This of course comes in handy as mobile shopping and search continue to ramp up. User buying intent for real world purchases tends to be higher in mobile, so providing more information to capture that intent is the name of the game.

This of includes calls to action like phone numbers and mapping which are key areas we continue to examine. Retailigence takes it another step with product information — not just what retailers carry but what sizes and colors are on the shelf now.

This is particularly fitting in product areas where there is a high degree of variability and specificity. Think clothing in different colors/sizes or consumer electronics with spec variations. In the interview below, CEO Jeremy Geiger and I unpack all of this.

And if it’s any indication of the speed of this market — and of Retailigence’s own pace of innovation — its usage has grown from even what was discussed in the interview. For example the company just recently baked in new functionality for product reserve/pickup.

The video is below and our past Retailigence blog coverage is here. You can also check out our recent white paper on mobile shopping and payments which relates. Lastly, we’ll cover all of this at our ILM conference in December in San Francisco. Hope to see you there.

The post Closed Loop Mobile Local Shopping: A Conversation With Retailigence appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

Verve Mobile’s CEO Tom MacIsaac is bullish on local publishers’ ability to drive this revenue growth by selling local audiences not just to local advertisers but also to national brands seeking access to local audiences in a trusted context, through partners like Verve.

The secret sauce is Verve’s ability to deliver quality location-based audiences into a system in a way that creates premium mobile CPM values for both local and national mobile inventory by linking to high quality, local branded content. MacIsaac recently shared his views with BIA/Kelsey on where he sees the future of mobile and where he sees drivers and challenges.

MacIsaac concurs with BIA/Kelsey’s forecast of a flip from 60 percent/40 percent national/local mobile spending over the next few years. BIA/Kelsey’s mobile forecast predicts that from 2012-2016 the national/local split in mobile spending will reach 58 percent local for a total local spend of $5.8 billion as national brands continue to find more sales lift in their local initiatives.

Verve Mobile works with over 3,500 publishers and has achieved a level of dominance in the local mobile industry. MacIsaac revealed that the company is targeting $45 million in revenue in 2013, up 80 percent from $25 million this year. Generally, mobile display inventory pricing has lagged both PC display inventory in terms of CPM and CPC even as audience usage has increased dramatically. But, according to MacIsaac, premium pricing for mobile is available today through creating a quality context for advertisers through a combination of trusted, local content and accurate location data for audiences consuming that content.

Verve’s CMO, Greg Hallinan, also spoke to this at BIA/Kelsey’s ILM West 2012 conference held last week in Los Angeles. Verve’s Location Service combines location data with location context to customize the ad execution and creative to maximize relevance to audiences and advertisers.

MacIsaac offered a success formula for local publishers that is simple in concept but difficult in execution. Premium pricing in local mobile inventory will come through local sales forces that are focused on digital products; are driven by incentive compensation to close mobile sales; and by high quality content consumed by audiences that can be geo-located and served in a way that delivers local audiences not only to local advertisers but also sold to national brands seeking access to those local audiences.

“This is a win-win proposition that allows us to write bigger checks to our partners than the ones they write to us. For local publishers who use the Verve mobile publishing platform, we aren’t just a vendor on the cost side of the equation, we’re a partner building incremental revenue,” MacIsaac said. “We have some intellectual property in the works that will further improve our ability to offer even more accurate location targeting of our mobile audiences and maintain the high CPM’s we’ve generated from national advertisers seeking local audiences.”

BIA/Kelsey’s viewpoint is that local mobile ad inventory has such high potential value to national and local advertisers because it is the only medium that increasing is “always on and always there.” Mobile delivers audiences to advertisers that have a “time and place” context that offers a premium utility value to advertisers that will continue to be unlocked in inventory pricing as mobile location sensing and ad network technology continues to improve.

The post Verve Mobile Capitalizes on Mobile’s National into Local Spending Trend appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

BIA/Kelsey’s Matt Booth invited two exceptionally frank local advertising buyers to dish the dirt on what makes them sign the contract and what makes them ask a local media sales person to leave their office — immediately. No words were minced during this dialogue on ILM West 2012’s final day in Los Angeles.

The guests were Elnora Cunningham, director of Print and Online Search for U-Haul; and Maja Kermath, a former AT&T Interactive executive who is starting a fitness-related business in Austin, Texas called Kor180.

Some of what Elnora had to say:

“Five years ago went black in print advertising and I helped to convert to digital. We were spending $40 million in directories. Over the last couple of year, we’ve evaluating what it means to go into digital. I learned what I don’t know. Any business coming to the table needs to be a subject matter expert, and be able to tie our business needs into what they are selling.”

