Berry Weekly Media Activity - Blue Marble
October 28, 2016
SUBJECT: Industry Trends – Weekly Summary
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October 14, 2016 to October 27, 2016
Berry in the News – Trends
No Coverage
Vendors/Partners
No Coverage
Publishers/Telcos
No Coverage
Local/National News – Trends
BIA/Kelsey Bytes: Call Intelligence Reduces Opportunity Cost
o blog., 20 October 2016
▪ Another outcome of call analytics is routing. Most of the technology for analyzing calls and determining quality can be used to optimally route them. This can be done by probabilistically determining things like call quality and caller intent and then routing calls accordingly.
Soleo Adds Voice Search to Call Monetization API
o blog., 25 October 2016
▪ Soleo, the Victor, N.Y.-based developer of search and call monetization services for local business, introduced a new version of its developer application programming interface (API) today at Street Fight Local. The new API supports voice search, complex text searches and location-based results that provide routing guidance, directions and nearby business listings for use in search-driven applications.
SMB Data Point of the Week: SMBs Are Feeling Optimistic About the Future
o blog., 26 October 2016
▪ Small businesses are feeling more optimistic about their businesses and industries, according to BIA/Kelsey’s Local Commerce Monitor™ survey of small and medium sized businesses (SMBs). Two new questions added in Wave 20 (3Q/2016) of our survey deal with SMBs’ feelings regarding revenue changes in their industry and their business in the next year. While 37.7% of SMBs reported that they expect their industries’ overall revenue to maintain its current level, 49.2% expect revenues in their industry to increase. Less than 7% expect their industries’ revenues to decrease.
BIA/Kelsey Bytes: Call Commerce in the Saas Era
o blog., 27 October 2016
▪ An important question arises here: Who is the call analytics platform buyer? That buyer and his or her role are broadening to include several job functions due to lowered barriers for non-tech people to implement call commerce.
Google added fact checking: Facebook, it’s your move now
o , 14 October 2016
▪ Google yesterday announced it will introduce a fact check tag on Google News in order to display articles that contain factual information next to trending news items. Now it’s time for Facebook to take fact-checking more seriously, too.
Google Creating a ‘Mobile First’ Index, How Will It Impact SEO?
o , 14 October 2016
▪ According to a talk from Google’s Gary Illyes at Pubcon, Google will be splitting its search index into two: mobile and desktop. I believe this existed several years ago, when Google had a separate mobile crawler but then combined mobile and desktop sites into a single index.
Can location make native ads better and more relevant?
o , 17 October 2016
▪ Placecast is bringing location intelligence to native advertising to improve relevance and performance. The company also announced last week that it has been awarded two patents pertaining to “location data management and targeting.”
Combining affinity with proximity is key to location-based marketing
o , 18 October 2016
▪ Location-based marketing has long been called mobile’s great promise. Indeed, there is a unique opportunity to reach individual mobile users in context and the so-called moment, leading to transformative brand-customer relationships that produce sales and additional positive business outcomes.
GateHouse’s Newton: ‘We Want to Own More Local Newspapers’
o , 19 October 2016
▪ GateHouse Media is a sprawling giant among local and community news publications. It owns 125 daily newspapers and 316 weeklies with a combined 3.3 million subscribers in over 415 markets nationwide and its 530 websites reach 35 million people. But it is determined to keep growing as the centerpiece of its holding company, the expansion-minded New Media Investment Group, in a sector of the news publishing industry that appears to be coming out of a long economic swoon.
Google adds forecasting and trend data for existing keywords in Keyword Planner
o , 19 October 2016
▪ Advertisers can now get forecasts for their existing keywords, in addition to campaigns, in Keyword Planner. If you haven’t checked out this feature in Keyword Planner, it’s worth taking a look.
Pinterest Explores a New Section for Publishers, Brands
o , 19 October 2016
▪ Pinterest is building a new media channel for publishers and brands to create videos and multimedia posts, according to advertisers familiar with the plans.
Data: 37% of SMBs Grew Sales in Last 12 Months, 57% Optimistic about Future
o , 20 October 2016
▪ According to a new study, while only 37% of small businesses said they saw an increase in sales in the last 12 months, 57% expect sales to be up in the next 12 months. The optimism is partly due to new marketing strategies and tactics with 45% saying they plan to implement these strategies in the next 12 months.
How Location Data Influences Consumer Buying Decisions
o , 20 October 2016
▪ The inconsistencies might seem minor, but slight differences in the way a merchant’s business information is listed on search engines and directories are enough to turn off potential customers, according to new research from YP. The local marketing solutions provider teamed up with Thrive Analytics and the Local Search Association to survey more than 5,000 U.S. adults about their local shopping activities. The results, which have been published today in a new report, show just how important it is for local businesses to stay active on digital channels and connect with consumers, regardless of what devices they’re using.
Research: location a primary buying consideration for 43 percent of consumers
o , 20 October 2016
▪ The consumer path to purchase has become increasingly complex, with multiple channels and devices playing a role in influencing buying decisions. However, beyond devices and channels, new research from YP (conducted by Thrive Analytics) examines the “primary” and “secondary” content variables and other factors that influence consumer purchases.
The Why Before the Buy Offers Insights on Consumer Behavior and Local Business Impact
o , 20 October 2016
▪ New research from YP , the leading local marketing solutions provider and publisher of and The Real YellowPages®, conducted by Thrive Analytics and the Local Search Association reveals The Why Before the Buy - the factors that influence a consumer’s shopping patterns and their decision to make a purchase or not to make a purchase.
YP Study Shows That Complete, Consistent Presence Critical to SMBs
o , 20 October 2016
▪ A newly published study conducted by LSA research partner Thrive Analytics on behalf of YP offers a range of interesting findings about the customer journey. Among them, it underscores how critical it is for local businesses (or brands for that matter) to have a robust and consistent presence across channels and platforms.
4 Things A Retail App Must Do To Enhance The In-Store Experience
o , 21 October 2016
▪ At the heart of any discussion of using interactivity in a retail setting involves finding ways of “enhancing the in-store experience.” That’s a fairly obvious and nebulous concept. But there are some basic functions that have to be met when it comes to making online-to-offline marketing work.
Bing Ads rolls out a new, more comprehensive campaign setup process
o , 24 October 2016
▪ Bing Ads has updated the campaign creation workflow; it’s now designed to make it easier for advertisers to get campaigns set up and activated. Throughout the process, more options are available so you won’t have to go back and remember to update settings and options after a campaign is created. Performance estimates are also built in along the way to help inform your settings from the outset.
IBM Adds Pitney Bowes' Location Insights To Meet 'Era Of Cognition'
o , 24 October 2016
▪ IBM’s growing use of location data to power its marketing analytics offerings for retail, healthcare, automotive manufacturing, travel, transportation, financial services, real estate, other business categories will get a boost from Pitney Bowes’ world boundaries data as part of a partnership the two are embarking on.
Advice Interactive Chooses Shout About Us to Bring Efficient, Custom Response to Online Reviews to Brands and Local Businesses
o , 25 October 2016
▪ Shout About Us today announced its ReviewNavigator software has been selected by full-service digital marketing agency Advice Interactive Group to bring the power of personalized, intelligent management of online customer reviews to Advice’s brand and local business clients. The agreement includes Shout About Us’ EZ Response™ patent-pending technology for single-dashboard response to all major review sites and an award-winning mobile app for on-the-go business owners.
Google Sees Lift From Maps Ads, Local Mobile Clicks
o , 25 October 2016
▪ An increasing number of local searches on Google Maps are turning up the volume of search ads serving on the property. Efforts have resulted in increased ad traffic, with brand keywords getting about 3.3% of phone traffic from the "Get location details" click type for advertisers with a brick-and-mortar presence, according to a report released Tuesday. Non-branded share hovers around 0.6%.
App Downloads Aren’t a Barrier to Location Intelligence for July Systems
o , 27 October 2016
▪ There are a number of moving pieces as it relates to the location data and tech space. Mobile service providers, mobile OS platforms, location tech providers, existing tech infrastructure, the storefront and the consumer all have an important role in how location intelligence is derived, understood and subsequently acted upon.
