Commentary
When It Comes to Mobile Local Search and SMBs: Mind the Gap
Mobile is inherently local and thus conducive to location-based, high-intent user engagement, all of which appeals to many SMBs. B ut mobile also exacerbates their paradox of choice. That’s why there is a big opportunity for third parties to help SMBs get there. That can be marketing or SEO consultants, but the real opportunity is for the local media organizations with deep roots and existing relationships with SMBs…
Why Cars Could Be the Next Big Platform for Local Search
Amid praise and criticism of the flatter design of Apple’s newest mobile operating system, the company quietly introduced a potentially transformative feature in iOS7: iOS in the Car. Pedestrian-friendly cities like New York and San Francisco may prove a fertile breeding grounds for local discovery apps like Foursquare, but it’s the suburban car-bound consumer that presents the biggest opportunity for local technology companies today, including …
The Good and Bad of Local Discovery on Our Summer Road Trip
Greetings from a summer road trip in the Pacific Northwest. Amid games of twenty questions and alphabet animals, we have faced the typical needs of the traveler: shelter, food, gas, and fun. Naturally, we’ve turned to local search, just like the other 31% of leisure travelers (up from 18% in 2010). I’ve written mainly about local search on the homefront and travel is another kind of use case entirely, one that in many ways has been “solved” by existing services — but has it? In our experience, you often have to be creative to get what you need…
Latest Posts
The Impact of Google’s Local Update Is Still a Developing Story
Google seems to be experimenting with driving more traffic to its local competition, meaning that it’s more important than ever for a business to secure its presence across a broad base of directories. The value proposition of local SEO does not change in a fundamental way, given that Google has long used citation consistency as a prominent local ranking signal…
Study: Consumers Increasingly Receptive to Mobile Ads
A new study released by xAd and Telmetrics finds that consumer engagement with mobile ads has increased dramatically over the past few years. Nearly 50% of mobile shoppers said that they found mobile ads informative/helpful — up from 22% in 2013. In addition, nearly half of respondents who clicked on mobile ads said they went on to take secondary actions (like viewing a website or searching for additional information)…
The Data, Apps, and Science of Successful Marketing
VentureBeat’s inaugural event on the future of marketing tech — is gathering the industry’s biggest names at the Hotel Nikko in San Francisco on Aug. 5-6 to uncover new case studies, insights, and strategies designed to help companies more effectively acquire and retain customers and grow revenue. Click for more info and a discount code…
Apple Will Beef Up Privacy in iOS 8 — Here’s What It Means for Local
When Apple unveiled iOS 8 last month, only brief mentions were made of iBeacon, the company’s much-hyped proximity messaging protocol. But early versions of the software released to developers in July suggest that the forthcoming operating system could include changes with implications for stakeholders across the commerce, advertising, and retail technology industries…
5 Tools for Cross-Device Ad Targeting
Ad targeting was relatively straightforward back when consumers relied exclusively on their desktops to consume online content. But as the number of gadgets owned by consumers has increased over time, ad targeting has become considerably more complicated. Here are five companies that offer cross-device tracking for advertisers…
Street Fight Daily: Zillow Buys Trulia for $3.5B, Yelp Adds Videos to Reviews
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Zillow to Buy Trulia for $3.5 Billion in All-Stock Deal (New York Times)… Yelp’s Newest Feature Adds Videos To Your Restaurant Reviews (BusinessInsdier)… Startups Uber and Airbnb Court Business Travelers (Wall Street Journal)…
The Sharing Economy Goes Behind the Counter
We tend to think of the sharing economy as a consumer movement that helps us hail a ride or find a place to stay. But the basic logic driving the shift will soon start to impact the more mundane aspects of small business, allowing merchants to enjoy some of the advantages of scale that their larger competitors do…
How Customer Retention Plays a Key Role in SMB Marketing
Approximately 60% of SMBs spend the majority of their annual marketing budgets on customer retention, because it delivers such a strong return on investment. Within customer retention, email marketing is considered the most effective digital marketing tactic, followed by social media and content marketing…
Street Fight Daily: Google’s Local Algorithm, Amazon’s Square Competitor
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Google “Pigeon” Updates Local Search Algorithm With Stronger Ties To Web Search Signal (SearchEngineLand)… Amazon Set to Launch Square-competitor in August as it Develops Biometric Payment Solutions (9to5Mac)… Car-Hailing Service, Lyft, Reaches Deal to Operate in New York City (New York Times)…
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The Road Ahead: What Autonomous Cars Teach Us About Marketing Automation