“We will spend the money when it’s right. We don’t have a problem with that, but you have to back it up.”

“The more prepared you are, the faster the process will take. It is embarrassing when people come in and don’t understand our business. Go to our website. We are more than just trucks and trailers.”

“Never oversell. I see a lot of that. Be authentic and transparent.”

And from Maja:

“My biggest problem is time. I am CEO, HR director and head of manufacturing.”

“Groupon breaks local businesses. I will not do a Groupon for my business. Restaurants go to Groupon to die.”

“Facebook could do so much more [with SMBs]. When I was at ATTi I was scared of Facebook and Groupon. I was not afraid of Google because they do algorithms well, but not people.”

“Some things I want to do myself, some things I don’t. Social I will do myself. Listings management I am happy to outsource.”

“Responsive design websites optimize for whatever device the consumer is using, those are $100,000 sites. Spacecraft [her web designer] is build off of responsive design. You need to make SMBs operate like Nike, lululemon, Whole Foods.”

The post At ILM West: Tough Love for Local Media Sellers appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

In considering mobile strategies, small businesses are focused on being found, but there are very different issues than simply searching on Google. Telmetrics’ CEO Bill Dinan, speaking at ILM West in Los Angeles today, noted that small business owners all have smartphones, and they are using them in a very different scenario from mobile just a few years ago.

The impact on their engagement with users, and conversion rates, is palpable. Yet business owners still are not maximizing mobile to their best advantage.

“One size doesn’t fit all,” notes Dinan, saying mobile now takes its place fully in a multi-platform world that includes smartphones, tablets and other channels. If a service requires a lot of research — such as reviews –they should be focused more on tablets, he notes.

Travel is an extreme example of a research heavy vertical. Restaurants, in contrast, are smartphone heaven. “Eighty percent convert within a day, and 60 percent convert within an hour,” adds Dinan.

The post At ILM West: Telmetrics Sees Key Differences in Device Usage appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

BIA/Kelsey Research Director Steve Marshall capped Day 2 with consecutive interviews with two Digital Hollywood insiders. Doug Neil, SVP digital marketing for Universal Pictures; and Jordan Glazer, CEO Eventful.

First up was Neil, who runs online and mobile strategies for the film studio. He has managed digital marketing for more than 120 films.

Here’s an excerpt from their discussion.

How are campaigns customized per film?

Every film is unique. We do 15 to 18 films a year, each has a distinct target audience. There is some overlap, but we have to have unique programs for what we do.

What are digital market budgets for the average film?

It depends on the film, and on the target audience. A movie release will have a $15 million to $40 million per film total market. Online averages 10 percent but is sometimes as much as 20 percent of the total marketing budget.

Is mobile’s share of the total increasing?

Absolutely. It was an afterthought seven years ago. Now there is a team that focuses on mobile marketing.

Looking at all the media at Universal’s disposal, how do you decide the mix?

Again, driven by the audience we are trying to reach. Les Miserable has a substantial local print buy, because the audience does skew a little older. Pitch Perfect had no print. The next Fast and Furious movie will be mostly online.

Do you monitor online commentary?

Absolutely. After the first screening of Les Miserable, were on twitter for 24 hours tracking reactions. As we do more screenings, we compare the response by market.

##
Next up was Jordan Glazer, CEO of Eventful. Eventful is a global platform for local event content.

Where do local acts fit into your ecosystem?

When we embarked upon the challenge of aggregated the most comprehensive data set around events, the head of the tail was movie times, etc. But the majority of content is hyper local. Wine tastings and local performing arts.

How do you target?

We know not just zip code or gender or age, we have a lot of data on what they like. From what they tell us and from our own observation. And we have built technology to take advantage of all that data.

We worked with Universal on reaching a faith based audience for the film Charlie St. Cloud, for example. One thing we can look at is, “Who likes Christian rock?”

How does Eventful make money?

Our service is free to consumers. We license event content, but the bulk of our revenue comes from advertising among entertainment marketers.

What about personalization?

In our email marketing program, we send our weekly events guides. Over the last 12 months, we began to personalize each email to the recipient…”Segment of one” is a very 80’s as a term, but we are finally able to deliver a completely unique content experience. And that will continue.

The post At ILM West: Hollywood Shows the Way appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

Online retail has become more robust and predominate over the past year. Some of the underlying trends and drivers were examined this morning on the panel, “Search for it! Local Online Retail Innovation.

