Published: 04/03/2018
LSA Received Over 90 Entries & Finalists Include Yext, Waze, PlaceIQ, GroundTruth, ReachLocal, Kenshoo & More
Troy, Michigan, March 13, 2018 — Today the Local Search Association (LSA) announced the finalists for the 2018 Ad-to-Action Awards, a program celebrating innovation in location-based media and marketing. With 93 submissions in 12 categories, this year’s entrants represent some of the most prominent and creative media companies, agencies and technology providers in the industry. Winners will be announced on May 1 at the LSA18 Conference in Chicago.
“As more and more realize the power of local marketing tactics and technologies, the caliber of entries for our award program continues to improve,” said LSA President Neg Norton. “Finalists of this program deserve a closer look by the customers they intended to serve.”
Last week, the judges – which included a diverse and notable group of industry experts from companies such as Twitter, Yelp, Foursquare, MailChimp, Digiday, Microsoft, Toyota, Facebook and more – completed their evaluation of the entries. Finalists reflect the most compelling campaigns, strategies and technologies for influencing local consumer actions.
“Each company has a unique angle that aims to solve a major problem in the industry; determining if marketing spend really works and understanding ROI,” said Tim Garcia, market development, global at HERE Technologies, who judged entries from the Attribution and Analytics category. “The technology of measuring marketing performance is evolving, and the caliber of Ad-to-Action award participants were impressive, which made it all the more difficult to judge.”
The 19 expert judges reviewed and rated entries on innovation, ability to influence and impact consumer actions, ROI potential, ease of implementation and several other criteria. Each of these areas of focus were scored on a 10-point scale.
“It’s clear that local presence and search visibility remains a challenge for SMBs,” said Kate Kelleher, VP of product at ThriveHive, who judged entries from the Presence Management category. “I was impressed by the entrants’ focus on simplification and offering a one-stop solution for businesses to manage their presence while also providing ways to extend search presence with paid marketing opportunities.”
Here are the finalists for each category:
PRESENCE MANAGEMENT
VERTICALS & MARKETPLACES
ATTRIBUTION & ANALYTICS
SMALL BUSINESS SAAS PRODUCTS
SALES & MARKETING AUTOMATION
MOBILE
SOCIAL & REPUTATION MANAGEMENT
LOCATION INTELLIGENCE PLATFORMS
BEST LOCAL SEARCH CAMPAIGN
BEST USE OF LOCATION
BEST CREATIVE
BEST OMNI-CHANNEL CAMPAIGN
To find out who wins, join the LSA in Chicago April 30 – May 2 at the LSA18 Conference exploring “The New Local Marketplace.” Click here to learn more.