News and Analysis

With GDPR In Place, Will Push Marketing Recede?

Retailers love push marketing. But the practice relies on consumer data in order to work, and that’s becoming a major problem with the European Union’s new General Data Protection Regulation firmly in effect.

Study: Challenges Persist with One-Partner Programmatic Strategy

84% of brands want to bring their programmatic ad spending in-house as a way to gain more control over what’s become an opaque process. The problem? A study by Visto shows that advertisers who use just one platform are losing out on opportunities to lower inventory costs and efficiently delivery on KPIs.

Street Fight Daily: Google Retires AdWords & DoubleClick Brands; GDPR Threatens Push Marketing

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Google Is Killing Off DoubleClick Branding… With GDPR In Place, Will Push Marketing Recede?… Study: Challenges Persist with One-Partner Programmatic Strategy…

Commentary

How Facebook’s Rumored News Product Could Hurt Local Sites

News websites dodged a bullet when Facebook didn’t announce a rumored RSS or news-in-your-news-feed product yesterday. If Facebook actually got serious about these plans, news websites could expect an even larger portion of their site’s traffic to be directed through the social network — and their brands could be endangered…

Authenticity: The Force Behind the Local Snowball Effect

One of the new values that the Web demands is authenticity. For news, it means a commitment to truthfulness by bringing readers or viewers as close as possible to the source of information. In business, it also means being truthful in our behavior, attributions and even our intentions. It’s an underappreciated and underutilized value, and it strikes at the very heart of marketing — especially at the hyperlocal level…

How to Win The National-to-Local War with Technology and Services

Enterprises still face the same issues as they did 30 years ago — namely, ensuring a consistent national-to-local implementation at “the last mile.” With more moving parts in digital media today, it is much harder to implement a successful national to local digital marketing program unless dealers (or franchises, contractors, physicians, etc.) are onboard, active participants and investing in the program…

Latest Posts

Street Fight Daily: Amazon’s New Wallet, Linkedin Buys Bizo

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technologyPassbook Redux: Amazon Copies Apple’s Underwhelming Digital Wallet (Pando)… LinkedIn Makes Another Deal, Buying Bizo (New York Times)… For Its First Google Glass Effort, EBay Adapts Its RedLaser Product Finder App (TechCrunch)…

How SMBs Can Create Comprehensive Local Marketing Strategies

When it comes to creating marketing strategies that include two or more hyperlocal solutions, many local merchants don’t even know where to begin. Here are five strategies that SMBs should consider…

Street Fight Daily: Yahoo Buys Flurry, Urban Compass Raises $40M

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technologyYahoo Acquires Flurry to Bolster Mobile Offerings (New York Times)… Urban Compass Raises Money at $360 Million Valuation (Bloomberg)… Airbnb Drops Homejoy From Cleaning Trial, Handybook Remains On In Three Test Markets (TechCrunch)…

Yelp, Foursquare, and the Downsides of Mobile-First

In an era where the “mobile-first” motto borders on dogma for tech companies, the virtues of the desktop internet often are overlooked. While Yelp continues to benefit from desktop search, mobile-first Foursquare has struggled to sustain the explosive growth it saw early on — partly because its influence on the web ecosystem remains relatively weak…

Mapkin Wants to Put Community Into Local Navigation

How many times have you missed a turn when using a GPS device, or been uncertain that you even understood the directions? Mapkin a Cambridge-based startup, aims to fix that. Mapkin’s mission is to provide an improved GPS-app experience that’s “as human as possible” using nuanced navigation provided by locals…

Street Fight Daily: A Race for Food Delivery, Bing Refines Local Targeting

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technologyPostmates is Giving GrubHub Seamless a Run For Its Money (SFGate)… Bing Ads Refines Local Targeting Features (SearchEngineLand)… Apple’s New Push To Randomize MAC Addresses: What’s The Impact On Ad Tech? (AdExchanger)… ….

Openings and New Hires at Main Street Hub, Yext, PlaceIQ, and CallFire

Every two weeks, Search Influence’s Kelly Benish — who knows practically everyone in hyperlocal — covers some of the latest job changes taking place in this dynamic industry. In this week’s edition, moves and new openings at Porch, The Search Agency, VendAsta, Local Yokel Media, Colony Logic and more…

LBMA Podcast: Google’s Chromecast, Ubimo’s Gilad Amitai

Top stories of the week include: Google’s Chromecast gets Ultrasonic; Chicago’s Array of Things makes the city smarter and creepier; ReservationHop takes reservations hostage; Amscreen and Garmin partner at the Tour de France; Muuzii taps SMS for real-time translations; RetailNext and iZettle close financing rounds; Ubisoft shows us the map of the future; TAB unveils spot ratings for billboards thanks to Inrix…

Street Fight Daily: Starbucks Orders Ahead, Google’s Mobile Problem

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technologyStarbucks Has Bigger Plans in Mobile Payments Than Most People Realize (Recode)… Google’s Quarterly Results Show Its Continuing Struggle With Mobile Advertising (New York Times)… Despite a History of Dismal Failures, Hyperlocal News Continues to Attract Believers (GigaOm)…

Surge Seen in Online Political Ads, But Which Sites Will Be Winners?

Digital platforms traditionally haven’t gotten too much in the way of political ad spending, but new projections from Borrell Associates show online outlets making a big leap this year amid the midterms, going from $14.1 million in 2010 to $211.2 million in 2014. But it’s not clear how much community news sites — many of which cover campaign news diligently — will benefit from these gains…