Primitive (and perhaps misleading) estimates on effective ROI have driven many local publishers up the wall. During Yelp's IPO period, one analyst suggested that it cost pizza shops almost a hundred dollars in advertising on Yelp for every pizza sold.…
BIA/Kelsey's Leading in Local 2013 conference March 18-20 in Boston broke so much new ground it's hard to build a report card on what happened among the 50+ speakers and hundreds of participants. But the "local industry" has clearly moved…
Deals are still going strong but are never going to be the principal promotional channel for the vast majority of businesses, noted Deal Current President Patrick Dillon, who was speaking March 20 at BIA/Kelsey's Leading in Local conference in Boston.…
One of the key challenges in local is to level the playing field for local SMBs so they can compete against national brands. Key areas where national brands outgun local SMBs include search ranking, automated listings management, lead generation and…
The old model of pay per leads that had driven the success of ServiceMagic and other home and trade oriented service companies is shifting as social media makes its impact. Speaking at Leading in Local 2013 in Boston March 19,…
Local search is taking lots of new directions, with unprecedented opportunities opening up for low budget SMBs, according to an all star panel of search experts at Leading in Local in Boston March 19. Moderator Andrew Shotland of Local SEO…
The power of localized national marketing was explored in multiple ways during an all star session today at Leading in Local: The National Impact, a conference taking place in Boston March 18-20. Speakers included Yodle CEO Court Cunningham, LivingSocial SVP…
Directory assistance is going through major upgrades, as more companies seek the power of leads from pay per call advertising, while relying on new technologies, such as cloud based- and mobile services. One of these is Soleo, which provides local…
Brian Halligan, CEO, HubSpot At BIA/Kelsey, we always stress that innovation comes as much from understanding consumers as developing new product features. This is especially the case in Interactive Local Media, where many of the greatest successes -- AutoTrader, Cars.com,…
When they first launched in 2005, the independent sales channels were almost entirely about reselling search and YP ads. SMBs showed confusion over the value of these campaigns however, and it didn't help that Google (and its lower margins) dominated…
It was just a matter of "when," but Groupon has finally relieved Andrew Mason of his CEO duties after a quarter in which Groupon widely missed its mark because of its very high expenses and serious international issues, despite growing…
Google SVP of Advertising Susan Wojcicki told the IAB Annual Leadership Meeting today in Phoenix that "we are a B2B business but we need to move as fast as consumers do." Choice, control, charm, connectedness and calibration are the 5…
Ad industry heavyweights at the IAB Annual Leadership Meeting in Phoenix this week wrestled with the meaning of Big Data on advertising. The industry's fascination with Big Data was certainly fully on display. "Big Data is the new black," joked…
The shift to online and mobile is having very specific impacts on the physical world for the first time, and represents "the lowest competitive bar and the highest opportunity" in the 20 years since the Web became commercialized, according to…
BIA/Kelsey's Leading in Local: The National Impact event March 18-20 in Boston has gotten closer to a "final" lineup, with several great new adds to an already powerful, lineup consisting of 45, hand-picked speakers. One of our big new "gets"…
Living Social has won a lifeline from some of its existing investors today with a new infusion of $110 Million. The new cash lets the #2 deals company, which has been 31 percent owned by Amazon, proceed after sustaining very…
I had the fun of buying Amex's $25 gift card for $15 the other day on Amex Sync, the new Amex Twitter Store. All I had to do was sync my Amex account to Amex's Twitter Store page, joing the…
BIA/Kelsey's upcoming "Leading in Local: The National Impact" event March 18-20 in Boston keeps building and building. We've now crossed the 40 speaker threshold - and the lineup truly reflects the rapid shifts and progress we've been seeing in local,…
Red Beacon founder Ethan Anderson has unveiled his latest project, MyTime, a "scheduling supermarket" that sets dynamic pricing for unfilled appointments. Online scheduling intrigues us as a gateway towards promotions and transactions, but it remains underutilized by SMBs and the…
The startup ethos is something that a lot of companies want to emulate: the constant drive and hustle, passion and ruthlessness of it all. We are many years from the first dot com explosion, but I still have a habit…
