Scorpion Offers Masterclass in Agency Growth
Most marketing agencies hit a revenue ceiling in the $20 million range. Perhaps “ceiling” is the wrong term as it’s a permeable barrier – an
Mike Boland
May 1, 2025
Mike Boland
Mike Boland, senior analyst with Localogy, was one of Silicon Valley’s first tech reporters of the internet age as a staff reporter for Forbes magazine starting in 2000. His comments have appeared in The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times.
U.S. Ad Spend: Good News & Bad News
During a time of economic uncertainty and retracted brand spending – when ad budgets are normally first to be slashed – ad spending is in high gear. Or at least it was. IAB’s 2024 U.S. advertising spend “actuals” are out, and they paint a positive picture… with some caveats.
Mike Boland
April 30, 2025
Yelp Launches 15 New Features & Updates in Spring Product Release
Yelp has announced its annual Spring product release. This is a mega drop of 15 new features and updates across Yelp. Highlights in this batch
Mike Boland
April 29, 2025
Professional Services Automation: Rocketlane
Rocketlane is pioneering what it calls professional services automation. Localogy sat down with co-founder and CEO Srikrishnan Ganesan.
Mike Boland
April 25, 2025
Is SMB Video Advertising Approaching an Inflection?
Barriers continue to fall for video production – an ongoing democratization process that has made its way to SMB marketing. This is a longstanding trend
Mike Boland
April 24, 2025
TikTok’s Local Search Ambitions Ratchet up With Reviews
TikTok’s latest move in local search is evident through a new feature it’s testing: place reviews. We examine the evidence.
Mike Boland
April 23, 2025
vcita Brings Agentic AI to SMBs
vcita has added new dimension with its agentic AI function. Housed within BizAI, it offers automation for agent-like features.
Mike Boland
April 22, 2025
Automating Professional Services: A Conversation with Rocketlane
We recently had the chance to catch up with Rocketlane co-founder and CEO Srikrishnan Ganesan. Here is part 1 of our discussion.
Mike Boland
April 17, 2025
Exit Velocity: A Conversation with Mark Kabana, Part 2
Yext acquired Places Scout. What were the drivers for the acquisition? We recently had the chance to catch up with Mark Kabana to find out.
Mike Boland
April 16, 2025
Google’s AI Mode Gets Visual
Google is combining AI Mode with multimodal search, which lets you search across media formats, including text, images, and video. What does this combination mean on a surface level and in terms of Google’s AI evolution?
Mike Boland
April 15, 2025
What’s the State of Online Reviews in 2025?
Online reviews continue to be one of the tentpoles of localized marketing and search. They’re also the bain of many SMBs’ existence – a necessary
Mike Boland
April 11, 2025
Good, Bad & Ugly: The State of Venture Funding in 2025
What market signals can quantify the state of venture funding? To answer that question, we turned to our go-to thought leader for all things investing & finance, Circumference Group’s Luca Sechi.
Mike Boland
April 10, 2025
What Are the Top Local Brands in America?
Though the long tail of local mostly consists of small businesses, there are several national brands in the mix. One advantage that these entities often
Mike Boland
April 9, 2025
Tiger Pistol’s Latest Playbook Addresses Revenue Growth for Marketing Resellers.
Marketing resellers are a key piece of the local media & advertising value chain. They help ad tech players scale by bringing their products to
Mike Boland
April 8, 2025
Lowes Leads Chatmeter’s Retail Reputation Report
Chatmeter has released its Retail Reputation report, which scores retailers using its first-party data. Among the findings, Lowe’s took the top spot, along with standouts like Home Depot and Costco. One success factor according to Chatmeter is cross-location consistency in employee training.
Mike Boland
April 1, 2025
L25 – What’s the Amazon Local Play in the Premium Streaming Era?
People often think of Amazon’s growth in advertising in a search or display sense on Amazon.com. But what about its endeavors into streaming? We heard
Mike Boland
March 31, 2025
Exit Velocity: A Conversation with Mark Kabana
Last month, Yext acquired local search benchmarking and intelligence leader Places Scout. What were the drivers for the acquisition and how are the combined forces
Mike Boland
March 28, 2025
L25 – AI and SMBs: The Reality Check
Do SMBs really want AI tools to help them run their businesses? We found out using original data from Localogy and Duda, and presented it during a session at L25.
Mike Boland
March 27, 2025
vcita Balances Agentic-AI Automation & Control
SMB Saas innovator vcita this week launched a new agentic AI function. Housed in its flagship BizAI software for SMB marketing, it offers an additional layer of automation for agent-like features such as responding to customers, booking appointments, and generating estimates or job quotes.
Mike Boland
March 20, 2025
Automating SMB Video: A Conversation with Creatify, Part II
Creatify tackles the perennial challenge of automating video marketing for time-starved and tech-challenged SMBs.
Mike Boland
March 19, 2025