Yelp is acquiring Eat24, the online delivery and pickup service that competes with GrubHub, Delivery.com and other national and regional players for order-taking, food search and discovery. The service is being acquired for the equivalent of $134 million ($75 million in cash and 1.4 million Class A shares).

Eat24 currently provides menus, order-taking and tracking services for more than 20,000 restaurants in 1,500 cities — 10,000 fewer than GrubHub. Like GrubHub, its revenue model is based on commissions (industry standards are typically 10-12 percent per order.) The service is free to the consumer, although restaurants can charge their own delivery fees.

The service is largely dependent on customer pick up at restaurant locations, but delivery is becoming a larger factor. In several California cities, for instance, Eat24 will soon be providing delivery via SideCar, the shared-car service.

Founded in 2008, Eat24 has been integrated with Yelp’s mobile app since 2013. By bringing Eat24 in-house, Yelp can strengthen its platform of services, which have grown beyond advertising and now includes scheduling, reservations/booking and offers. Yelp reports that it has over 93,000 active local accounts.

While Eat24 currently lags behind GrubHub, online delivery is still a nascent category. Moreover, it is ripe for cross-over activity with other food-related segments, including rating/reviews (i.e Yelp and Zomato, which just acquired IAC’s UrbanSpoon); online reservations (i.e. Priceline’s OpenTable); and eventually even grocery delivery (i.e. Amazon, WalMart and Google.)

The post Yelp Buys Eat24, Taking Online Delivery In House appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

The name of the game this week is gearing up for our big SMB Digital Marketing conference in New Orleans. I’ve been spending lots of time talking to speakers about what we’ll discuss on stage — which has mostly focused on the day 2 session: Brass Tacks: Where is Mobile Actually Working for SMBs.

As the title indicates, this will cut through the hype in SMB mobile marketing to see what’s really working. One little known fact is that most location based mobile marketing today is national advertisers. As an ad medium, it hasn’t really moved down market to SMBs in a scalable way (yet).

That has a lot to do with the traditional challenges of the SMB segment in its slower adaptiveness, and sales challenges. So there are a just a handful of players that are selling and fulfilling mobile tools to SMBs in a meaningful way. We’re happy to say that we have those players on our mobile session.

Those include Yelp, YP, Verve Mobile, and Paypal. Each have done lots of impactful things over the past year. We’ll mostly discuss their approach, what’s working, what’s not working, and how does that shed light on where winning strategies may lie for the coming phases of SMB mobile marketing?

So we’ll be talking to them on stage, one by one. Hope to see you there.

The post SMB Digital Marketing Preview: Where is Mobile Actually Working for SMBs? appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

Fifty plus industry leaders will grace the stage at Leading in Local: SMB Digital Marketing Sept. 22-24 in New Orleans. We’re looking forward to a great show. Want to do some research before the event? Here’s some recent BIA/Kelsey blog coverage of the featured speakers (Click on the hyperlinks).

Acxiom: Scott Howe, CEO (Keynote, Day 2)

Alignable: Eric Groves, CEO (Future Stars, Day 2)

Booker: Josh McCarter, CEO (Scheduling ,Day 2)

Facebook: Joe DeVoy, Product Manager, Local Ads, Facebook (Social Media Shift, Day 2)

First Data/Perka: Mike Lazarro, Head of Planning (Beyond Advertising, Day 3)

ForwardLine: Craig Coleman, CEO (Cultivating SMB Success, Day 2)

Groupon: Dan Roarty, VP, Product Development (Keynote, Day 2)

Local Media Association: Nancy Lane, President (Local Media Heavy Hitters, Day 3)

Radius: Megan Austin Karlen, VP (Smart Data, Day 2)

ReachLocal: Sharon Rowlands,CEO, (Keynote, Day 2)

SignPost: Stu Wall, CEO (Beyond Advertising, Day 3)

Verve: Tom Kenney, President (Brass Tacks Mobile, Day 2)

Wanderful Media: Doug Kilponen, COO (SMB Retail, Day 2)

Yelp: Darnell Holloway, Sr. Mgr., Community Outreach (SMBs On Stage with Yelp, Day 1); Peter Curzon, Business Development ( Brass Tracks Mobile, Day 2)

YP: Jeff Federman, SVP, Digital (Brass Tacks Mobile, Day 2)

The post Useful Research for New Orleans: Recent Blog Coverage, SMB Digital Marketing Speakers appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

On the heels of last year’s LEADING IN LOCAL: SMB Digital Marketing show in Austin, we’ve just announced our agenda for this year’s big event in “The Big Easy”: New Orleans.

