ Beacon Tech
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Android Pay Is Finally Here (Huffington Post)… Dennis Crowley Explains Foursquare’s New ‘Magic Trick’ (Business Insider)… Uber’s Chinese Rival Quietly Backs Its U.S. Rival Lyft (Wall Street Journal)…
7 Tools SMBs Can Use to Track Leads
When local merchants spend big on digital marketing, they expect to see results. Without using the appropriate tracking technology, however, it can be downright impossible to determine whether a marketing method is working. Here are seven options, each for a different type of business or marketing scenario.
Is Local a Specialist or a Full-Service Game?
Local startups have reached a tipping point — go big, or go home. The fifth annual Street Fight Summit on Oct. 20th in NYC will explore the shifting local landscape. Conversations will look at the future of beacons, retail marketing, the changing programmatic landscape, and the nascent battle in mobile.
The Same, Only More So: Apple Introduces Comprehensive Refresh of Mobile, Wearables and TV
If there is a specifically local business implication to the new products and services, it lies in this deeper level of integration with a more mobile world, where the nimbleness of apps (think computing lite) gives everyone the ability to customize and communicate on the fly.
Street Fight Daily: Analyzing Yesterday’s Apple Event, Square Plans Q4 IPO
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… The Same, Only More So: Apple Introduces Comprehensive Refresh of Mobile, Wearables, and TV (Street Fight)… Square Said to Seek Fourth-Quarter IPO as Twitter Decision Looms (Bloomberg)… It’s Not ‘Winner-Take-All’ for Uber or Lyft, Says the Only Investor in Both (Business Insider)…
Swipely CEO: We Want to Provide the Operating Platform That Restaurants Run On
“If you’re not going to fundamentally improve the guest experience, then there’s really no motivation for either the consumer to change the way that they’re buying in the restaurant or for the merchant to replace the operating practices they have,” said Swipely CEO Angus Davis about mobile payments.
Street Culture: YP Hits ‘Refresh’ Button on Employee Connections
Changing a deep-seated corporate culture takes time. Just ask YP, where renewed internal communications, education and community-building efforts have paid off in a big way.
Street Fight Daily: Google Will Test Grocery Delivery, How Facebook’s Pages Update Affects SMBs
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Google Becomes a Rival to Amazon to Deliver Your Fresh Fruits and Veggies (Mashable)… Facebook Update Means More Shopping Pages Are on the Way (Recode)… Amazon Launches a Food Delivery Service Via Prime Now, Starting in Seattle (TechCrunch)…
The Not-So-Low-Hanging Fruit: Why the Local Market Remains Elusive
“The great challenge of winning the local market boils down to balancing sufficient reach and scale with specificity,” writes Noah Elkin, who is joining Street Fight today as managing editor. “It turns out thinking globally and acting locally isn’t always easy — as a consumer or a marketer.”
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Meta Is Automating Ads, But Brands Still Face a Bigger Problem