Here is this week’s roundup of the top news items related to local marketing and advertising, local media, technology, local commerce, consumer behavior and more.
Insight & Commentary
Google Assistant Updates & What Voice Search Means for SEOÂ (June 4, 2018)
LSA Insider: “As an off-the-cuff statement, it might be tempting to say that, ten minutes after Google debuted, people were already trying to manipulate search results.”
Are Brands Wasting Ad Spending Due To Poor Location Targeting? (June 4, 2018)
GeoMarketing: “The challenge associated with inaccurate location data is a perennial problem that brands, agencies, and platform companies have tried to mitigate with various attribution solutions.”
Does Location Intelligence Have a Future in Europe? (June 1, 2018)
LSA Insider: “With the passage of Europe’s new GDPR privacy rules — and the promise of more to come — we need to ask: which of these mobile-location use cases will survive and how do location-data methodologies need to adapt or change in the new environment?”
Strategy & Tactics
Auto Geo-Coding Your Business Locations in Middle East & Turkey? Don’t Trust the Results (June 6, 2018)
LSA Insider: “Geocodes are the things that allow us all to find things like businesses, hospitals, parks and other points of interest on virtually any digital map in the world.”
The Key To Great Customer Experience: Make Your Brand More Visible On Mobile (June 4, 2018)
Forbes: “Mobile devices are rapidly turning into personal assistants that no longer just help users with their contact lists and to navigate traffic. They now recommend restaurants, shops, events and, of course, good deals.”
Report: 71% of Retailers Now Leverage Location Data for Advertising (June 4, 2018)
Street Fight: “According to a new report by WBR Insights and Future Stores, sponsored by the location data technology firm Blis, 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.”
Stats & Studies
Study: 82% of Brand Marketers to Increase Usage of Location Data (June 6, 2018)
LSA Insider: “In terms of where these location strategies stand today, 24% said that they were evaluating strategies, 26% were unsure about potential ROI, 22% are constrained by budgets and 19% are already devoting resources to these tactics.”
Study: 71% of retailers use mobile location strategies to boost store traffic (June 5, 2018)
Mobile Marketer: “Location-based strategies that depend on mobile technology are growing more popular among retailers as brick-and-mortar shops have faced a tumultuous several years while vying with e-commerce companies like Amazon.”
Study: 80% of Gen Z like shopping in-store, but turn to e-commerce for convenience (June 5, 2018)
Marketing Dive: “As the Criteo research reveals, there’s a close but complex relationship between online and in-store shopping among Gen Z, which make up about a quarter of the population and have growing purchasing power.”
Industry News
AR Grows While VR Slows (June 5, 2018)
LSA Insider: “Mixed reality is a term that encompasses both augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR). But the two technologies appear to be headed in the opposite direction.”
The Future Of Voice Control: Amazon Echo Exceeds 30 Million Devices Installed (June 4, 2018)
GeoMarketing: “The role played by voice-activated smart speakers in the home continues to expand, according to Mary Meeker’s 2018 Internet Trends report.”
Have we reached peak smartphone, and what does that mean for marketers? (May 31, 2018)
Marketing Land: “Kleiner Perkins’ Mary Meeker’s highly anticipated kitchen-sink compendium of third-party stats dropped yesterday. Amidst the barrage of data was the following: global smartphone shipments grew zero percent in 2017.”
Member News
Yelp and Yext expand partnership to benefit enterprise businesses (June 6, 2018)
Yelp: “Yext now offers a Yelp add-on to its enterprise customers, enabling brands to manage their location data on Yelp and access Yelp Knowledge, Yelp’s data analytics and business intelligence product, through Yext’s digital knowledge management software.”
Google Posts testing different design and functional treatments in the search results (June 4, 2018)
Search Engine Land: “Google is testing new variations of how it shows Google Posts from local businesses in the search results.”
MomentFeed and Yelp: A Powerful Partnership (June 1, 2018)
MomentFeed: “MomentFeed and Yelp have recently expanded their partnership to include Yelp Knowledge, creating the perfect combo for brands to make the most of Yelp’s 150 million reviews and drive sales.”