One of the most compelling recent developments in retail has been the show-rooming phenomenon that has turned the the old shop online, purchase offline paradigm on its ear. Now, consumers are walking into Best Buy and using their smart phone to figure out if they can get the same device online for less money.

According to Matt Archer, senior director at comscore, 37 percent of consumers say they have engaged in show-rooming, and 72 percent doing so to find a better price online.

Paul Wicker from Kenshoo Local talked about an innovation relevant to retail — the emergence of Google Product Listing Ad, which are overtaking text ads because of their ability to enable commerce.

The PLAs don’t come from ad words directly, more of a blend, according to Wicker.

Big retailers manage a big feed, sending it to a lot of places. This inevitably ends up in the Google merchant center. You can now connect merchant center with ad words, and create Product Listing Ads. Archer says that today, the PLAs are significantly outperforming text ads.

One interesting question was whether there is a service listing ad? The sense was the fit wasn’t as natural, since the whole idea is facilitating transactions online, not a strong suit for service businesses.

The post At ILM West: Local Online Retail Innovation appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

This morning at ILM West in Los Angeles, Google’s head of Global SMB Sales Todd Rowe offered “Five Trends that Will Affect you in 2013.”

Rowe is leading the charge at Google to build a global re-seller network to offer Google products to small-business advertisers. To date, Rowe and his team has lined up 350 partners in 44 countries.

Google along with the rest of the audience is vested in understanding how consumer trends will impact the local and small-business advertising space.

Here are Todd’s 5 Trends:

1. Everyone and everything is online

2. Consumers are becoming hyper-informed

3. Consumer are hyper-connected in a four screen world

4. Acceleation of choice and sharing

5. Extraordinary is the new ordinary

Rowe placed particular emphasis on the idea of the new four-screen world (TV, desktop/laptop, tablet and phone). This change in consumer behavior has a profound impact on how advertisers reach consumers. Having a website isn’t enough.

“The four-screen, hyper-informed customer rules in 2013,” Rowe said. “You must tailor your marketing to this new world.”

The phone is the alpha dog in the four-screen world, according to Rowe. “This is the tectonic shift that we see happening.”

* 55% of the U.S. population owns a smart phone.

* 78% don’t leave home without the device.

“These trends, moving more online, mobile, four screens, they are a given,” Rowe said. “What is not a given is how do we in this room take advantage.”

The post AT ILM West: Google’s Todd Rowe appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

Today at ILM West in Los Angeles, digital media investor and ex-Ticketmaster CEO Sean Moriarty talked to his former Citysearch colleague Matt Booth about what gets an investo/VC excited in today’s environment.

Moriarty offered some fundamentals.

As an investor, “”You have to  focus on the things that you believe in and like.”

Any entrepreneur approaching Moriarty cannot think small.

“It has to be a big category,” Moriarty said. “If it is not a big opportunity, I am not going to spend much of my time on it.”

A category that gets Moriarty excited is supply aggregation. Think Ticketmaster, Amazon, OpenTable, even AirBNB.

“There are a lot of great opportunities around demand aggregation, but I like businesses that aggregate supply.”

Moriarty is also focused on platform businesses. One of his investments is Triton Digital, which provides digital platforms to terrestrial radio stations.

Finally, Booth and Moriarty talked about the start up environment in Los Angeles and Southern California, which lags Silicon Valley as a hub for tech start ups.

The big reason is that investors concentrate in Silicon Valley, which breeds an expectation to site the business in the Valley.

Moriarty noted however that most of today’s great Internet brands are based somewhere other than Northern California. Think Match.com (Dallas), Living Social (Washington, D.C.), Groupon (Chicago), among others.

The post At ILM West: The New Investment Climate appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

Our flagship event, ILM West, is next week in sunny Los Angeles (weather forecast: in the 70s). We have a bulging attendee sheet, and 47, hand-picked thought leaders on stage. Here’s my personal cheat sheet on some of what’s happening:

Innovation: We’ll leave that up to IdeaLab CEO Bill Gross, our opening keynoter. Gross invented the auction system for buying search advertising, and as head of IdeaLab, the industry’s first incubator, has come up with one winning idea after another. We will also hear a lot about innovation from an investors point of view from former TicketMaster CEO Sean Moriarty.

Next Steps for Media and Directory Players: Digital is here and the impact on traditional media has been felt. The question we have: how big a role are the traditional leaders going to play? We’ve picked YP CEO David Krantz, NAA Chairman and Dallas Morning News Publisher James Moroney III and UT San Diego President Mike Hodges to share their insights with us.

