News and Analysis
Report: 71% of Retailers Now Leverage Location Data for Advertising
Nearly eight in 10 retailers now partner with third-party data providers to collect geolocation data, and 71% are leveraging location data for advertising purposes, according to a new report sponsored by Blis.
Street Fight Daily: Apple Wants In on Digital Ad Bonanza, Microsoft Buys GitHub
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Apple Looks to Expand Advertising Business with New Network for Apps… Microsoft Has Acquired GitHub for $7.5B in Stock… The Cost of a Bad Ad…
Openings and New Hires at GasBuddy, Ansira, Mirriad
Every two weeks, Street Fight rounds up some of the latest hires and new openings in the hyperlocal marketing, tech, and media industries. This week’s edition includes changes at CARTO, PlaceIQ, Cuebiq, and Placed.
Commentary
How to Create a Great Vertical Directory
It’s tough for a start-up to break into the top echelon of local search players and become a one-size-fits-all solution like Google or YP. The great opportunity that exists in the space lies in serving special interests or special use cases better than anyone has before. Foursquare and Yelp are highly visible examples of this, but other very successful, vertically oriented directories exist, flying mostly under our radar…
What Do Google’s Enhanced Campaigns Mean for SMBs?
To wildly mixed reactions, Google last week announced a major redesign to its pervasive AdWords SEM platform. Known as Enhanced Campaigns, the redesign will force advertisers to run a single, converged — though conditionally governed — campaign across desktop, mobile, and tablet devices…
After Boom and Bust, How Will the Discount Economy Evolve?
The discount industry experienced 2012 as a major turning point. In the past 12 months, the deal provider landscape shook out even more, with the consolidation of many deals sites and the decline of some industry giants. Given the changed landscape, here are a few predictions about where the local offer and voucher space is heading…
Latest Posts
Street Fight Daily: Airbnb Eyes Travel, Square Goes After Grubhub
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology…. Airbnb Looks Beyond Flat-Sharing to Tickets and Travel (Financial Times)… Square Branches Out Into Food Ordering With New Square Order Service (TheNextWeb)… Foursquare goes Oprah: You’re a mayor and you’re a mayor (Engadget)…
Why One Investor Thinks Foursquare Has a Future in Ad Tech
Add this to the interesting-but-never-going-to-happen suggestion box for Foursquare: ditch the consumer business altogether. Nihal Mehta, a New York-based entrepreneur-turned-investor, thinks that Foursquare might find a bigger business by bailing on its local search ambition to put its algorithm to work as an attribution product for mobile advertising…
Openings and New Hires at Mono Solutions, Google, Connectivity & Cxense
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, new hires and jobs at Haystak Digital Marketing, Angie’s List, Local Yokel Media, Mediative and hibu…
Street Fight Daily: Intuit Makes Another Acquisition, Square Rival Raises $50M
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technologyIntuit Buys Lettuce Apps For $30M To Add Inventory And Order Management To Quickbooks (TechCrunch)… Square Rival iZettle Receives Capital Injection From Group of Investors (Wall Street Journal)… Months Before CEO Shakeup, Leaf Investor Took Control of Startup (Xconomy)…
Using In-Store Analytics To Counter the Threat from Disruptive Digital Retailers
Online retailers have successfully proven that leveraging analytics drives conversions and improves shopper experience. Indoor analytics provides these same invaluable insights to physical stores, closing the data gap between digital and brick-and-mortar environments…
Case Study: Golf Club Brings Back Deal Buyers With Rewards Program
In her role as manager at Southern Pines Golf Club, Elaine Millar is responsible for the digital marketing strategy for the 18-hole course. Millar uses her rewards program as a promotional tool to keep the customers she gains through local deal sites coming back for future visits after their promotions have been redeemed…
Street Fight Daily: Square’s Alleged Saboteur, Google Buys Website Builder
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Sequoia’s $12B Man Says Someone With ‘Axe to Grind’ is After Square (Upstart)… Google Gobbles Up Restaurant Startup (Wall Street Journal)… Uber Launches uberFAMILY, a Pilot Service in NYC That Uses Cars With Child Seats (TheNextWeb)…
What’s in a Swarm? Making Sense of Foursquare’s Split
It’s hard to envision now, but it could be that a decoupled discovery and recommendation service will be just what Foursquare needs to scale its dataset beyond entertainment and to encourage users to improve the quality and accuracy of venue information. These developments would turn Foursquare into a viable competitor to data aggregators like Infogroup and possibly to Google Maps itself…
Street Fight Daily: Google Maps Adds Uber, Square Expands Partnerships
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Google Maps On Mobile Gets Uber Integration And More (TechCrunch)… Square Partners With Inventory Tracking Service Stitch Labs (Fortune)… New Google Now Feature Aims at Amazon (Wall Street Journal)…
At Groupon, Mobile Doesn’t Mean Local (Yet)
For the first time last quarter the majority of the company’s transactions came from a mobile device. And yet, the company also hit another, less celebrated, milestone: its local business accounted for less than half of its total billings…
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Meta Is Automating Ads, But Brands Still Face a Bigger Problem