News and Analysis

Cousins Subs Leverages Social, Marketing Tech to Stay Local

Look at the menu board at Cousins Subs, and you’ll immediately notice how important local is to the restaurant’s brand. But the commitment extends beyond the Wisconsin cheddar cheese featured among the Midwest chain’s list of local ingredients—it goes all the way back to how the brand chooses to represent itself on social channels.

Street Fight Daily: Snap Wins With Programmatic AR Ads, How Cousins Subs Keeps It Local

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Snapchat’s Programmatic AR Ads Are Gaining Traction… Whole Foods Will Give Amazon Prime Customers 10% Off on Sale Items… Another Ad Tech Firm Reduces European Operations Ahead of GDPR…

Dstillery and Captivate Partner to Go Beyond Location-Based Targeting

Audience targeting is getting smarter, and reaching new customers ideal for a given brand’s campaign is getting more feasible thanks to a partnership between location-based digital video network Captivate and marketing intelligence firm Dstillery.

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

After Bust, LivingSocial Looks to Boom Again

LivingSocial isn’t quite the rocketship it was a few years ago. But, after a year of pulling back, and with a change in leadership in the works, the company is looking for a second wind. Street Fight recently caught up with Doug Miller, chief revenue officer at LivingSocial, to talk about where the company went wrong, how it plans to get back on track, and what wave it looks to ride next…

6 Ways to Use Local Booking Platforms for Marketing

When used strategically, hyperlocal booking platforms can do more for a business than just help schedule services and manage client appointments. In many cases, merchants with online booking portals are able to rely on these products for customer acquisition and retention, as well…

Street Fight Daily: CBS Outdoor Goes Public, Alibaba Invests in Retail

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technologyCBS Outdoor Shares Rise in First Day of Trading (Wall Street Journal)… Alibaba Invests $692 million in Chinese Department Store Operator (Reuters)… Uber’s Biggest Problem Isn’t Surge Pricing. What If It’s Sexual Harassment by Drivers? (Daily Beast)…

How a Connecticut Network Helps ‘Indie’ News Sites Bridge Revenue Gap

Networks of independent community news sites are growing up and expanding out, and one of the biggest is the three-year-old Independent Media Network, which provides multiple layers of services — in advertising, editorial, business and tech — to more than a hundred community and other news operations in Connecticut…

Openings and New Hires at xAd, Kenshoo, PayPal and Local Market Launch

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 Microsoft, Mediative, hibu, Angie’s List and more…

LBMA Podcast: Bringing Big Data Down to the Moment

Top stories of the week include Disney World, the Weather Channel’s Weather FX ad platform, Cloak, Android Wear, the Exist app, TheLadders, PayRange, Indoo.rs, Gigwalk, What3Words and Digicash…

Street Fight Daily: DailyCandy Shut Down, An Omnichannel Rollup

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technologyNBCUniversal-Owned DailyCandy and Television Without Pity Will Be Shut Down (Recode)… Nomi Acquires Media Armor To Add Online Marketing Data To Its Offline Marketing Tools (TechCrunch)… GoDaddy Partners With Dwolla On New E-Invoicing Option For Small Businesses (TechCrunch)…

For Local Tech, Fragmentation Is a Problem to Solve — Not Avoid

There’s been a noticeable increase in the number of partnerships, ecosystem-driven startups, and overall coordination among the companies looking to help us buy and sell stuff in the real-world. The shift could have deep implications for existing companies, and may create new opportunities for a number of new startups…

Case Study: Local Bakery Chain Scales With Hyperlocal Tools

At Cako, a mini bakery chain in the midst of expansion, co-owner Albert Chen says it’s difficult to provide the same level of customer service when he can’t be present inside all of his stores on a 24/7 basis. One way that Chen is working to avoid the mistakes that other growing businesses have made is by utilizing hyperlocal tools that provide him with data about what products and flavors his customers are buying…

Foursquare

Street Fight Daily: Foursquare Ads Tap Twitter, Airbnb Courts Cities

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technologyFoursquare’s New Ads Tap Twitter And Require $100K Commitment (AdWeek)… Airbnb Cozies up to Cities (Fortune)… Charting the Years-Long Decline of Local News Reporting (Washington Post)…