Our initial slate of Keynotes include:

Acxiom CEO Scott Howe;
ReachLocal CEO Sharon Rowlands
Google’s SMB Revenue director Steve Espinosa
Facebook’s Leader of SMB/Product Insights Joe Devoy

Additional Featured Speakers:

Sprint’s Karen Noel, GM, Small Business
Groupon’s Dan Roarty, VP of Product Marketing

Also at the event: Search marketing leader Kevin Ryan. Ryan will be debuting his new business best seller, “Taking Down Goliath: The Digital Marketing Strategy Guide for beating competitors with 100 times your spending power.”

More great speakers (We’ll end up with 40 or more):

Yelp’s Darnell Holloway, Sr. Manager, Local Business Outreach
NOLA Media Group’s Ricky Mathews, President
Morris Communications’ Steve Gray, Director of Strategy and Innovation
The Houston Chronicle’s Warren Kay, CRO
ForwardLine’s Craig Coleman, CEO
Search Influence’s Will Scott, CEO
BizHive’s Kim Feil, CEO
Wanderful Media’s Doug Kilponen, COO
Perka’s Rob Bethage, Co-Founder and VP
Booker’s Josh McCarter, CEO
Agendize’s Alf Poor, President

Will we see you down in New Orleans? Check out the full agenda here. And please register here.

The post Just Out: Hot Agenda For LIL: SMB Digital Marketing (Sept. 22-24, New Orleans) appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

The idea that everything is local came through in this morning’s session, “Buy Side, Sell Side: Top Insights from Yelp and U-Haul” featuring two speakers sharing insights from opposite ends of the media purchase.

Elnora Cunningham, Director, Local Search, U-Haul International

Pete Hancock, Senior Director, Head of National Sales, Yelp

The core question they tackled was, What really matters to national brands and franchises when they target locally? Yelp works with top brands around the world. U-Haul has been a leader in using the Web and mobile to localize its global franchises.

Yelp is a media brand know for being very local and SMB focused. The company has only recently shifted its focus to the national market and has had to figure out how its offering applied to national to local brands.

“We have been selling into local markets for eight or nine years now,” Hancock said. “We built it intentionally to be very simple. We built a lot of tools around single location business.”

The key challenge for Yelp is helping national advertisers have same level of content on their Yelp listings as a popular local business would get, with ratings, reviews, photos and so on.

Yelp looks for ways to build the content that drives search when user generated content may not be forthcoming. This means branded profiles, photos, and a specific call to action in each profile. Any elements that are unique to the specific location are helpful, Hancock said. Yelp is also giving brands an API to allow them to plug their review feed into third party of their choice, which enables them to share their review data on other websites, for example.

Cunningham is a veteran of U-Haul who oversaw its transition from a business focused on print Yellow Pages advertising to one focused on search. She said localization is now central to everything they do.

“Everything is local,” Cunningham said. “Today, if you are not using a local approach, you are not in business.”

U-Haul is an unusual brand because it does so much of its media buying itself via an in house agency.

The post At Leading in Local: The National Impact: U-Haul & Yelp appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

The idea that everything is local came through in this morning’s session, “Buy Side, Sell Side: Top Insights from Yelp and U-Haul” featuring two speakers sharing insights from opposite ends of the media purchase.

Elnora Cunningham, Director, Local Search, U-Haul International

Pete Hancock, Senior Director, Head of National Sales, Yelp

The core question they tackled was, What really matters to national brands and franchises when they target locally? Yelp works with top brands around the world. U-Haul has been a leader in using the Web and mobile to localize its global franchises.