Groupon is buying LivingSocial, plans to downsize business to 15 markets from 27
o , 27 October 2016
▪ Some significant consolidation is going down in the world of daily deals — going down being the operative phrase here. Today, Groupon announced it would acquire LivingSocial, its onetime big rival that was partly owned by Amazon, for an undisclosed sum. Lest you think that this is a power move made by companies at their peak, think again: the news comes as a quiet sidenote in Groupon’s Q3 earnings results, which beat analysts expectations on revenue of $720.5 million and earnings per share of -$0.01, but showed a continuing net loss for the company, of $35.8 million for this last quarter.
International News - Trends
No Coverage
Berry Blog
No Coverage
Berry Twitter Trends
No Coverage
Berry in the News – Trends
No Coverage
Vendors/Partners
No Coverage
Publishers/Telcos
No Coverage
Local/National News – Trends
BIA/Kelsey Bytes: Call Intelligence Reduces Opportunity Cost
blog., 20 October 2016
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BIA/Kelsey Bytes are excerpts from research reports. This is the latest installment from the recently launched report, Call Commerce: A $1 Trillion Economic Engine. It picks up where last week’s post left off.
The report can be downloaded for free here.
Call Routing
Another outcome of call analytics is routing. Most of the technology for analyzing calls and determining quality can be used to optimally route them. This can be done by probabilistically determining things like call quality and caller intent and then routing calls accordingly.
This process examines call data — the same data used in attribution — to inform intelligent routing. It can include everything from caller ID to caller history to situational factors like location. And the data can be further populated by integrations with CRM systems like Salesforce.
The sophistication of these methods is compelled by smartphones. Due to the highly personal nature of such devices, more and more have unlisted numbers that block caller IDs. This was previously a go-to method for identifying callers, so innovative workarounds are needed.
Utilizing location data is one example, as explored above. When a rental car agency knows the caller is at the airport, a phone menu can lead with contextually relevant information about shuttles or upgrades rather than a general phone tree. This could avoid a “Planes, Trains & Automobiles” situation.
Data-informed call routing can also probabilistically determine warm leads and route them to reps based on their specialties in different product areas. And routing can alleviate one of the biggest pain points for businesses of all sizes: opportunity cost.
Opportunity Cost
For most businesses, time is money. Small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are often time-starved and wear many hats. And bigger businesses succeed or fail on larger scale efficiencies. In either case, time spent on suboptimal calls, such as those that have been misrouted, affects productivity and profitability.
Another way to look at this is to compare it with adjacent forms of marketing. The opportunity cost of fielding low-quality calls is higher than online clicks. There is little incremental resource drain to getting more clicks, whereas low-value telephone calls can meaningfully tax resources.
Read the rest.
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Soleo Adds Voice Search to Call Monetization API
blog., 25 October 2016
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Soleo, the Victor, N.Y.-based developer of search and call monetization services for local business, introduced a new version of its developer application programming interface (API) today at Street Fight Local. The new API supports voice search, complex text searches and location-based results that provide routing guidance, directions and nearby business listings for use in search-driven applications.
The Soleo search API lets a third-party tap into the more than 20 million validated business listings by location, business category and a large index of common phrases, such a “Hungry for taco” to return related listings for use in a web service or application. The company also released demo applications that show the API’s capabilities in action. Heystack, an app for iOS and Android, is free to download through the links provided.
Soleo has focused on developing a call monetization strategy that captures calls to expired business listings and offers connections to businesses that can fulfill on the customer’s needs. For example, if a customer calls a hardware store that has been out of business for several weeks, Soleo’s system would play an audio prompt to select an alternative hardware store near them.
For developers, the Soleo API is a convenient way to add both natural language search — it captures and understands text and voice search — to create a revenue stream to existing local search, vertical business listings. The voice search features are well fitted to augment a web service location-based listings information. Voice search can also be captured by a device, such as an Amazon Alexa assistant, and forwarded to the Soleo API for location-based responses that provide distance and routing-based options to the user.
While some companies have opted to add more products or services to their offerings, Soleo’s focus on its data quality and expanding access to that data through an open API is a solid and pragmatic investment. It provides Soleo more monetization opportunities through third-parties, allowing the company to concentrate on its business listing validation process to grow search inventory. Creative applications can be developed by outside develpers and Soleo will share in the revenue success generated internally and externally. Soleo’s business remains well defined: Reliable and monetizable listings.
Enabling local business can be best accomplished by doubling down on the quality and reliability of data. Developers can check out Soleo’s API here.
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SMB Data Point of the Week: SMBs Are Feeling Optimistic About the Future
blog., 26 October 2016
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Small businesses are feeling more optimistic about their businesses and industries, according to BIA/Kelsey’s Local Commerce Monitor™ survey of small and medium sized businesses (SMBs). Two new questions added in Wave 20 (3Q/2016) of our survey deal with SMBs’ feelings regarding revenue changes in their industry and their business in the next year. While 37.7% of SMBs reported that they expect their industries’ overall revenue to maintain its current level, 49.2% expect revenues in their industry to increase. Less than 7% expect their industries’ revenues to decrease.
Not only are small businesses optimistic about their industries but also about the future of their own business. When asked about their own business, 32.0% of small businesses reported that they expect their revenues to remain at their current levels, while 59.6% expect their revenues to increase. Only 2.7% are predicting their revenues to decrease. Small businesses show a direct correlation between the success of their businesses and how much they spend on advertising and marketing. In fact one of the top decisions to increase ad spend is based on revenue left after expenses. Helping small businesses grow their business is good ROI as most will increase their advertising spend in the next years.
numbers don’t add up to 100% as “Not Sure” was not included
_________
BIA/Kelsey’s LCM, Wave 20 full report can be purchased in the BIA/Kelsey eStore. Additional LCM, Wave 20 reports are coming soon.
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BIA/Kelsey Bytes: Call Commerce in the Saas Era
blog., 27 October 2016
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BIA/Kelsey Bytes are excerpts from research reports. This is the latest installment from the recently launched report, Call Commerce: A $1 Trillion Economic Engine. It picks up where last week’s post left off.
The report can be downloaded for free here.
The Evolving CMO
An important question arises here: Who is the call analytics platform buyer? That buyer and his or her role are broadening to include several job functions due to lowered barriers for non-tech people to implement call commerce.
In the SMB world, the answer is a bit less complex because the buyer and decision maker for adopting call analytics is generally the proprietor or marketing manager. The latter could be a dedicated person, a hybrid role or the owner’s tech-savvy nephew.
For larger enterprises, it is a much more nuanced discussion that involves macro trends in organizational behavior and enterprise software dynamics. Traditionally, the IT department has presided over platform adoption, which has raised adoption barriers and red tape.
But in the SaaS era, enterprise platforms can be hosted and managed in the cloud, democratizing the use of powerful platforms throughout the enterprise. As a result, we see marketing departments and CMOs gain control of what used to be the CTO’s jurisdiction.
Gartner famously predicts the CMO will have a larger tech budget than the CTO by 2017. And this applies directly to call analytics adoption and implementation. Freedom from IT makes the buying cycle less mired in technical red tape, which is good news for everyone involved.
Call analytics platforms are also increasingly tied into CRM systems like Salesforce. This makes their purchase and implementation even easier as they can be plugged into an already-installed enterprise platform. There are lots of natural synergies between call analytics and CRM as well.
Read the rest.
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Google added fact checking: Facebook, it’s your move now
, 14 October 2016
Google yesterday announced it will introduce a fact check tag on Google News in order to display articles that contain factual information next to trending news items. Now it’s time for Facebook to take fact-checking more seriously, too.
Facebook has stepped into the role of being today’s newspaper: that is, it’s a single destination where a large selection of news articles are displayed to those who visit its site. Yes, they appear amidst personal photos, videos, status updates, and ads, but Facebook is still the place where nearly half of American adults get their news.
Facebook has a responsibility to do better, then, when it comes to informing this audience what is actually news: what is fact-checked, reported, vetted, legitimate news, as opposed to a rumor, hoax or conspiracy theory.
It’s not okay that Facebook fired its news editors in an effort to appear impartial, deferring only to its algorithms to inform readers what’s trending on the site. Since then, the site has repeatedly trended fake news stories, according to a Washington Post report released earlier this week.
