News and Analysis
Raise Report: Salesloft, Nift, Intercom Score New Funding
Every two or three weeks, we round up some of the biggest fundraises taking place in hyperlocal marketing, commerce, and tech. This week’s edition includes funding for Fastdata.io, Kloudless, Instacart, and Neighbor.
Street Fight Daily: Brands Wise Up About Location Tech, Google’s Exchange Bidding Exits Beta
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… How Brands Are Getting More Sophisticated at Using Location Data… Google’s Answer to Header Bidding Is Now Generally Available… Instacart Raises Another $150 Million…
Toys ‘R’ Us Foot Traffic Analysis Reveals Challenges in Smaller Markets
The results of a new foot traffic analysis conducted by the location data firm Factual reveal that Toys “R” Us’ demise, while partly attributable to Amazon’s strength, could just as easily be blamed on stiff competition from within the brick-and-mortar retail market.
Commentary
Local Stores Become Showrooms for Online Buying
“Showrooming” refers to the act of using local stores as showrooms for more price-competitive online purchases. Retailers can get on the right side of this trend by beating Amazon at its own data-centric game. That means launching apps — or working with those that aggregate retail feeds, such as Milo — through which personal recommendations and incentives are offered to in-store buyers…
As Facebook Readies IPO, Local Strategy Is in Focus
Considering that 70% of small businesses already use Facebook as a promotional tool through Pages, the company has a serious leg up on the competition. Transitioning these users into paying customers means cutting into Google’s massive market share of local ad spend, and potentially replacing the search giant as the de facto marketing tool for local businesses online…
Latest Posts
Street Fight Daily: AOL Winds Down Patch, Twitter Tests ‘Nearby’ Feature
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology.… AOL Chief’s White Whale Finally Slips His Grasp (New York Times)… Twitter Test Shows ‘Nearby’ Tweets (Wall Street Journal)… Amazon Said To Launch Pantry To Take On Costco, Sam’s (USA Today)…
How Can Low-Revenue Indie News Sites Boost Their Game?
“The ability sell digital ad space efficiently is, in general, becoming an absolute necessity to compete for advertiser dollars,” says Kenny Katzgrau, a co-founder of Broadstreet Ads. “Local ad inventory cannot be an exception. More importantly, the ad inventory of beloved community news sites has a special value that isn’t being optimally exposed to buyers, big or small.”
6 Ways National Brands Can Improve Their Local Campaigns
The hyperlocal technology that brands need to reach consumers locally is available and ready, so why aren’t more brands taking advantage of the opportunity? Only 7% of national marketers say they have effective local campaigns in place, according to a 2013 study by Balihoo. Here are six strategies for helping brands make the most of their local campaigns…
LBMA Podcast: PlaceIQ Partners With Mazda, Amazon’s Drone Delivery
On the show: Singtel soft-launches their shopping app Lyke; PayPal partners with OrderBird in Germany; Texas Instruments patents indoor location; Apple buys Topsy; Tantrum Street launches Cartwheel register. Special guest is Marc Castrechini, VP Software Development of Merchant Warehouse…
Street Fight Daily: Highlight Rebounds, Uber Talks Deliveries
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology.… Highlight Raises $4 Million From DFJ, Releases Version 2.0 Of Its Location-Based Social Networking App (TechCrunch)… Uber: From Taxis To Deliveries On Demand (CNN Money… Google Maps iOS App Updated To Show Flight, Hotel And Restaurant Reservations (GigaOm)…
How Yahoo and Intuit Plan to Win With Small Businesses
Major companies have started to turn their gaze to the small business market, looking to cash in on a segment that has long eluded some of technology ‘s biggest players. During Interactive Local Media in San Francisco Wednesday, two Web 1.0 giants – Intuit and Yahoo – laid out their strategies to position themselves as the go-to source for small business software…
Case Study: Jersey Mike’s Integrates Mobile Ordering with Loyalty Program
When it comes to hyperlocal tools, the whole is often greater than the sum of its parts. That’s what Jersey Mike’s chief marketing officer Rich Hope has discovered since launching a redesigned mobile application that integrates online ordering with a customer loyalty program earlier this year. “I don’t think anybody has combined the loyalty program and online ordering yet and completely integrated the two,” Hope says…
Street Fight Daily: Shopify To Push Offline, Patch’s Impending Partnership
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology.… Shopify Raises $100 million Series C To Expand Offline Into general Commerce (GigaOm)… AOL’s Tim Armstrong Hints at Impending Patch Partnership (AdAge)… Square Acquires Evenly, A Venmo Competitor For Sending And Receiving Payments With Friends (TechCrunch)…
When Big Platforms Go Local
Though Amazon’s plan to have drone delivery by the end of the decade may seem far-fetched, it speaks vividly to the notion that large online platforms are working hard to localize their inventories, and even to redefine what “local” means…
Conference Notebook: The Future of Local Is the Marketplace, Not the Message
The local market has seen a seemingly endless flood of startups come online over the past few years, with many building the next iteration of last year’s feature. But as the market matures, and later-stage startups look to expand their addressable markets, the industry is starting to coalesce. According to data presented at the Interactive Local Media conference in San Francisco Tuesday, the number of M&A deals jumped by 65% this year thanks to strong performance online, but explosive growth in mobile…
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