News and Analysis

Report: 34% of Ad Impressions Placed on Low-Quality Sites

Reputable brands have pushed back hard against having their ads appear alongside content that goes against their values—for example, advertising running alongside articles or videos about how to complete the Tide PODS challenge—but Gartner L2’s research shows that the pushback hasn’t been effective enough, and the industry still has work to do.

Street Fight Daily: Facebook Releases Slew of Local Features, Here Challenges Google Maps

TODAY IN LOCAL & DIGITAL MARKETING… Facebook Announces Slew of Changes to Boost Local Businesses… Here Attacks Google Maps with New Freemium Website Plan… Alexa Users Are Reportedly Not Buying Anything with Their Voice…

5 Things to Know About Amazon’s Fast-Growing Ad Biz

Search “Amazon advertising,” and the first webpage you’ll find comes from the e-commerce giant itself. The pitch? In a phrase: “Reach millions of customers who find, discover, and buy at Amazon.” It doesn’t get much more compelling than that. Here are five things you need to know about the most legitimate challenge to Google and Facebook’s digital ad dominance. 

Commentary

Phone Leads for Local Businesses: The Unsexy Cousin of the Click (Part II)

Beyond bringing in big leads — and SMBs paying handsomely for them — call monetization will be compelled by something else: Opportunity cost. We forecast call volume to SMBs to explode (65 billion by 2016) as a result of increasing mobile usage trends. That’s going to mean a whole lot of calls to answer…

Why Mobile Marketing Needs to Evolve Past Physical Location

In order for location targeting to be effective, marketers must think beyond just physical location or proximity to their store. It means moving beyond the traditional mindset of ‘who’ you are trying to reach to include ‘where are they,’ ‘what are they doing,’ ‘what are their interests’ or even ‘what might their intentions be,’ based on past behavior…

New Location-Based Services Are Poised to Enter the Mainstream

To a surprising degree, the panels and presenters at Street Fight’s Local Data Summit last week in Denver emphasized a similar theme: we’re about to see a plethora of new technology-enhanced real-life experiences centering on ingenious uses of data. The signal feature this time around is an orientation toward experiences situated in a physical context. The question the new technologies will answer is this: “What do I need my technology to do for me now, in this place, at this time, under these circumstances?”

Latest Posts

LBMA Podcast: Factual Teams With EQ Works, Digital Element Partners With Skyhook

On the show: Bionym pioneers wearable payments; Adsquare raises $4.3M; The NHL is testing virtual Dasherboards; Tip.ly makes tipping a visual thing; Clear Channel offering free content in Singapore; Copresence brings peace to Android and iOS sharing; Boxpark does the pop-up mall. Our resource of the week looks at the impact of Apple Pay on Whole Foods…

Street Fight Daily: Google Kills The Carousel, Facebook’s Local Ambitions

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology…Google Debuts New Look For Hotel Booking Ads As The Carousel Disappears (Search Engine Land)… Facebook’s New Privacy Rules Clear the Way for Payments Push and Location-Based Ads (Recode)… Can Tech Companies Solve Their Temporary Labor Problem? (Pacific Standard)…

‘Legacy’ Publishers Make Big Move Into Content Marketing

Local newspapers and TV broadcasters are making a major innovative leap into the digital space that they hope will bring them big bucks from sponsor-funded content. LMC Executive Director Rusty Coats said member companies are confident that the funded content will become “a major source of [their] digital revenue.”

5 Strategies for Leveraging Digital Circulars

Making the migration from print to digital circulars is easier said than done, and many retailers are still left with questions over how best to take advantage of hyperlocal technology in this arena. Here are five strategies for how retailers can leverage digital circulars to their full advantage, during the upcoming holiday season and beyond…

Street Fight Daily: On-Demand’s Labor Problem, Square Drops Free

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology…Handy Sued For Being a Hellscape of Labor Code Violations (ValleyWag)… Square Eschews Free, Starts $29 Pre-Orders For Chip-Based Card Readers (TechCrunch)… HomeAway Integrates Gogobot, Uber and Instacart Into Mobile Services (Skift)…

In First Acquisition, SocialRadar Snaps Up Location Tech Firm

Location analytics startup SocialRadar, founded by Blackboard founder Michael Chasen, has made its first acquisition. The company has come to terms with Gridskippr, a startup specializing in location management and mobile advertising technology for smartphone apps…

Interconnectivity and the Mobile Mind Shift

We hear a lot these days about the massive transition in consumer attention from desktop to mobile devices. That transition is an undeniable reality, but it would be a mistake to assume that it’s just about mobile devices themselves. What the smartphone has done is to enable a change in mental attitude when it comes to the use and consumption of online services…

VIDEO: Hyperlocal Media 2.0 — Events and Email?

The sale of AOL’s local media network, Patch, earlier this year marked something of an end to a lot of the optimism that once surrounded hyperlocal media. As local media veteran Jim Brady says, the category entered the “huddle for warmth” phase of its lifecycle. But a more optimistic tone has begun to return to the industry…

VIDEO: No Solicitors Please! How to Sell Services to SMBs

During a panel at Street Fight Summit, GoDaddy’s Rene Reinsberg, Facebook’s SMB director Jonathan Czaja, and Vendasta’s CEO Brendan Kind discussed strategies and tactics to cut through the clutter and build trust with small business customers…

VIDEO: Ebay’s Ramadge Says Winning Trust is Key to Winning in Local

During a keynote at Street Fight Summit in New York City last week, David Ramadge, head of venture outreach at eBay, offered a fascinating look at the shift in digital economy from global networks to connected “village economies…