The news organization tracked every news story that trended across four accounts during the workday from August 31 to September 22, and found that Facebook trended five stories that were either “indisputably fake” or “profoundly inaccurate.” It also regularly featured press releases, blog posts, and links to online stores, like iTunes – in other words, trends that didn’t point to news sites.
Facebook claimed in September that it would roll out technology that would combat fake stories in its Trending topics, but clearly that has not yet come to pass – or the technology isn’t up to the task at hand.
In any event, Facebook needs to do better.
It’s not enough for the company to merely reduce the visibility of obvious hoaxes from its News Feed – not when so much of the content that circulates on the site is posted by people – your friends and family – right on their profiles, which you visit directly.
Plus, the more the items are shared, the more they have the potential to go viral. And viral news becomes Trending news, which is then presented all Facebook’s users in that region.
This matters. Facebook has trended a story from a tabloid news source that claimed 9/11 was an inside job involving planted bombs. It ran a fake story about Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly which falsely claimed she was fired. These aren’t mistakes: they are disinformation.
Facebook has apologized for the above, but declined to comment to The Washington Post regarding its new findings that fake news continues to be featured on the platform.
In addition, not only does Facebook fail at vetting its Trending news links, it also has no way of flagging the links that fill its site.
Outside of Trending, Facebook continues to be filled with inaccurate, poorly-sourced, or outright fake news stories, rumors and hoaxes. Maybe you’re seeing less of them in the News Feed, but there’s nothing to prevent a crazy friend from commenting on your post with a link to a well-known hoax site, as if it’s news. There’s no tag or label. They get to pretend they’re sharing facts.
Meanwhile, there’s no way for your to turn off commenting on your own posts, even when the discussion devolves into something akin to “sexual assault victims are liars” (to reference a recent story.)
Because perish the thought that Facebook would turn of the one mechanism that triggers repeat visits to its site, even if that means it would rather trigger traumatic recollections on the parts of its users instead.
There is a difference between a post that’s based on fact-checked articles, and a post from a website funded by an advocacy group. There’s a difference between Politifact and some guy’s personal blog. Facebook displays them both equally, though: here’s a headline, a photo, some summary text.
Of course, it would be a difficult job for a company that only wants to focus on social networking and selling ads to get into the media business – that’s why Facebook loudly proclaims it’s “not a media company.”
Except that it is one. It’s serving that role, whether it wants to or not.
Google at least has stepped up to the plate and is trying to find a solution. Now it’s Facebook’s turn.
Facebook may have only unintentionally become a media organization, but it is one. And it’s doing a terrible job.
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Google Creating a ‘Mobile First’ Index, How Will It Impact SEO?
, 14 October 2016
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According to a talk from Google’s Gary Illyes at Pubcon, Google will be splitting its search index into two: mobile and desktop. I believe this existed several years ago, when Google had a separate mobile crawler but then combined mobile and desktop sites into a single index.
With roughly 55% (or more) of search queries now coming from mobile devices, Google has apparently decided that this new mobile index will be “primary.” According to a report at Search Engine Land, “A separate desktop index will be maintained, one that will not be as up-to-date as the mobile index.”
One immediate question obviously pertains to ranking and SEO. We know that speed is a ranking factor but AMP-enabled pages are not (at least yet). Mobile ranking signals may diverge from desktop accordingly. This may create additional headaches for all involved. It also makes the emphasis on mobile sites for SMBs (and enterprises) of even greater importance.
In my view it’s not clear that responsive design is the best solution for local businesses — though that’s the one being pushed by most marketing services providers.
What are your views about how a separate mobile index will impact local search? Let us know your thoughts.
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Can location make native ads better and more relevant?
, 17 October 2016
Placecast says its location-enabled units outperform conventional native ads.
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Placecast is bringing location intelligence to native advertising to improve relevance and performance. The company also announced last week that it has been awarded two patents pertaining to “location data management and targeting.”
Placecast is one of the longest-existing companies in the location-based marketing segment, having begun as an SMS-based retail marketing platform using proximity and radius targeting. The new offering, called “Placecast Native,” promises the non-intrusive benefits of native, with the additional targeting, personalization and offline attribution capabilities of location intelligence.
Placecast says that current native ads underperform because of limited relevance. The new Placecast units use “a single set of creative assets that can be dynamically reassembled” to improve customization and relevance, says CEO Alistair Goodman. Behavioral and audience data, derived from real-world location and location history, is one of the keys to mobile ad relevance.
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Goodman explained to me that in the company’s beta testing with selected partners, Placecast has seen “significant lift in performance,” including CTR and store visitation. Goodman added that Placecast is currently testing the new units with brands in the retail, CPG and automotive segments.
Beyond the new units, Placecast announced that it had been awarded two new patents around location data management. The two patents were initially filed in 2008. Placecast now has three location-related patents: #7,942,319, #9,378,507, #9,390,136. The latter two are the new ones. Here’s the company’s description of what they cover:
With Patent #9,390,136 Placecast has the ability to manage location data collected from multiple sources and associate source IDs and content within a specified area. Patent #9,378,507 covers the ability to location-target a consumer based on a multitude of place and time data, and make targeted ad decisions based on that information.
Both apparently involve use of third-party data. Accordingly, they may broadly apply to ad networks, exchanges and others using third-party location data for targeting — in which case they would cover lots of current activity and industry players. However they may not equally apply to companies that rely on first-party data for location targeting (e.g., Google, Facebook).
While Placecast was an early pioneer in location-based mobile marketing, arguably ahead of its time, the company has more recently been overshadowed by a rush of location-based mobile ad platforms and competitors. The new native units may help the company regain attention; and the patents, depending on their ultimate strength and breadth, may make the company a strong candidate for acquisition.
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Combining affinity with proximity is key to location-based marketing
, 18 October 2016
Location-based marketing has long been called mobile’s great promise. Indeed, there is a unique opportunity to reach individual mobile users in context and the so-called moment, leading to transformative brand-customer relationships that produce sales and additional positive business outcomes.
But getting someone’s attention at the right time and in the right place hinges on the ability to accurately identify an exact location, and to send relevant messages that will be seen as valuable. Slip up and you literally will miss the target and the opportunity.
The challenge sounds manageable given how far we have come with technology. And we as marketers certainly do not need to worry about scale, given the fact that nearly everyone owns and religiously carries a mobile phone.
Long and short of it
Arguably, every business’ customers and prospects are but an easy communication away.
However, multiple technologies and sources offer various data about location, including lat/long, IP address, user-stated location and device-level information, among others. This, in fact, is not a good thing since many are riddled with inaccuracy, even fraud.
Plus, while location plays a role in providing context for behavior, it is only one piece of the puzzle.
Proximity without affinity produces a flood of false positives. Just because someone is near you does not mean that she wants what you are selling.
Location data is frequently not correlated with a user’s psychographic profile. So software hidden in applications and triggered by this data drives inappropriate ads to mobile devices.
Unsuspecting consumers who load these apps become confused and angered when invasive ads hijack their phones without permission. It is frustrating and creepy.
We have to get it right. There is just too much value that comes to the mobile device owner in the way of information and offers, and for the marketer from the mobile device owner in the way of a more monetizable exchange.
We saw that this summer.
On the go
The phenomenon that is Pokemon Go has location as one of its core elements.
The free-to-play, location-based augmented reality game, which was initially released in selected countries in July, uses a mobile device's GPS capability to locate, capture, battle and train virtual creatures called Pokémon who appear on the screen as if they were in the same real-world location as the player.
At its peak in just the first month, it had a reported 45 million daily users. And while game play diminished significantly by the end of August, Pokemon Go provided more proof that mobile owners in big numbers would be willing to share their location in exchange for what tens of millions perceived as real value.
It certainly will not be easy for others to replicate the success – Pokemon Go could feed on a beloved brand that has been around for two decades. But other elements serve as teaching tools – clearly there are lessons learned here.
Specifically, those behind the app were wise to encourage social media sharing and referrals, offer up rewards, and include the ability to use the camera, GPS and mapping features.
What can and should be duplicated is the building of an app that can be both personalized and flexible, enabling users to play on their own terms.
Precisely
Traditional media still has its place, but we have clearly entered a time when permission, personalization, affinity and more individualized communications are the means to reach our audiences.
Marketing objectives have remained consistent – driving awareness, engagement, sales and loyalty.