Sales Transformation: Arguably, the hardest part of local is reaching local businesses. That’s also where the growth is. We’ll be looking at new directions for sales and services in keynotes from CityGrid Media CEO Jason Finger — his first major appearance in his new role. Finger, the founder of Seamless, is one of the industry’s deep thinkers. We’ll also have deep discussions with ReachLocal Chief Product Officer Kris Barton; LocalEdge CEO Jeff Folckemer, ex Berry exec Kathy Geiger Schwab; and SmugCloud CEO (and former Yell CDO) Mark Canon.

Social’s Impact on Local: Social is grabbing time share from other media. But how is it best leveraged at the local level? It is a surprisingly unanswered question. We’ll get some meat on it in several ways at ILM. There is obviously the keynote from Facebook’s Global SMB leader Dan Levy. We’ll also dig deep into driving local consumers in a top session with Universal Studios SVP Doug Neil and Eventful CEO Jordan Glazier New ways to leverage social will be heard in discussions with three top innovators: Hearsay Social VP of Product Mark Gilbert; MoonTide Media CEO Todd Klawin; and Payvment SVP of Marketing (and former MerchantCircle exec) Darren Waddell. We’re expecting to really learn something about social/local at ILM.

Deals (And Loyalty) Act II: New customer acquisition has always gotten the lion’s share of marketing resources. But the rise of big data and card linked programs has pushed loyalty to the fore like never before. Now we have a blend of promotions, including coupons, deals and loyalty. A lot of it merges in the new “offer cloud.” We’ll hear from a number of top players in the space at ILM West, including FiveStars CEO Victor Ho; Closely CEO Perry Evans; ValPak President Michael Vivio; Savings.com CEO Loren Bendele; DataSphere SVP Gary Cowan; Constant Constant/SaveLocal VP David Gilbertson and Second Street Media CEO Matt Coen.

New Directions for Local Search: It isn’t just about keywords anymore. Search has been fully integrated into broader advertising programs, and is also a key driver of mobile and maps revenue. And with the development of Product Listing Ads, it has become a major force in retail. We’ll have a keynote interview with Google Channel Partners GM Todd Rowe; and in depth discussions with retail search leaders, including Wanderful Media CEO (and former MerchantCircle CEO) Ben T Smith IV; Kenshoo Local Director Paul Wicker; and Where2GetIt CEO Manish Patel. And you won’t want to miss some real insights presented by three top search experts “Before the Bell” on day 1: Local SEO Guide’s Andrew Shotland, Search Influence CEO Will Scott, and eLocal Listing CEO Tim Judd.

All this just scratches the surface. Here’s a link to the whole agenda. For those of you that haven’t registered, here’s a link to the registration page.

The post Cheat Sheet for ILM West Next Week appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

As many in our  interactive local media community can attest, the pace of change and disruption in social media is dizzying. New networks, native ads, SoLoMo, social commerce…we could go on for days.

At BIA/Kelsey’s ILM West 2012 conference in L.A. Dec. 4-6, we’re placing a major focus on social media business models. The headliner is a Day 3 keynote from Dan Levy, who is running Facebook’s global SMB initiative. Many of the pieces that Facebook has been working on in local are coming together, and Levy will provide insight on what that means for the marketplace.

Another key part of the ILM agenda is a Day 2 Superforum on social entrepreneurship. Rather than focus on just one subject, we’ll present a full menu of “social business innovators,” with specialties across commerce/ads, search, content and CRM.

Darren Waddell (SVP Marketing) will discuss why Payvment believes social commerce can be an effective channel for SMBs…more effective, in fact, than for brands. He’ll also share how ads and deals fit into the commerce picture, and take us deep into Facebook’s Open Graph.

Matthew Berk (a longtime local thought leader, formerly of Marchex) is working on a new initiative at Lucky Oyster – that social signals have fundamentally changed the search experience that users demand. He’ll share his vision for satisfying that demand by aggregating and organizing search experiences through social context.

Todd Klawin, CEO of MoonTide Media, sees a gap in the social graph…and that’s around location. He’s working on a community-oriented social application that leverages Facebook and integrates with local publishers. We’ll get a sneak peek at the show.

Finally, Mark Gilbert, VP of Product at Hearsay Social, will share the company’s unique twist on social CRM for national enterprises with widespread local footprints. Smart, consistent social management at a local store/affiliate level has been an elusive problem for many brands. Hearsay is solving that problem for everyone from banks to insurance agents to gyms.

The session will be loaded with innovative thought. Check out the full conference agenda here, and sign up today to lock in your best rate. See you in L.A.!

The post ILM West 2012: Spotlight on Social Business Innovators appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.