Commentary
Can Businesses Use Hyperlocal to Leverage Customers’ Politics?
There has been significant coverage about the differences in Democrats and Republicans, but to date there hasn’t been any analysis on real world activities associated with political affiliation. From grocery stores to restaurants, from retailers to gas stations, voting Democrat or Republican plays a part in which establishments we step foot in and which ones we don’t…
A Quick Guide to SMB Success on Mobile
Less than 5 percent of local businesses have a website optimized for mobile devices. In some cases, a company’s site isn’t even “findable” through searches on mobile devices. Worse, consumers, when they do find the local business’s website, can only see a desktop-specific version. Here are a few tips to help demystify mobile for business owners and help them get started right away…
How Mobile’s Demographic Shift Impacts Local
It seems that young people in the 18-24 demographic spend, on average, more time on mobile devices today than they do watching television. It also appears that mobile usage is far ahead of “playing games and computer use for leisure.” What does this mean for the future of local search and local media? I would say it’s not unlike the lessons the Republican Party was forced to confront in the aftermath of its recent election defeat…
Latest Posts
LBMA Podcast: Xapp, Mobiquity, and Beacons at the Ballpark
Top stories of the week include voice recognition ads from Xapp + NPR; Mobiquity’s BLE beacon SDK; Minified’s Telescope Cards + Foursquare; Coke’s Radar for Good campaign in Romania; the launch of TheGoodData; and funding news from Alignable and Lyft. Special guest is Rafi Haladjian, founder of Sense…
Street Fight Daily: Ebay Settles Proxy Dispute, Gowalla Founder’s Second Take
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… EBay, Carl Icahn Settle Heated PayPal Dispute (Wall Street Journal)… Gowalla Founder Josh Williams Raises $2.1 Million To Have Another Go At Local Mobile Discovery Apps (TechCrunch)… Bezos Confirms AmazonFresh Expansion Plans, Says Drones Are for Real (Recode)…
Case Study: Texas Pharmacy Leverages Beacons for In-Store Offers
Rather than going it alone and creating a targeted marketing platform from the ground up, Tarrytown Pharmacy owner Mark Newberry opted to work with a hyperlocal startup that was looking for businesses to test out its platform. The company, Shelfbucks, offers personalized deals to people shopping in store using iBeacons…
Mobile Ad Revenues Growing Faster Than Previously Expected
A new study from BIA/Kelsey finds that mobile advertising revenues may be picking up at a faster clip than previously thought. In the U.S. Local Media Forecast, the research firm projects that mobile ad spending in the U.S. will rise from $7.22 billion in 2013 to $25.47 billion in 2017, a 20% increase from what the company projected last year. Meanwhile, the share of mobile ad spending spent on locally-targeted ads continues to grow as well — albeit at slightly slower rate than previously expected…
Street Fight Daily: GoDaddy Moves Ahead With IPO, Mapquest Reboots
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… MapQuest Aims For Reboot With New Content, Partners, UI (SearchEngineLand)… Go Daddy Said to Pick Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan for I.P.O. (New York Times)… Yelp’s Deal With Yahoo Has Small Businesses Crying Foul (Wall Street Journal)…
Study: 80% of Mobile Searches Result in a Purchase
Brand marketers have started to catch up with consumers on mobile, but small businesses still remain far behind — and it may be starting to affect their bottom line. A new study finds that consumers are increasingly turning to their mobile devices to search for local businesses when they are ready to buy, but the information they want is often inaccurate, incomplete, or non-existent.
Will Mobile Ad Tech Consolidate? Not Yet, Says Verve CEO
There’s a debate, particularly within mobile advertising technology, over whether location is a feature or a sector unto itself. Street Fight recently caught up with Tom MacIsaac, chief executive at Verve Mobile, one of the earliest mobile-local advertising technologies to the market, to discuss the prospect of consolidation, the data quality problem in mobile, and what the endgame might be for location ad tech…
Street Fight Daily: Google Books Hotels, What’s Next for Square?
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Google Checks In to the Hotel Business (Wall Street Journal)… A Sale or IPO or More Funding? Here’s What Might Be Next for Square (Recode)… Uber’s Threat Finally Hits as Postmates Surges to 10k Deliveries a Week (Pando)
Reconsidering Location for On-the-Go Consumers
Out-of-home works because it is exactly what its name implies. That’s a powerful advantage. But with great power comes great responsibility. And in order to capitalize on this advantage, we need to re-think our approach. Once we start regarding out-of-home as a behavior (specifically, of consumers on-the-go) instead of just a set of location-specific screens, our success is almost guaranteed…
6 Strategies for Measuring the Impact of In-Store Messaging
By 2016, mobile is expected to have a $327 billion influence on in-store sales, but many of the merchants who utilize these hyperlocal technologies are having difficulty determining the true ROI of their campaigns. Here are six strategies for businesses to measure the impact of their in-store messaging campaigns…
Independent Agencies Are Getting Boxed Out of Adtech