In the mobile era, there is an unprecedented opportunity to reach customers and prospects wherever they are and virtually during whatever they are doing.
According to Forrester Research, $1 trillion of total offline retail sales are influenced by mobile.
Location-based marketing is a key element of the new paradigm since 84 percent of consumers use mobile to help shop while in a store, per Google.
But the scenario only works if it is precise and delivers relevance.
Errors are common – like the sending of an offer to someone who is allergic to your product. The result is a consumer who is bothered, confused and likely to seek out a better partner.
DO NOT figuratively pick through someone’s trash. Instead, ask what they want and how they want it delivered.
Combining affinity with proximity is the key to presenting the right message at the appropriate time in the proper way.
Now is exactly when we as marketers need to get it right. Our mobile consumers expect, and even demand, nothing less.
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GateHouse’s Newton: ‘We Want to Own More Local Newspapers’
, 19 October 2016
GateHouse Media is a sprawling giant among local and community news publications. It owns 125 daily newspapers and 316 weeklies with a combined 3.3 million subscribers in over 415 markets nationwide and its 530 websites reach 35 million people. But it is determined to keep growing as the centerpiece of its holding company, the expansion-minded New Media Investment Group, in a sector of the news publishing industry that appears to be coming out of a long economic swoon.
To maintain its fast pace of growth, GateHouse has created a division for new ventures and appointed as its CEO a publishing executive with deep experience in marketing and sales – Peter Newton. At the same time, Newton will continue as CEO of GateHouse’s Propel Business Services.
In this Q & A, Newton, who will be a speaker at Street Fight’s Summit 2016 in New York City on Tuesday, Oct. 25, talks about present and future change at GateHouse:
As chief executive officer of Propel Business Services, you are tasked with starting or acquiring ventures that will bring in new client business and maintain the fast growth within New Media Investment Group. What has been your progress since you took on that responsibility last January and what will be the emphasis of new ventures into 2017?
We’ve made excellent progress in continuing to grow Propel Marketing, both organically and with our acquisition of ThriveHive. ThriveHive is an award-winning guided marketing platform for VSBs (very small businesses), with a SaaS subscription offering. In addition, we’ve started a new IT Services division, helping SMBs move their tech infrastructure to The Cloud with services like Google for Work and SugarCRM.
New Media’s digital revenue – most of which is generated within GateHouse – was only 9.9% of total sales in the second quarter of 2016. Other major local newspaper groups have much higher proportions of digital sales. What do you plan to do to close the gap?
We have aggressive plans to grow our owned and operated digital business, along with our Propel Business Services product lines. We’re at the tail end of converting all GateHouse local websites to a new, mobile responsive redesign format. Early user engagement and ad performance results have been tremendous. It’s the first major step in better monetizing our own massive audience. Much more to come.
GateHouse has made one of its biggest investments in its Center for News & Design. Do you aim to make that Center a major revenue stream?
The CND’s primary focus is to serve GateHouse’s local markets, and help drive audience engagement with compelling content and design. They’ve been very successful. We’re beginning to provide outsourced services as well for non-GateHouse companies, so there is a direct revenue opportunity for the CND.
Do you expect your B2B operations to become a major revenue stream?
Yes, we do. We will grow the businesses we have, and look to complement those with new offerings that help solve for the local SMBs’ most acute pain points.
New Media CEO Mike Reed said he wants to double GateHouse’s portfolio of 125 dailies by 2019. What progress is the company making in that strategy?
New Media has continued its acquisition strategy in 2016, including the addition of Journal Multimedia (B2B publications), the Fayetteville (N.C.) Observer, the Columbia (Mo.) and the Rochester (N.Y.) Business Journal in the past six months. We are enormous believers in the future of local newspapers and local journalism, so of course we want to own more local newspapers. That said, there is no magic number as to how many we want to own.
How many of GateHouse’s dailies have metered paywalls? What percentage of your 35 million digital visitors do you expect to sign up as subscribers and what kind of promotions are you doing or planning to hit your target?
Every one of our 125 dailies has a metered paywall. We regularly test different offers and levels of access and all our print subscribers receive an all-access subscription to our print, digital and app products. In 2017 our target is to double our acquisition to 80,000 new subscribers. Within two years we’re confident we can sign up 200,000 new subscribers by implementing fully customizable acquisition email campaigns, including significant social and mobile promotions.
Propel Marketing’s annual revenues exceeded $31 million in 2015. That represents considerable growth since GateHouse acquired the company, but is it of enough magnitude to offset GateHouse continuing losses from print operations?
Growth in Propel Marketing and other digital businesses has been impressive, but to date, hasn’t been enough to offset print declines. We expect to show net revenue growth for the company overall, though, by the fourth quarter of 2017
Propel Marketing was recently named a Google AdWords Premier Small & Medium Sized Business Partner. What’s the meaning of that recognition?
It’s pretty prestigious. We are now one of only about 50 PSP’s globally, and the only new Premier Partner in 2016. Google recognized us not only for the extraordinary growth we’ve had in the past four years, but also for the quality of customer service we provide. It’s an excellent partnership. We’re proud to be a PSP, and Google’s an outstanding partner.
There are 28 million SMBs nationally, most of which don’t have full-time marketing departments. Are all of them potential customers of Propel Marketing and its ThriveHive marketing software?
Yes, they are. With the advent of ThriveHive and its guided marketing platform, we now have a service for even the most fledgling of businesses. And those very small businesses, like other SMB’s, need marketing help and support. They especially value that advice from someone they can trust. Propel Marketing’s built a reputation as a trusted adviser over the past four to five years; that now extends as well to ThriveHive.
GateHouse’s recent $140 million sale of the Las Vegas Review-Journal to casino magnate Sheldon Adelson produced a lot of unwanted publicity for GateHouse over how the Review-Journal was handling Adelson-related news coverage before the sale was completed. Has the company’s investigation brought closure to that controversy?
Yes, we have closure. GateHouse exited the transitional services agreement shortly after the sale of the paper [in December 2015]. We have had no input or control over editorial content and decision making at the paper. We’ve addressed the situation with our editorial leadership team and I’m confident we will continue to be a shining example of how local news is created.
The local and community news business hasn’t been getting many good headlines in this decade. How do you and GateHouse size up this business in your small and medium-sized markets?
We feel very strongly about the importance of delivering quality journalism in all our markets. The quality of our news organizations in small and medium-sized markets and our ability to leverage the resources we’ve built at the corporate level allow us to deliver great products and build profitable businesses.
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Google adds forecasting and trend data for existing keywords in Keyword Planner
, 19 October 2016
Select existing keywords (or campaigns) to see how bid scaling could affect performance. See how adding new keywords could impact traffic and spend.
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Advertisers can now get forecasts for their existing keywords, in addition to campaigns, in Keyword Planner. If you haven’t checked out this feature in Keyword Planner, it’s worth taking a look.
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After clicking on the “Select from account” button shown above, there is an option to select Campaign or Keyword from a drop-down. After making your selections, the tool offers performance forecasting and various looks at search volume trends.
In the performance forecast screen, you can see how changes in bids could affect performance for the campaigns or keywords selected. A quality indicator is based on the amount of data already available in the account.
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The search volume trends screen shows overall average monthly searches, as well as search volume trends broken out by device and location. If there is competitive domain data available, Google will also show that trend data at the bottom of this view.
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You can also see the forecasted impact of adding new keywords. After adding keywords by clicking on the New keywords option in the left menu, you can choose All keywords, also in the left menu, to see the daily forecasts for the existing and new keywords combined.
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Pinterest Explores a New Section for Publishers, Brands
, 19 October 2016
Pinterest is building a new media channel for publishers and brands to create videos and multimedia posts, according to advertisers familiar with the plans.
The Pinterest media section is similar in concept to how publishers work closely with Snapchat, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, the advertising sources said speaking on condition of anonymity. The design and content would be uniquely Pinterest but it gives publishers and brands a more structured playground to share to the site.
There will be places for advertisers to buy into media sections, for now at least. A person familiar with Pinterest's plans said the new channel's ad offering will be pushed out initially as a test. Where the company takes it from there remains unclear.
"Advertising will be a piece, but it is a test," the person said. "The advertising would be a video. Just think of one of the units in this area as an opportunity for an advertiser to buy a video ad unit".
