Amazon
In and Out of Character: Can Amazon Help Auto Dealers Scale?
From the underplayed-news desk, Amazon last week formed a new partnership with Ford to sell cars online. It will expose local car dealer inventory, letting
Pro Features
How Can Multi-Location Brands Gain a Competitive Edge in the AI Era?
Entitled, 026 Local Advertising Planning Guide for Multi-Location Brands, Tiger Pistol’s latest report details local marketing tips and tactics for multi-location (or MULO as we call it) brands to gain a competitive edge. This is the second in Tiger Pistol’s latest series of marketing playbooks.
acquisition
GEO’s Big Moment: Behind Adobe’s $1.9B Semrush Acquisition
Adobe announced yesterday that it will acquire digital marketing and SEO giant Semrush for $1.9 billion. Among other things, this signals the importance of generative engine optimization (GEO), as Adobe looks to integrate content optimization into the creative outputs of its flagship Creative Cloud.
Pro Features
Sendbird Democratizes Agentic AI
AI-powered enterprise communications company Sendbird this week launched a white-labeled personal concierge. Known as Delight.ai, it gives brands and app developers a way to integrate VIP-level concierge functions into their customer-facing apps, thus boosting their quality and stickiness.
AI
The Mapping Wars Enter the AI Era
Gemini’s integrations in Google Maps have ratcheted up with a more conversational interface that can be best described as an in-route concierge. While driving, users can do things like ask Gemini about places of interest along their route, or any other specific urges.
Pro Features
Lessons in Evolving & Adapting: Yext Sunsets Knowledge Assistant Tool
We recently discovered that Yext has deprecated its Knowledge Assistant tool. These types of moves generally don’t get the fanfare and press attention that new product launches get, but can often represent strategic maneuvers that are worth shining a light on. What can we learn from this move?
Bluehost
Bluehost Gets a Boost From Oracle Cloud Infrastructure
Web hosting powerhouse Bluehost has announced that it has upleveled its platform by integrating Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI). Among other things, this will make the millions of WordPress websites hosted on its servers – many of which are SMB websites – faster and more performant.
Pro Features
Automating the Future of Work: A Conversation with Vendasta
To get more insights into how AI is being integrated with SMB SaaS, we caught up with a player making big moves in the space, Vendasta.
AI
Google Pomelli Automates SMB Social Ads
The latest product in the prolific Google Labs does just this. Known as Pompelli, the joint effort from Google Labs and DeepMind automatically assembles ad campaign creative assets like banner ads. Like several multi-step agentic AI tools that are developing, it turns detailed prompts into action and output.
AI
Thryv Tailors AI and Automation to Home Services
MB-Saas powerhouse Thryv has launched a growth marketing engine for Home Services businesses to scale. To achieve this, it inherits Thryv’s latest AI and automation capabilities and packages them up in a set of marketing tools purpose-built for the specific challenges of the home services vertical.
accounting
Are Accounting & Tax Pros AI’s Next Conquest?
A new report from LexisNexis quantifies the pace of AI adoption among tax pros. For example, 64 percent of tax pros use AI in their day-to-day operations, up from 40 percent in February.
Pro Features
What’s the Playbook for Franchise Marketing in the AI Era?
Entitled, 2026 Local Advertising Planning Guide for Franchise Brands, Tiger Pistol’s latest report details local marketing tactics that can help franchise marketers get the job done. This also represents Tiger Pistol’s return to its prolific local marketing playbook series.
AI
‘Shelf Intelligence’ is Coming to a Grocery Store Near You
ShelfOptix specializes in a field that it has coined “shelf intelligence.” it scans store shelves to digitize physical-world data and create digital twins of retail store aisles where logistical insights can then flow
Apple
Are Local Ads Coming to Apple Maps?
Is Apple looking for more ways to generate ad revenue? And could it involve local ads? New details uncovered by prolific Apple Sleuth Mark Gurman suggest yes to both questions. Of course, with all things Apple, we’re left with speculation as the company is tight-lipped about anything in development.
Pro Features
Tiger Pistol Strips the Friction Out of Franchise Marketing
Local advertising platform Tiger Pistol today announced a new AI-based tool to take the friction out of creating and running local marketing campaigns. Known as the Creative Automation Studio, it streamlines these workflows using things like generative AI and automated campaign optimization.
Pro Features
Scorpion Closes the SMB Inbound-Call Gap
Scorpion has launched a new product to combat the missed call problem. Known as Convert, it’s an AI-powered agent that’s a first line of defense for inbound leads.
Open AI
The AI Browser Wars Heat Up with Atlas
OpenAI has finally launched a web browser. Known as Atlas, it seeks to embolden OpenAI as the front door to your connected experiences – positioning already seeded by ChatGPT’s escalating usage. This move aligns with the logic behind AI engines having their own browser and takes the fight to Google.
Pro Features
Yelp’s Fall Product Release Plants AI Where it Matters
Yelp is out with its annual Fall Product Release, and it’s a doozy. The wide-ranging feature blitz is heavy on AI (as expected), including Menu Vision, Yelp Host, Yelp Receptionist, natural language search and updates to Yelp Assistant. This follows the cadence of Yelp’s big bi-annual feature releases.
Pro Features
Cost Sensitive & Churn-Happy: Profiling Today’s SMB
SMB marketing leader vcita has released a study that profiles today’s SMB and what makes it tick. The short version is that churn rates are indeed higher than ever, so the name of the game for media companies is to make themselves sticky.
Comcast
Comcast and SearchKings Bring Video Ads to the SMB Long Tail
Comcast’s Universal Ads division furthered its local play this week through a channel partnership with SearchKings that will provide a bridge to SMBs.