News and Analysis
Why Google’s Mobile Speed Update Smells Like Trouble for Small Businesses
The murky guidelines surrounding just whom and how many people and sites the mobile speed update may affect—and how exactly businesses in the line of fire are to amend unsatisfactory practices—spells potential trouble for small businesses.
Groupon Reportedly Puts Itself on the Market
Groupon, the early pioneer in local deals that was once valued at as much as $16 billion, is on an avid hunt for a buyer, Recode reported this weekend. Executives and banking representatives at Groupon have reportedly been pursuing potential targets.
TVadSync and Unacast Partner for Cross-Platform TV/Digital Attribution
Unacast’s location data will allow TVadSync to prove with unprecedented accuracy that the campaigns it manages across TV and digital platforms are indeed driving exposed audiences to make purchases at brick-and-mortar stores.
Commentary
Are We Giving Google Too Much Information?
While certain groups complain about certain content on the Web, the real danger is always found in that which is not seen, hidden in plain sight within the language that builds that which we can see. Google is the absolute master of doing business where it’s not seen, and I’ve reached the point where I think it’s time we all said “enough.”
Why Intuition Fails Us in Mobile Advertising
When mobile was in its infancy, it was appropriate to use intuition and past experience as a guide for how to run mobile ad campaigns. However, the time has come for us as an industry to evolve and begin to use data and empirical evidence to guide our mobile advertising. We need to test and validate our intuitions with unique mobile data to optimize campaign performance…
7 Key Lessons From AOL’s Struggles With Patch
Why did a well-heeled usurper to newspapers find itself imploding last week? Ultimately, Patch could still reinvent itself — but if it does not there are plenty of lessons to be learned and applied to all of us working to produce the next model of local journalism. Here are seven…
Latest Posts
Nimble Commerce to Power E-Commerce for Second Street
NimbleCommerce and Second Street have announced a partnership agreement where Nimble will become the e-commerce platform and network for Second Street’s media customers…
Street Fight Daily: Thumbtack Raises $100M, Uber Opens API
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Thumbtack, an Online Market for Services, Raises $100 Million (New York Times)… Uber Opens API in Bid to Be Everywhere (Recode)… GoDaddy Acquires MailChimp Competitor Mad Mimi To Beef Up Its Email Marketing Service (TechCrunch)…
Traditional Businesses Still Failing to Reach Online Consumers
An infographic from Marketecture offers a useful compendium of statistics pointing both to the great opportunity in local and the persistent gap between that opportunity and the actual practice of marketing by many small business owners…
First Data, a Payment Processing Giant, Looks Beyond the Swipe
The largest payment processing company in the U.S. is officially in the marketing business. Last week, First Data Ventures, the payment processing giant’s venture wing, announced a partnership and strategic investment with social marketing platform LocalVox — the latest in a string of investments meant to help the payment processing giant enter new markets…
Street Fight Daily: Uber’s Delivery Service, Square Expands Cash Advances
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… With New Delivery Service, Uber Declares War on Google and Amazon (Wired)… Square Expands Its Cash Advance Service (New York Times)… Google Tests A New Local Knowledge Graph Interface (SearchEngineLand)…
6 Demand-Based Pricing Platforms for Restaurants
With the goal of maximizing revenue and keeping their tables filled throughout the day, restaurants are using hyperlocal marketing platforms to incentivize guest reservations during off-peak times. Here are six hyperlocal platforms that restaurants can use to implement demand-based pricing…
Amazon Getting Pieces in Place for Next-gen Payment System?
At first glance, many are seeing Amazon’s new card reader as a competitive move against the likes of Square and PayPal. But this is actually a tiny start to a bigger vision. Amazon’s vast reach can make its card reader matter in a variety of interesting ways…
Street Fight Daily: Google Tracks Calls Online, Yahoo Partners With Media Consortium
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Google Lets Advertisers Track Phone Calls Generated From Websites (MarketingLand)… Local Media Consortium Partners With Yahoo (NetNewsCheck)… As Google Builds Out Own Content, Some Advertisers Feel Pushed Aside
(Wall Street Journal)…
Dstillery CEO: ‘Dirty Data’ in Mobile Ads as Serious as Click Fraud
Reports suggest that more than half of the the available mobile inventory that includes location data is incorrect. Tom Phillips, chief executive at Dstillery and an early whistleblower of online advertising fraud, says false location data in the mobile advertising industry poses as great of a threat to marketers as fraudulent traffic on the web…
7 Strategies for Better Text Message Marketing
Thirty-eight percent of businesses use SMS/MMS for marketing, according to a 2013 survey by StrongMail, versus 20% that use mobile push notifications. Here are seven strategies that merchants can use to reinvigorate their text message marketing campaigns…
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Meta Is Automating Ads, But Brands Still Face a Bigger Problem