"This is a way for people to find very cool, new trending content," the person added. "It is about media players and publishers highlighting organic content."
It's unclear if publishers would split any of the ad revenue, but it sounds like that's the ultimate goal.
"[Pinterest will] figure out the right value exchange with those content providers," said another person familiar with Pinterest's media plans.
The new section could be called "Explore," according to a social-media agency executive. That would be the same name Instagram calls its page where it curates content from across the platform, and personalizes it for people.
Snapchat calls its publishing section "Discover."
Another agency executive said that this is not quite a Snapchat Discover clone.
"It's a sponsored page where brands can own a set of real estate with lots of different types of media on it, including video," the exec said. "Look for all the big spenders to participate."
Pinterest has had some success with advertisers including Target, Wendy's and Burberry. Many brands have shown faith in its nascent ad platform, but Pinterest has been criticized for moving too slowly to build its ad technology and innovate. Still, the platform has made moves to acquire talent in this space, recently snagging a Snapchat exec to lead its measurement efforts.
It only recently launched video ads, for instance, and that was after all its rivals had pushed hard into the format.
For Pinterest to find success with video advertising it needs to encourage more video viewing, and the "Explore" page could boost consumption.
It's unclear when the media section will launch, but agency execs said that brands are already on board and interested in advertising there.
Pinterest president Tim Kendall told Ad Age recently that including top tier publications and media companies with Pinterest will be especially important to the company's future efforts in video.
"I think it is pretty clear that the world of the value being the click to your mobile website is going to eventually go away," Mr. Kendall said. "I think for a media publisher whose value and assets is just media, the model today is 'I have to get people onto my site to watch my media.'"
"It's not clear that in several years that necessarily needs to be the model," he added. "What media partners want is for their media to be consumed, and I think they are open to exploring where and how that media gets consumed, whether it is on their website or within a partner app."
Pinterest issued a statement to Ad Age regarding the news, saying, "We are looking at ways to help people discover new and trending ideas from brands and publishers. We have nothing to announce at this time."
"This makes sense for Pinterest to drive people there," said another agency exec. "Their model has been the same for so long. It's not broken but they have not adapted very much at all."
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Data: 37% of SMBs Grew Sales in Last 12 Months, 57% Optimistic about Future
, 20 October 2016
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According to a new study, while only 37% of small businesses said they saw an increase in sales in the last 12 months, 57% expect sales to be up in the next 12 months. The optimism is partly due to new marketing strategies and tactics with 45% saying they plan to implement these strategies in the next 12 months.
Marketing and advertising was the most popular growth strategy in the study. When we look at the same study from year-end 2014, we see that optimism was much higher with 72% saying they were somewhat or very confident in the financial future of their businesses and 51% said marketing was an important growth strategy.
This 2016 study also found that e-commerce was the third most selected growth strategy in the study at 28%. This is down from 35% six months ago. Overall it appears that despite a decrease in revenue optimism among SMBs since 2014, they remain focused on growing with the aid of marketing and technology.
The data comes from the National Small Business Association’s study titled, “2016 Mid Year Economic Report.” To access the graphic above, click here.
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How Location Data Influences Consumer Buying Decisions
, 20 October 2016
The inconsistencies might seem minor, but slight differences in the way a merchant’s business information is listed on search engines and directories are enough to turn off potential customers, according to new research from YP. The local marketing solutions provider teamed up with Thrive Analytics and the Local Search Association to survey more than 5,000 U.S. adults about their local shopping activities. The results, which have been published today in a new report, show just how important it is for local businesses to stay active on digital channels and connect with consumers, regardless of what devices they’re using.
According to YP’s report, more than one-third of consumers (37%) won’t consider local businesses with inconsistent information online, and 32% won’t consider a business with the wrong information listed on its website. Even inconsistent messaging and website content is enough to dissuade multi-channel shoppers.
More than one-in-three consumers say their buying decisions are influenced by a business’ location. While there’s nothing a merchant can do about his or her store being too far away from a shopper’s home, YP discovered that there are things merchants can do to make their businesses more attractive to smartphone users who listed location as an important factor. For one, merchants can check to make sure their store locations are showing up when consumers search for “nearby businesses” on their mobile devices. They can also add click-to-call features to their websites and paid search campaigns.
“What businesses should be doing better is to make sure they have a comprehensive plan in place that gives them a strong online foundation and presence that is optimized for the desktop and mobile devices,” said Holly Bowyer, VP of portfolio marketing at YP.
More broadly, YP found that consumers value two types of information when they research businesses online, which fall into the categories of basic and secondary. Basic information includes relevant prices and location, while secondary information typically includes ratings, reviews, and special offers. Although the study found that price was the most important factor in determining which business a consumer visited, that was followed by products/services offered, availability of the service, customer service, and location.
Interestingly, YP discovered that consumers who make buying decisions based on secondary information spend twice as much money, on average, as those who rely on primary information. YP also looked to answer the question of what types of secondary information these high-spending consumers are looking for, and they found that offers are the most important type of information, followed by testimonials or reviews, and personal recommendations from family and friends.
“Many of the reasons consumers choose one business over the next are linked to the business’ online presence—something that a business owner can control by correcting misinformation or inconsistent information, encouraging customers to write reviews and sharing video or photo content,” Bowyer said.
Although primary information is important to all consumers, with little to no difference across industries, the research found that the importance of secondary information does vary between business categories. For this report, YP focused on eight business categories, which included home improvement, healthcare services, personal care, automotive services, entertainment, pet care, moving and storage services, and legal services. They found that consumers looking for home improvement products or services value secondary information like testimonials, ratings and reviews, recommendations from friends, and being familiar with the business, over others to help them decide. In the personal care category, however, consumers would rather have coupons and deals, testimonials, ratings and reviews and photos or videos of the business to help them make buying decisions.
“Businesses that have just basic information available without secondary information could be losing out to the competition one out of every two times,” Bowyer said. “What’s more, those customers who use secondary information to make a decision are more likely to spend two times as much.”
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Research: location a primary buying consideration for 43 percent of consumers
, 20 October 2016
Survey identifies "primary" and "secondary" consumer purchase variables.
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The consumer path to purchase has become increasingly complex, with multiple channels and devices playing a role in influencing buying decisions. However, beyond devices and channels, new research from YP (conducted by Thrive Analytics) examines the “primary” and “secondary” content variables and other factors that influence consumer purchases.
Thrive surveyed 5,418 US adults about their shopping behaviors in the past three months, across multiple verticals. The survey found, consistent with other research, that consumers use multiple devices and tend to shop in multiple locations, although the majority of shopping begins “at home” (76 percent).
The survey found a somewhat low 57 percent of consumers use mobile devices throughout the entire process. It also discovered a lower average number of sources (2.9) used than earlier research. For example, Google in 2011 reported that consumers used roughly 10 sources to make purchase decisions.
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The most interesting findings, as mentioned, concern the influence of “primary” and “secondary” sources of information that consumers consult. Primary information, as the name suggests, consists of key variables like pricing and services offered. Business location (think “near me”) was also a significant, primary consideration.
According to the report, primary information was determinative for just over half (52 percent) of consumers — meaning they used those considerations exclusively. However just under half (48 percent) of consumers went beyond primary information to make their purchase decisions on the basis of additional or other information. This category includes reviews and referrals, coupons and other intangible information (e.g., photos/videos). This is an argument for enhanced content and complete profiles if there ever was one.
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Interestingly, the report finds that the consumers who relied on secondary information “spent twice as much (on average) than those relying just on primary information.”
The report also identified the factors that dissuaded consumers from buying from a business:
• High pricing: 62 percent
• Negative reviews: 55 percent
• Inconsistent information: 37 percent
• Inaccurate website information: 37 percent
• Bad contact information: 32 percent
• No website (30 percent) or poor website experience (26 percent)
The most obvious takeaway here is the need for businesses large or small to have a consistent and complete presence across channels.
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The Why Before the Buy Offers Insights on Consumer Behavior and Local Business Impact
, 20 October 2016
New Research Sheds Light on Key Factors Influencing Business Consideration & Consumer Buying Decisions
LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--New research from YP , the leading local marketing solutions provider and publisher of and The Real YellowPages®, conducted by Thrive Analytics and the Local Search Association reveals The Why Before the Buy - the factors that influence a consumer’s shopping patterns and their decision to make a purchase or not to make a purchase.
