News and Analysis

The Humans Behind the Data at Placer Discover Street Fight

The Humans Behind the Data at Placer Discover

Year-end can be a challenging time to bring a group of business professionals together for one final conference. Seasonal obligations, meeting fatigue, and EOY pressures are convenient excuses to skip that trip to New York. Unless, of course, the event organizer is Placer.ai. Location analytics hardly seems like a merry topic, but the organizing team behind Placer […]

Shwellness for Hourly Worker Street Fight

What’s Shwell in Attracting Hourly Workers?

No, that’s not a typo. MULO (multi-location) convenience store (C-store) brand Sheetz is opening a massive “Shwellness Center” across the street from one of its major locations in Pennsylvania. This center will offer some of the lifestyle benefits of its current Shwellness center (see below), as well as routine medical appointments, physical therapy, and behavior […]

Cryotherapy - Beyond the C-Store Freezer Street Fight

The Freezer Beyond the Grocery & C-Store

Cryotherapy is one of the latest categories to scale in the health, wellness, and longevity space. In this column, we’ve detailed how brick-and-mortar businesses have expanded far beyond the typical gym as the population ages and become more concerned about staying healthy longer. Highly specialized brands and franchises are offering body-related services like IVs. I […]

Commentary

Google’s Latest Privacy Play Has Big Implications for the Open Web

Google Overhauls Business Profile Manager with Transition to Search Interface

Lots of the functionality is exactly the same between the old GMB and the new NMX, the only difference being where the features reside. For most businesses, updating your phone number, your hours of operation, or your business attributes will seem very familiar. Here are some of the significant differences.

Open-Source Data Is a Risky Gamble for Businesses

While open-source data is free, it can cost a great deal of capital in the long run. For some companies, especially those with robust engineering teams, these costs might be acceptable. For others, however, it might be wiser to dedicate spend to an initial data purchase to avoid ROI headaches down the line.

Where Will the Latest Economic Slump Take Technology?

Are we on the cusp of the next technological revolution that will come to define our globalized planet in the next few decades or more? From the printing press to the telephone and the electric light bulb, to the television and personal computer, each of these paradigm-shifting inventions took hold during economic depressions or deep recessions. 

Latest Posts

BOOM: Multi-Location (MULO) "Needles" Businesses: Part 1

BOOM: Multi-Location (MULO) “Needles” Businesses: Part 1

The IV therapy industry is booming! From hangover cures to vitamin infusions, MULO (multi-location) and mobile businesses are cropping up to fill consumers’ bodies with various liquids designed to give them energy, help them lose weight, and recover from dehydration. The market is valued at approximately $2B and is projected to grow. REVIV was the […]

Borderless Launches Free VR Tools to Consumers

Borderless Launches Free VR Tools to Consumers

Did you know that you can create a virtual reality experience without paying for it and without coding? Soon, you can. Coming this fall, Borderless is making available its creative platform for consumers who don’t want to learn how to code or pay a fee. Borderless offers extended reality experiences that can increase accessibility to […]

Adding Categories to Google Business Profile Boosts Local Rankings

Adding Categories to Google Business Profile Boosts Local Rankings

Even a slight boost in local rankings can lead to thousands — if not hundreds of thousands — of dollars in revenue for a multi-location brand, which is why unlocking the secret to achieving higher local rankings is a topline goal for so many organizations in 2023. According to a new study that’s being billed […]

Pink Lily’s Success Puts It in the ‘Black’

Pink Lily’s Success Puts It in the ‘Black’

The path to e-commerce success lies in women’s fashion. At least, that is what Chris Gerbig and his wife, Tori, concluded in 2011 when they began to research the type of online business they wanted to start that would not only support the family they planned to have but also the lifestyle they wanted to […]

Basis Technologies’ TikTok Integration Gives Advertisers Real-Time Performance Data

Basis Technologies’ TikTok Integration Gives Advertisers Real-Time Performance Data

As social media continues to infiltrate more and more of our daily lives, increasingly advertisers are asking how they can take advantage of data that’s being collected to improve the performance of their campaigns. Today, Basis Technologies is taking a big step by announcing an integration with TikTok that will provide advertisers with access to […]

The ‘Drama’ of Sifting through Marketing Data

The ‘Drama’ of Sifting through Marketing Data

Claravine’s expressed goal in acquiring AI content-classification company Netra this month is to take “the drama out of marketing data.” Using its Data Standards Cloud platform, Claravine ensures that data is accurate, which in turn enables teams to measure results, pivot on execution, and improve performance within a consistent framework. The Utah-based Series B company […]

Marketers, Time To Tame Your Data For Good

Marketers, Time To Tame Your Data For Good

As marketers, you already know the value of data. It’s a powerful tool for any organization to understand its customers, guide its strategy, and make informed business decisions. But, just like any powerful tool, if you don’t tame your data, it will do more harm than good. The conversation around marketing data tends to focus […]

More Drugstores Are Pushing to Incorporate Phygital Experiences — Here’s Why

More Drugstores Are Pushing to Incorporate Phygital Experiences — Here’s Why

They’ve got the data, and they’ve got the customer loyalty. With those key components in place, more retail drugstore chains are looking at how they can blend physical and digital marketing to create personalized and contextualized phygital experiences. The idea behind “phygital” marketing is simpler than it sounds. Phygital combines physical and digital experiences to […]

Career Moves: Craveworthy Brands, GM and Botify

Career Moves: Craveworthy Brands, GM and Botify

In this biweekly roundup of career moves, we look at new faces at Craveworthy Brands, GM and Botify and more, anniversaries at Spectrio, Audigy and beyond and numerous opportunities at companies including Vendasta, Birdeye and Scorpion The one and only Lisa Crowder just made the move from AVP, Mobile Apps – Product Management & Development […]

BUST: Multi-Location (MULO) Restaurants & Retailers Declaring Bankruptcy in 2023

Although we all watched in dismay (and perhaps fear) as Bed Bath & Beyond and Jenny Craig took nosedives this year, reports of other brands facing the multi-location (MULO) “apocalypse” may contain more than a little hype. Here are some facts: More than 2,100 retail locations are expected to close in 2023, but Bed Bath […]