Author Archive

Thryv SaaS Business Grows 48 Percent in Q2

Thryv’s SaaS Business Grows 48 Percent in Q2

Thryv holdings announced Q2 earnings and the story is similar to Q4: SaaS continues to be the growth engine as it manages planned declines in its legacy print directories business.

vcita Reports Good News and Bad News for SMB Agencies

vcita Reports Good News and Bad News for SMB Agencies

vcita has released a new report that signals a double-edged sword for marketing agencies that work with SMBs. Known as vcita’s 2025 SMB Marketing Report, it demonstrates how SMBs show healthy levels of outsourced spending on marketing, however they’re showing high churn rates. 

Sendbird Hopes to Resolve AI's Trust Issues

Sendbird Hopes to Resolve AI’s Trust Issues

AI communications platform Sendbird today took a step towards resolving AI’s early-stage trust issues. Its new Trust OS is an accountability system that makes AI agents more trustworthy. It does this through 14 features and functions that breed accountability, oversight, and responsible agent behavior.

What's Behind the New Nextdoor?

What’s Behind the New Nextdoor?

Hyperlocal social app Nextdoor has launched a big redesign. Known as the ‘new Nextdoor, ‘ this applies across its digital touchpoints, including web and apps. But beyond a facelift and redesigned layout, there are deeper functional refinements meant to align with the company’s broader evolutions. 

Can Traffic from ChatGPT Offset Zero-Click Searches

Does Traffic from ChatGPT Offset Zero-Click Search?

Is the elevated use of AI engines and their citations offsetting the effects of zero-click search? In other words, organic traffic from Google is declining per the above. But does greater ChatGPT usage – and resulting referrals and traffic – counterbalance those declines.

Yext Reports Growing Consumer Trust in AI

Yext Reports High Consumer Trust in AI

62 percent of consumers trust AI to help them discover businesses and brands. This surprisingly high figure comes from a new piece of research from Yext. Known as The Rise of AI Search Archetypes, it looks at how consumers are adopting AI and how they trust it to discover, evaluate, and choose brands. 

Evocalize Advances Real Estate Co-Marketing

Evocalize Advances Real Estate Co-Marketing

Evocalize today announced a new partnership with Atlantic Bay Mortgage. This will bring Evocalize’s platform and Co-Marketing network to Atlantic Bay’s mortgage bankers. Among other things, this lets Evocalize continue to pioneer the art of co-marketing in the high-stakes real-estate vertical.

Flexible & Frictionless: A Conversation with Bluehost, Part 2

The Tip of the Spear: A Conversation with Bluehost, Part 2

To get more color on Bluehost’s evolutionary path and directional heading, we recently had the chance to catch up with CEO Sachin Puri. Appointed to the role in May, Puri takes over at a time when Bluehost has ample momentum and velocity. So what’s the vision, and where will Bluehost go next?

AI-Fueled Prime Day Sales Go Big

Amazon Prime Day – which is really four days – reached record sales this year. Stretching from July 8th to 11th, U.S. retailers saw $24.1 billion in online spending, which is 30.3 percent year-over-year growth. It’s also the equivalent of two Black Fridays given 2024 online Black Friday sales of $10.8 billion. 

Welcome to the AI Browser Wars

Welcome to the AI Browser Wars

Following closely behind Perplexity’s new pricing tier that we covered yesterday, the company has teased its latest offering: the Comet AI browser. Then in a matter of hours, Reuters reported that OpenAI, not to be outdone, has plans for a browser of its own. Welcome to the AI era’s browser wars.

Are Massive Valuations Back? Yes and No

AI Pricing: What Will the Market Bear?

In the early stages of AI’s current wave, there’s still lots of experimentation. Most of that is around where the technology works and doesn’t work, as we examined yesterday. But it’s also about the all-important matter of price elasticity. What are users willing to pay, and how does pricing impact demand?

AI Marketing Research Localogy

Silver Bullets & Slam Dunks: When Does AI ‘Need Not Apply?’

AI is great at some things but not others. And it’s not a silver bullet for everything, as its current hype cycle may have you believe. In fact it can do more harm than good in some situations, according to our research, such as marketing software to SMBs that’s labeled as “AI-powered”

Flexible & Frictionless: A Conversation with Bluehost

To get more color on Bluehost’s evolutionary path and directional heading, we recently had the chance to catch up with CEO Sachin Puri. Appointed to the role in May, Puri takes over at a time when Bluehost has ample momentum and velocity. So what’s the vision, and where will Bluehost go next?

Wix and Alibaba Help SMBs Find Their Inner Merchant

Wix and Alibaba this week announced a new strategic partnership meant to help SMBs launch and grow their eCommerce efforts. The collaboration will give Wix customers an inside track to Alibaba’s eCommerce functions while giving Alibaba customers an inside track to Wix websites and storefronts. 

Retail Media Gets Immersive

Retail media is the new hotness. The trend has accelerated over the past half-decade as retailers saw the opportunity to use their physical spaces as

What’s Behind Birdeye’s New Social AI Publishing Agent?

Hyperlocal marketing platform Birdeye last week launched its latest feature: Social AI publishing agent. As the newest component of its BirdAI suite, the feature is meant to automate and customize the end-to-end social media publication process for hyperlocal and multi-location brand marketers.