BIA/Kelsey's NOW conference today in San Francisco highlighted the Uberification of the local space and its impact, pro and con, on traditional marketing channels, especially advertising. "It is about evolving markets," said event head Mitch Ratcliffe. Some people grossly simplify…
BIA/Kelsey's Local Commerce Monitor (Wave 18) shows just how popular customer loyalty programs are to SMBs. Currently, 29 percent offer them, with the number skewing higher (43 percent) for retail businesses. But despite the introduction of several loyalty platforms and…
Facebook yesterday updated its Place Tips feature and is passing out free beacons to SMBs. There are many implications that have already been unpacked across the blogosphere. But one under-recognized angle is how this fills a longstanding gap in offline attribution:…
What are the search marketing tactics that drive real traffic and conversions? It's an important question as more user engagement is happening on smartphones. Campaign tactics and calls to action need to align with shifting mobile search volume (and intent). The…
What is deep linking and why is it critical to the future of the mobile app economy? What's up with Pinterest and Instagram's new "buy" buttons? And what's the economic forecast for the on-demand economy? These are a few topics…
How big is the market housekeeping startups such as HomeJoy, Handy and Thumbtack? Is the business big enough to justify Amazon Home Services' leap into the market? We'll answer that question the last week before BIA/Kelsey NOW, coming up on…
What's the $55 billion elephant in the room? That would be the gross spend on co-op advertising annually in the US. For those unfamiliar, co-op dollars are typically funds earmarked by national brands for "market development" -- local advertising or…
YP has been growing in leaps and bounds since its 2012 launch. The company, formed by the consolidation of the former AT&T Interactive and Advertising Solutions groups by private equity firm Cerberus Capital, unveiled its new corporate signage installation atop…
Google has been launching lots of products to carry its search dominance into a mobile world. Given that 4 out of 5 mobile minutes happen in-app, this sidesteps the very place where its dominance has been established: the browser. We…
BIA/Kelsey is partnering again with the Local Media Association to produce this year's LMA Native Advertising Interactive Summit next July 15-16 in Washington, DC where we'll share our latest native ad forecast, insights about marketplace dynamics and trend lines of…
The Local On-Demand Economy (LODE) will be all about transactions. The ease of transaction between buyer and seller will need to match the lowered-barriers and "immediacy" of the on-demand service and experience itself. Otherwise, LODE's promise won't be fulfilled. It's…
Button, the New York-based developer of mobile deep-linking integration tools for use in local on-demand services, announced the launch of Uber integration into third-party applications. Foursquare used the tools to add a button to its location-based social sharing application to…
Retail SMBs are more poised than their counterparts in other verticals to adopt sophisticated digital advertising and marketing. This is clearly shown by BIA/Kelsey's Local Commerce Monitor (Wave 18) survey of small businesses. Retail SMBs are already highly oriented to…