News and Analysis
Loyalty Solution Narvar Acquires Kronos Care, Expands in Europe
Customer engagement and loyalty solution Narvar, which has tripled in size over the last year, announced on Tuesday its acquisition of Kronos Care, a fellow customer engagement startup founded in just 2017. The move will help Narvar conquer the European market, bolstered by the local expertise of the Paris-based Kronos.
Kroger CEO Offers Closer Look at Grocery Giant’s Tech Innovation at NRF 2019
Among Kroger’s latest innovation is a partnership with online grocer Ocado. Kroger is licensing Ocado’s technology—the only grocer in the United States to do so—in order to benefit from its digital-native mastery of automated warehouse operations and on-demand delivery. The company will be expanding its number of warehouses powered by Ocado’s technology in 2019.
Google Appears to Test Netflix-Like Personalization Score for Local Businesses
Just as Netflix displays match scores in the arena of entertainment, showing users a percentage indicating how likely they are to enjoy a new film or TV show, Google appears to be testing a feature that shows searchers how likely they are to enjoy a local business.
Commentary
Rating Street Fight’s 2015 Predictions
At the end of each year, Street Fight invites staffers, friends, and luminaries from the industry to share their predictions for what’s in store for the coming year. Today, we take a look back at some of the predictions for 2015 to see who was on target and who missed the mark.
Street Fight Hyperlocal Analyst Predictions for 2016
With 2015 drawing to a close, it’s time again to look ahead to what we can expect in the hyperlocal space in 2016. This year, we did things a little differently. We invited our regular analyst contributors to 1) weigh in on what they felt would be a “sure thing” in the coming year, 2) offer a prediction on something that might get big (but might not happen), and 3) identify something that hyperlocal marketers and merchants really don’t need to worry about. This is the first of several predictions pieces we will feature this week.
Ad Blockers: One Big Distraction from the Real Issue
In a year of overblown topics, the grand prize goes to mobile ad blockers. The backlash is not only disproportionate to real impact but also has fueled the wrong conversation. Instead of fighting ad blockers — or fueling them in the case of biased reports — the ad industry should ask itself how it got in this position to begin with.
Latest Posts
Prompt.ly Launches App to Help ‘Solopreneurs’ Manage Their (Very) Small Businesses
The platform, which provided scheduling, invoicing, payments and promotions, recently launched a mobile app that helps very small business owners — what CEO Richard Titus calls “solopreneurs” — easily manage their businesses on their phone.
Street Fight Daily: Uber Reportedly Losing Money Despite VC Success, Yelp and ProPublica Team Up
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Here Are the Internal Documents that Prove Uber Is a Money Loser (Gawker)… ProPublica Teams Up With Yelp to Make It Easier to Find Good Local Health Care Services (NiemanLab)… Here’s How Facebook Is Turning Its Local Ad Unit Into a Customer Service Channel (AdWeek)…
5 Dashboards for Monitoring Nearby Social Content
Social media has become a go-to channel for small business marketing, but whether a business is successful at achieving its campaign goals depends largely on strategy. Here are five examples of location-based social monitoring dashboards that merchants can try.
Bringg CTO: Delivering On-Demand Experiences ‘Never Existed Before’
The emergence of on-demand applications has set a new standard for convenience that has left existing companies struggling to keep up with on-demand startups. Street Fight recently caught up with Bringg’s CTO Lior Sion to talk about the market opportunity for local on-demand.
Street Fight Daily: The Evolution of Groupon, Target Tests Beacons
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… The Rise, Fall, and Improbable Comeback Strategy of Groupon (Eater)… Target Testing Beacons to Provide In-Store Shoppers Coupons, Recommendations (Minneapolis StarTribune)… Instacart Makes Its First Acquisition With “Acqui-hire” Of App Maker Wedding Party (TechCrunch)…
INFOGRAPHIC: A Quick, Deep Dive Into Local Optometrists
Local optometrists in the U.S. number some 33,000 businesses and generate an estimated $15B in annual sales at an average of $450k per year. The industry is growing at 5% annually, but it’s under considerable pressure from the likes of Amazon and Warby Parker.
6 Strategies for Growing a Business Using App Analytics
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
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
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
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?
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