News and Analysis
Street Fight Daily: Google Cedes Some Control of AMP, How Important Are Online Reviews?
TODAY IN LOCAL & DIGITAL MARKETING AND MEDIA… Google Is Giving Up Some Control of the AMP Format… Heard on the Street, Episode 12: How Important Are Online Reviews?… After Amazon Storefronts, A Self-Service Suite of Ad Tools…
Street Fight Daily: Amazon Gets into SMB Goods, Leading Travel Reviews Site Pivots to Social
TODAY IN LOCAL & DIGITAL MARKETING AND MEDIA… Amazon Wants to Take Over Every Aspect of Shopping. Next Up? Small Businesses… TripAdvisor Wants to Become Your Social Media Network for Travel… Shoppable Billboards: Retailers Say Physical Stores are Driving Online Sales…
Commentary
Mobile Payments Still Facing the Same Big Obstacles
This year has been a turning point in mobile payments, as Square, Paypal, along with Apple and others like SoftCard (formerly ISIS) have all made strides in their digital payment offerings. But three years after starting a now-defunct mobile payments company, I’ve identified three big reasons why we will not be paying with our phone in everyday retail stores for a long time to come…
Is Apple Pay Set to Power On-Demand Local Services?
Apple Pay’s value as a conduit for local on-demand will be determined by how many apps consumers transact with daily or weekly. If the answer is many, its value as a single entry point to all those apps and services will be validated…
The Power of Visual Appeal in Local Search
Images are more compelling to the average user than any other medium of communication. Though users may visit local search sites and apps with the conscious intent of seeking out text-based information such as phone numbers, hours, and addresses, visual content encountered along the way may have a greater influence than textual information on deciding which businesses to visit…
Latest Posts
Is There Such a Thing as ‘Too Local’ in SEO?
All things in moderation, including your geo-targeting. There are some instances where every single business should embrace local strategies, but if you go too local, you might miss out on some great clients and projects…
Street Fight Daily: Yahoo’s Local Search Struggles, Facebook Doubles Mobile Revenue
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Has Yahoo! Just Given Up on Local/Mobile Search? (Screenwerk)… Facebook Doubles Mobile Ad Revenue, but Costs Also Rise (Recode)… Is 2015 the Year of the Regional Super Bowl Ad? (AdWeek)…
Here’s How Marketers Are Using Mobile This Super Bowl
In an age when marketers can reach a hundred million people each day by lunchtime, the draw of the Super Bowl’s 184 million viewers has lost some of its luster. But Madison Avenue is focusing on another number: $14.3 billion. That’s the amount that consumers plan to spend on food, beer and other goods for the big game…
How Hyperlocal Tech Is Reviving Brick-and-Mortar Sales
Retailers have a plethora of customer data and technologies at their disposal which can be effectively combined to personalize the brick-and-mortar shopping experience. By tapping into the rich analytics and capabilities of these cross-functional offerings, they can be well positioned to regain market share..
Street Fight Daily: Facebook Ditches Clicks, Village Voice On The Block
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Here’s How Facebook Plans to Help Brands Find Out When Their Ads Actually Worked (AdWeek)… Village Voice Parent Company Will Explore Sale Of Papers (Poynter)… Apple Maps Connect For Small Businesses Expands Beyond The U.S. (9to5Mac)…
Zomato Lays Groundwork for a Stateside Push — With Yelp in the Crosshairs
Last week, Zomato bought UrbanSpoon in a move that thrust the Indian restaurants-only reviews company into the North American spotlight. We caught up with Deepinder Goyal, the company’s chief executive, to talk about why he thinks food search is shifting to discovery…
As SMB Investment in Digital Increases, So Does the Need for Better Performance Metrics
With all the noise in local marketing, how can SMBs reliably answer the ROI question? How can they increase the signal-to-noise ratio in their marketing metrics even as they increase their investments in online marketing? A good place to start is by focusing on one metric, above all else: Lead Acquisition Cost…
Street Fight Daily: Beacons Retarget Ads, Mobile Wallets Eye Loyalty
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology…Now Advertisers Can Use Beacons To Make The Shoes You Were Looking At Inside A Physical Store Follow You Around The Internet (Business Insider)… The Next Step for the Mobile Wallet? Loyalty Programs (Wall Street Journal)… Let’s Stop Laughing At Groupon (Fortune)…
Why Instacart’s $2 Billion Valuation Doesn’t Spell Bubble
No story has rekindled concerns about valuations like the ascent of Instacart, a local logistics firm whose recently raised $220 million at a $2 billion dollar valuation. We caught up with Instacart’s Nilam Ganenthiran to talk about how a delivery network could reshape the competitive landscape of local grocery markets…
Local Marketing a Rising Priority for National Brands
A new research microstudy commissioned by leading local marketing platform Balihoo and Gatepoint Research found that national brands across a variety of industries understand that driving consumers to locations or local agents is critical to their overall marketing strategy — and that local marketing efforts outperform national campaigns…


















































The Local Media Paradox: Turning Community Trust into Measurable Confidence