“Consumers today zigzag between devices, platforms and locations to discover products and services, and we wanted to find out why,” said Allison Checchi, Chief Marketing Officer at YP. “Our goal was to get a deeper understanding of what influences consumers to make a decision to go with one business over another. We’re excited to share this information to help business owners better connect with consumers.”
Consumers Value Basic Information and Contextual Content
According to The Why Before the Buy research, consumers value two kinds of information when looking for businesses: primary information, such as price, availability of products and services, location and customer service, and secondary information, such as offers, testimonials, ratings, recommendations, and photos or videos.
While nearly 52 percent of consumers make their decision based on primary information, 48 percent made their buying decisions based on secondary information, and consumers who said their decision was based mostly on secondary information spend an average of two times as much as those using only primary information.
Consumers Won’t Consider a Business with Wrong, Inaccurate or Incomplete Information
Just as there are key factors consumers consider before making a purchase, there are factors that influence a consumer’s decision to not consider a business. While high prices are the number one reason to not consider a business at 62 percent, other reasons not to buy include negative ratings and reviews (55 percent), inconsistent information from one place to the next (37 percent), inaccurate information on a business’s website (37 percent), wrong contact information listed online (32 percent), no testimonials, ratings or reviews (27 percent) and no photos or videos of the business (17 percent).
Consumers Turn to Mobile Devices to See Nearby Locations
The majority of consumers (64 percent) are device hopping, with smartphones playing a role at some point in the search process. Aside from convenience and speed, some of the top reasons for using a mobile device are the ability to use the functions integrated into the phone to be able to see a nearby location and the ‘click-to-call’ feature.
“A strong digital presence is critical to connecting local businesses with consumers wherever they are, on whatever device they’re using,” said Checchi. “This research shows that consumers won’t even consider a business that has an inaccurate or incomplete online presence and that businesses are missing out on opportunities if they don’t have basic information and contextual content.”
For more information on “The Why Before the Buy,” visit whybeforethebuy. Also, follow the conversation #whythebuy.
About “The Why Before the Buy” Survey
Thrive Analytics surveyed 5,418 U.S. adults online from July 29th to August 10th about their past 90-day local shopping activities. The study focused on the sources of information adults used while shopping for local products or services, their reasons for using those sources, and post shopping related activities. The study targeted shopping behaviors and activities for eight business categories and 90+ subcategories.
About YP
YP is the leading local marketing solutions provider in the U.S. dedicated to helping local businesses and communities grow. YP’s flagship consumer brands include the popular YP app, and The Real Yellow Pages, which are used by nearly 60 million visitors each month in the U.S. (Internal Data, April 2016). YP solutions include online presence, local search, display advertising, direct marketing and print directory advertising. YP solutions and services are backed by thousands of marketing consultants and customer service professionals in local markets across the U.S. with relationships spanning nearly half a million advertisers. For more information on YP, visit us at . Follow us on Facebook: and on Twitter: @ypforbusiness.
Contacts
YP
Barrie Rosen, 646-679-3669
brosen@
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YP Study Shows That Complete, Consistent Presence Critical to SMBs
, 20 October 2016
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A newly published study conducted by LSA research partner Thrive Analytics on behalf of YP offers a range of interesting findings about the customer journey. Among them, it underscores how critical it is for local businesses (or brands for that matter) to have a robust and consistent presence across channels and platforms.
The survey of more than 5,000 US consumers conducted earlier this year affirmed that consumers are using multiple devices and information sources to make purchase decisions. On average, consumers report using roughly 3 sources to make their buying decisions — the number varied by shopping category, however:
Over half of all consumers (64%) consulted two or more sources of information with some using – as many as – 13 sources. The average number of sources of information used was 2.9. Automotive Services and Entertainment had the least number of sources used, with an average of 2.3 and 2.4, respectively. Moving and Storage Services had the most number of sources used with an average of 3.6.
In addition, the emphasis on specific sources varied by category. For example, reviews and testimonials were relied upon more heavily in home services and healthcare than they were in legal/financial services or automotive services. Search engines were more widely used in entertainment and moving & storage than they were in personal care or pet care.
Mobile Device Usage by Number of Information Sources Used
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The study found that 57% of consumers used mobile devices as part of the path to purchase. But the number went up to 70% in many product and service categories. Consumers that used more information sources also tended to be more likely to utilize mobile devices in their shopping. The chart above shows that among those consumers using more than 5 information sources, 75% used mobile devices.
What’s also very interesting about the study is the reliance on “primary” and “secondary” sources of information by consumers. The report describes primary information as follows:
[C]ritical types of information like pricing, the availability of the product or service, the location of the business, and the availability of customer service, helps consumers know the basics about the businesses offering the product or service they need.
For 52% of consumers, this was all the information they needed. However in higher consideration categories, secondary information played a critical and determinative role:
Secondary information is a driver for more complex shopping. Secondary information provides more context around the product or service. It includes testimonials, coupons or deals, information about the business, and photos or videos of the product or service. These pieces of information satisfy additional questions/needs that consumers may have.
Almost half (48%) of consumers in these situations relied on secondary information to make buying decisions. These were typically larger spend categories as well. Indeed, there appears to be a significant opportunity cost for local businesses that don’t offer these types of information.
Accordingly, the report identified what types of missing or inaccurate information will disqualify a business from consideration in the consumer mind:
Top Reasons Consumers Will Not Consider a Business for a Product or Service.
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Here are the variables or factors that are deal-killers for consumers:
• High prices: 62%
• Negative reviews: 55%
• Inconsistent or inaccurate website information: 37%
• Bad contact information: 32%
• No website (30%) or poor website experience (26%)
• No reviews: 27%
• No photos or video: 27%
This and other data in the report show the value and importance of having complete profiles in all the places that consumers will look for information to make a buying decision: Google, Yelp, Facebook, mapping and many verticals and directories, and so on. SMB websites must also have a range of information supportive of consumer buying considerations, as indicated.
According to some sources, more than 50% of SMBs don’t have a website (hard for me to accept at this point) while most American adults use the internet to find local business information. Local businesses and brands must meet consumer expectations with content and functionality — at each point along the purchase path.
Failure to do so will result in lost opportunities.
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4 Things A Retail App Must Do To Enhance The In-Store Experience
, 21 October 2016
Cognizant that there is no 'one-size fits all' when it comes to a branded store app, GPShopper outlines a basic framework that emphasizes commerce, loyalty, engagement, and utility.
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At the heart of any discussion of using interactivity in a retail setting involves finding ways of “enhancing the in-store experience.”
That’s a fairly obvious and nebulous concept. But there are some basic functions that have to be met when it comes to making online-to-offline marketing work. A GPShopper white paper, titled Right Idea; Wrong Question (download available here), the proximity retail platform outlined the four items brands need to check off when it comes to the differences an app must satisfy versus a more general desktop/browser function: commerce, loyalty, engagement, and utility.
When a brand seeks to build or revamp its digital presence, it often begins by asking, “What is a mobile app going to do that my responsive site doesn’t?”
It’s a reasonable thing to ask, writes David Kovacs, VP of Business Development at GPShopper, but that query doesn’t lead to clear business objectives. Instead of comparing a responsive website to app, Kovacs proposes different question:
“If you could build a digital experience for your best customers, what would that experience be?”
Reframing the question this way will lead retailers to envision experiences that are very different than their mobile responsive site, Kovacs says.
“That’s not to say that responsive has no value,” Kovacs continues. “Indeed, responsive serves its purpose quite well for the 80-90 percent of visitors who are not brand loyalists and just passing through. But an app will reach a more concentrated group of shoppers that will spend larger amounts. ‘The 80/20 Rule’ implies that 80 percent of revenues will be driven by 20 percent of customers. This 20 percent is the audience that an app is targeting. For many retailers, the top 10 percent of their customer base accounts for over 50 percent of their revenues.”
In looking at how the four elements of a retail-centric app strategy – commerce, loyalty, engagement, and utility — thinking about how to combine them is the individual challenge brands have to consider.
“The best course of action for a brand to start is to focus on two of the four elements and getting those right for customers,” Kovacs says. “Typically, this means a great commerce experience and one of the other three. Commerce and loyalty is a logical combination if you have a loyalty program, while lifestyle brands with great content might lean towards engagement as the second element.”
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Bing Ads rolls out a new, more comprehensive campaign setup process
, 24 October 2016
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Bing Ads has updated the campaign creation workflow; it’s now designed to make it easier for advertisers to get campaigns set up and activated. Throughout the process, more options are available so you won’t have to go back and remember to update settings and options after a campaign is created. Performance estimates are also built in along the way to help inform your settings from the outset.
The new setup starts with the option of selecting a campaign goal or importing campaigns from Google, importing from a file or researching keywords.
[pic]If you select a campaign goal, the options available will be tailored accordingly in the remaining setup steps. From the revised Campaign Settings screen, Bing Ads has added the option to copy settings from an existing campaign and has consolidated location targeting options to include radius targeting management, along with other location targeting.
In the updated stage of setting up ad groups and selecting keywords, Bing Ads will automatically group keywords together into proposed ad groups based on a website URL and/or keyword suggestion. The tool shows monthly search volume, average CPC and scale of competition for each keyword in this view. You can add, edit and remove keyword suggestions for multiple ad groups. (Keyword suggestions and estimates are not available yet in all countries or languages.)
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The ads and extensions step follows. At this stage, Bing Ads now makes your library of extensions accessible and highlights ad extensions that seem to align with the marketing goal selected for the campaign. There are options to set up all available extensions in this view. You can also set up multiple ads at this stage instead of having to go back and add more after the campaign is set up.
The final step is to set a campaign budget at ad group bids. Bing Ads shows performance estimates for the ad groups based on the bids and campaign settings
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This new workflow is now live, and Bing Ads welcomes comments on its feedback forum or via Twitter.
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IBM Adds Pitney Bowes' Location Insights To Meet 'Era Of Cognition'
, 24 October 2016
Two storied companies with close to 200 years of collective technology experience between them are partnering to meet the marketing demands associated with the IoT, Machine Learning, and the analysis of unstructured data.
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IBM’s growing use of location data to power its marketing analytics offerings for retail, healthcare, automotive manufacturing, travel, transportation, financial services, real estate, other business categories will get a boost from Pitney Bowes’ world boundaries data as part of a partnership the two are embarking on.
The alliance of IBM (founded 1911) and Pitney Bowes (started in 1920) comes amid increasing demands for deeper, actionable, and immediate marketing intelligence related to online/offline commerce and the use of apps and devices powered by the Internet of Things and artificial intelligence.
[pic]IBM’s World of Watson is about the gathering and analysis of unstructured data that underpins Machine Learning.
What IBM’s And Pitney Bowes’ Alliance Means
While so many startups emerge with the promise of making “Big Data” more accessible and “smarter,” the level of differentiation and scale those providers can offer pales in what legacy brands like IBM and Pitney Bowes can bring to the table.
There are two obvious strengths IBM and Pitney Bowes present to large clients that quickly want to ramp up their online-to-offline capabilities. First,there’s the readily-recognized names and history that demonstrate unquestionable global scale and resources.
But more notable than that is the two tech giants’ equally aggressive focus on geo-data as a key factor in building Machine Learning applications that understand, influence, and respond to consumers’ purchasing decisions.
[pic]IBM’s Ginni Rometty heralds the “era of cognition” at the World of Watson Expo in Las Vegas.
The Cognitive Era
IBM’s and Pitney Bowes’ arrangement is getting a full red carpet treatment at the IBM World of Watson expo (Oct. 24-27) in Las Vegas.
It’s a part of ushering in the World of Watson event’s theme — what Ginni Rometty, IBM’s chair, president, and CEO, calls the “cognitive era.” In a nutshell, the ability of connectivity and Machine Learning applies to computers’ ability to think, interpret, and anticipate “the systems, the products, the processes… everything you do.”
By way of background, IBM Watson is a technology platform that uses natural language processing and Machine Learning to “reveal insights from large amounts of unstructured data.”
And the unstructured data associated with the physical businesss locations connected to digital devices is the foundation of those abilities that marketers need.
How The Alliance Will Work
In terms of the partnership between the companies, Pitney Bowes’ world boundaries data is being positioned to “supplement” the geospatial capabilities of the IBM Cognos Analytics and IBM Watson Analytics platforms.
Pitney Bowes offered some examples of how the partnership’s use cases might look:
• Financial Services companies select optimal branch sites, re-evaluate underperforming branches and increase customer service by installing ATM locators.
• Telecommunication companies create easily digestible maps to communicate with customers more efficiently and provide real-time updates.
• Adtech companies to create context information to enhance locations identifying where users are and what they are near.
“We are thrilled to be working with IBM to enable advanced consumer insights and experiences through geospatial insights,” said Bob Guidotti, Pitney Bowes’ EVP and President, Software Solutions. “Highly detailed and accurate data has been proven to shed insights on understanding customer segments, managing risk and making important decisions with greater confidence.”
The Pitney Bowes boundaries data covers over 240 geographies worldwide.
“Working with Pitney Bowes, we will be able to unlock insights tied to location and geographies, which has applicability across a wide range of use cases and industries,” said Marc Altshuller, IBM’s GM of Business Analytics. Cognos Analytics and Watson Analytics customers will be able to leverage these integrated capabilities without special geospatial skills, bringing geospatial analytics to business analysts and executives.”
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Advice Interactive Chooses Shout About Us to Bring Efficient, Custom Response to Online Reviews to Brands and Local Businesses
, 25 October 2016
Game-changing ReviewNavigator platform combines EZ Response™ single-dashboard response to all major review sites with ResponseScribe for professionally crafted custom responses, to deepen customer engagement.
San Diego, CA (PRWEB) October 25, 2016
Shout About Us today announced its ReviewNavigator software has been selected by full-service digital marketing agency Advice Interactive Group to bring the power of personalized, intelligent management of online customer reviews to Advice’s brand and local business clients. The agreement includes Shout About Us’ EZ Response™ patent-pending technology for single-dashboard response to all major review sites and an award-winning mobile app for on-the-go business owners.
The integration gives Advice’s clients access to the most advanced technology available for managing and responding to online customer reviews. The Shout About Us platform combines authentic human response by experienced professionals with the intelligence and efficiency provided by artificial intelligence, resulting in a highly satisfying customer experience.
“Online reviews give brands and local businesses a tremendous opportunity to engage with customers and prospects and grow a loyal customer base,” said Griff Emery, CEO and founder, Shout About Us. “We’ve made it our mission to advance response technology in a way that delivers a customer experience that is at the nexus of digital innovation and human interaction. We are excited to be working with Advice Interactive to bring this capability to its clients.”
“As our clients lean toward increasingly sophisticated digital marketing initiatives to keep up with changing consumer behaviors, we are committed to bringing them the cutting-edge tools that will help drive their success,” said Bernadette Coleman, CEO of Advice Interactive Group. "The approach Shout About Us is taking with reviews response is exactly the kind of ahead-of-the-curve solution our clients expect from us, and we are delighted to be able to bring it to them.”
Advice’s clients will benefit from the integration in a number of ways, including:
Efficient response to all online reviews across more than 50 review sites from the EZ Response central dashboard enables a business owner to easily communicate with key customers who can become influential brand advocates.
ResponseScribe do-it-for-you solution that provides authentic responses by experienced response professionals, trained in each business’ unique brand voice, resulting in deeper customer engagement.
Response Bot develops artificial intelligence from reviews, context, location, industry, and more to deliver business intelligence and suggested responses to maximize each customer interaction.
“We’ve been hearing a lot this year about the promise of AI, machine learning and bots for better customer interactions,” said Abid Chaudhry, senior director of industry strategy and insight. “The Shout About Us solution that Advice Interactive clients will have access to is an interesting blend of human customer support paired with technology. It is a prime example of how some of the most sophisticated technologies and strategies are being brought to the local marketing arena and into the hands of local businesses.”
The integration with Advice is one of the first since Shout About Us introduced the private-label version of its ReviewNavigator software for digital marketing agencies, media companies and other resellers that serve the marketing needs of local businesses. Agency and reseller partners can easily integrate ReviewNavigator into their suite of services or ERP dashboard. More information about the private-label review management solution and Shout About Us’ agency and reseller programs is available at .
About Advice Interactive Group
Advice Interactive Group (Advice) is a full-service digital marketing agency with proprietary local search technologies. More than 300,000 businesses around the world use Advice's digital presence management software to take control of their data, keep their location information up to date and optimize and syndicate their business profiles across the web. This, in turn, drives face-to-face and digital interactions, intended to boost customer engagement, build audiences and increase sales, through an all-inclusive, white-labelled, SaaS-based dashboard and marketing platform. Based in the Dallas/ Fort Worth area, with more than 70 employees, Advice has been recognized in the SMU COX Dallas 100 (2015), is a three-time Inc. 500 Company and most recently picked up a Web Marketing Association Internet Advertising Competition Award (2015).
About Shout About Us
Shout About Us (@ShoutAboutUsHQ) offers enterprise and private-label reputation management solutions for agencies, media companies, resellers and multi-location brands. The Shout About Us platform is a turnkey solution for generating, listening to and responding to online reviews on today’s most influential review sites. The company’s ReviewNavigator software includes EZ Response™ patent-pending technology for single-dashboard response to all major review sites and an award-winning mobile app for on-the-go business owners. Shout About Us’ premium ResponseScribe service features a dedicated, trained customer service agent who will respond to all positive and negative reviews in a business’ unique voice. Visit to learn more about Shout About Us and its reputation management solutions.
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Google Sees Lift From Maps Ads, Local Mobile Clicks
, 25 October 2016
An increasing number of local searches on Google Maps are turning up the volume of search ads serving on the property. Efforts have resulted in increased ad traffic, with brand keywords getting about 3.3% of phone traffic from the "Get location details" click type for advertisers with a brick-and-mortar presence, according to a report released Tuesday. Non-branded share hovers around 0.6%.
That may not seem like much for branded keywords, per Merkle's Digital Marketing Report Q3 2016, but analyzing how brand CPCs compare on phones, the agency found "Get location details" CPC rose 63% higher than clicks on an ad’s headline, the most common click type. Non-brand phone clicks for ‘Get location details’ are 48% more expensive than headline clicks.
Advertisers only need to have the addresses of their brick-and-mortar locations active as location extensions in AdWords to serve the local search ads. It's triggered by Maps queries. There’s no clean way to segment AdWords reporting to view how local search ads perform, but advertisers can download their AdWords performance by click type from the AdWords interface to get "decent visibility" into the impact of local search ads.
Mobile devices drove 48% of organic search visits -- up from 46% in the second quarter of 2016, but well below the 57% of paid search clicks that took place on mobile devices, according to the report.
In addition to a lift from Maps Ads, Mark Ballard, Merkle’s director of research, points to the growth of Google Shopping compared with search text ads. He attributes the growth partly to Product Listing Ads on mobile. "We believe Google's getting a descent amount of volume from Yahoo and the ability to serve ads on Google image search," he said.
PLAs are growing about six times faster than search text ads, compared with text ads, which are growing about 9% to 10% annually in terms of advertising spend, he said. Google text ad spending rose 9% on 11% higher clicks.
Advertisers spent 20% more on Google search ads in the third quarter of 2016 compared with the year-ago quarter, down from 22% growth a quarter earlier. Click volume grew 28%, while CPCs fell 6%.
Google Shopping or PLAs spend grew 36% year-over-year (YoY) up 59% in clicks.
Bing Ads and Yahoo Gemini combined search ad spending fell 14% YoY in the quarter, compared to a 17% decline in second quarter of 2016. Bing Product Ad spending declined 12%, while Gemini’s share of click volume across both platforms remained flat at 17%.
Merkle's clients, which skew more heavily toward retail, have been buying more display ads. Ballard said display ad spending continues to grow faster than any other channel. Ad spend for display on Google, Facebook and other platforms among Merkle clients rose 46% in the quarter compared with the year-ago quarter.
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App Downloads Aren’t a Barrier to Location Intelligence for July Systems
, 27 October 2016
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There are a number of moving pieces as it relates to the location data and tech space. Mobile service providers, mobile OS platforms, location tech providers, existing tech infrastructure, the storefront and the consumer all have an important role in how location intelligence is derived, understood and subsequently acted upon.
Traditionally, one of the major barriers for location players has been the requirement that consumers have a particular mobile app, with location services turned on. This is no longer the case, and many location providers have found ways around apps. July Systems, a new LSA member, is one of those companies, with a specific focus on helping enterprises.
“Enterprises now want to connect their current online digital world into their physical business locations,” said Rajesh Reddy, founder and president of July Systems. “Our objective is to help enterprises understand the customer’s physical location behaviors, correlate them with existing customer knowledge, and engage the customer in the most effective way.”
July Systems is doing this through its product, Proximity MX which integrates with existing wireless infrastructure (WiFi, Bluetooth Beacons and/or GPS) or planned infrastructure investments. With the technology in place, the company then helps these enterprises reach customers across multiple channels in physical locations while gathering location insights.
Making use of WiFi, BLE and/or GPS, Proximity MX makes the initial “connection” with a consumer’s device. In addition to enabling insight and knowledge into consumer behavior, the platform allows clients to push location-aware notifications via SMS, email, app notifications and captive portals triggered by the various location tech.
According to a press release from August, “Proximity MX is currently powering over 4 million customer engagements across multinational hotel chains, malls, retail stores, stadiums, convention centers, bands and train stations.”
As mentioned earlier, one of the selling points of the product is that it is not dependent upon app downloads. According to the website, the product’s other selling points include:
• Improved in-location customer engagement and in-location experience
• Develop richer customer insights and customer profiles
• Send multichannel, location-based notifications
• Improved understanding of the customer journey (online to offline)
Founded in 2001, the company is based in San Francisco, CA.
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Groupon is buying LivingSocial, plans to downsize business to 15 markets from 27
, 27 October 2016
Some significant consolidation is going down in the world of daily deals — going down being the operative phrase here. Today, Groupon announced it would acquire LivingSocial, its onetime big rival that was partly owned by Amazon, for an undisclosed sum. Lest you think that this is a power move made by companies at their peak, think again: the news comes as a quiet sidenote in Groupon’s Q3 earnings results, which beat analysts expectations on revenue of $720.5 million and earnings per share of -$0.01, but showed a continuing net loss for the company, of $35.8 million for this last quarter.
Groupon today also said it plans more downsizing of its overall business, on top of the several closures and layoffs of the last few quarters. In Q2 the company was operational in 27 markets; the plan will be to bring that down to 15. “We are pursuing strategic alternatives and other options to exit the remaining countries, which we expect will continue into 2017,” the company noted.
The LivingSocial deal, which is expected to close in November 2016, is “not material” to Groupon’s earnings, meaning it is small enough that Groupon does not have to disclose the price.
This is a whimper of an ending for LivingSocial, which once competed hard against Groupon for both merchants to list deals for their goods and services, and consumers to buy those offers.
The company had raised an eye-watering $928 million in venture funding over the years, including notable investment from Amazon, and it spent much of that funding aggressively trying to expand. It failed to find a sustainable market for its platform, and went through several rounds of restructuring and pivoting, leading to today’s final deal.
Groupon has fared only somewhat better. As demand for daily deals fell off drastically, the company has tried to spin one idea after another in areas like mobile commerce and building out specific vertical businesses, for example around restaurants and travel. It even looked to capitalize on LivingSocial’s downsizing at times, for example when it acquired TicketMonster assets from its rival in Korea in a bold Asia play, only to sell them off again just over a year later.
The company continues to quietly work on rebuilding its business and points to underlying signs that there is a market for its brand and its role in offering customers more offers from merchants local to them. The company says it added 1.2 million customers in the last quarter and posted gross billings of $1.43 billion.
“Our strategy continues to deliver results with double-digit growth in North America local billings and our highest quarter for customer acquisition in over three years,” said Groupon CEO Rich Williams. “We are looking forward to a strong finish to the year and further progress on our mission to make Groupon a daily habit for consumers.”
However, trends are not going in the right direction right now. Those gross billings are actually down 2 percent on a year ago, and gross profit of $314.1 million was also down on $328.9 million from a year ago, weighed down by international.
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