Yelp is a media brand know for being very local and SMB focused. The company has only recently shifted its focus to the national market and has had to figure out how its offering applied to national to local brands.

“We have been selling into local markets for eight or nine years now,” Hancock said. “We built it intentionally to be very simple. We built a lot of tools around single location business.”

The key challenge for Yelp is helping national advertisers have same level of content on their Yelp listings as a popular local business would get, with ratings, reviews, photos and so on.

Yelp looks for ways to build the content that drives search when user generated content may not be forthcoming. This means branded profiles, photos, and a specific call to action in each profile. Any elements that are unique to the specific location are helpful, Hancock said. Yelp is also giving brands an API to allow them to plug their review feed into third party of their choice, which enables them to share their review data on other websites, for example.

Cunningham is a veteran of U-Haul who oversaw its transition from a business focused on print Yellow Pages advertising to one focused on search. She said localization is now central to everything they do.

“Everything is local,” Cunningham said. “Today, if you are not using a local approach, you are not in business.”

U-Haul is an unusual brand because it does so much of its media buying itself via an in house agency.

The post At Leading in Local: The National Impact: U-Haul & Yelp appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

Have you made up your mind to join hundreds of your colleagues at Leading in Local: The National Impact in Atlanta May 7-9? We’re deeply excited about the event and its unique focus on leveraging the franchises, multi location outlets and brands that are investing heavily in local.

Just added: A great Buy Side/Sell Side session with U-Haul‘s Elnora Cunningham and Yelp‘s Pete Hancock. That’s kicking off Day 3 in grand style.

We’ve also announced the full lineup for our Local Retail session. Joining keynoter Mark Marinacci from Gannett/G/O Digital are Twitter‘s Nick Guerriero, General Mills‘ Brian Kittelson, Novus‘ Dave Murphy, AOL‘s John Gregory and Booz‘s Naseem Sayani.

We’ve also recently announced the lineup for our National Vertical session with Angie’s List‘s Kevin Vanes; ESPN Local‘s JonPaul Rexing, New Point Media Group‘s Scott Dixon and Dominion Digital Media‘s Bruce Budkofsky.

Also just announced: the eight finalists for the GoLocal Awards, who will be joined on stage by our judging team, including a great group of real industry experts.

All these additions make up part of our 60 speaker lineup — the biggest group we may have ever had on stage. Register.

The post Hot Adds for Atlanta: Yelp, Twitter, ESPN, Angie’s List appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

Have you made up your mind to join hundreds of your colleagues at Leading in Local: The National Impact in Atlanta May 7-9? We’re deeply excited about the event and its unique focus on leveraging the franchises, multi location outlets and brands that are investing heavily in local.

Just added: A great Buy Side/Sell Side session with U-Haul‘s Elnora Cunningham and Yelp‘s Pete Hancock. That’s kicking off Day 3 in grand style.

We’ve also announced the full lineup for our Local Retail session. Joining keynoter Mark Marinacci from Gannett/G/O Digital are Twitter‘s Nick Guerriero, General Mills‘ Brian Kittelson, Novus‘ Dave Murphy, AOL‘s John Gregory and Booz‘s Naseem Sayani.

We’ve also recently announced the lineup for our National Vertical session with Angie’s List‘s Kevin Vanes; ESPN Local‘s JonPaul Rexing, New Point Media Group‘s Scott Dixon and Dominion Digital Media‘s Bruce Budkofsky.

Also just announced: the eight finalists for the GoLocal Awards, who will be joined on stage by our judging team, including a great group of real industry experts.

All these additions make up part of our 60 speaker lineup — the biggest group we may have ever had on stage. Register.

The post Hot Adds for Atlanta: Yelp, Twitter, ESPN, Angie's List appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

Coming on the heels of its big content deal with Yahoo, Yelp has inked a strategic agreement with directories giant YP to use the vast YP sales force to sell its inventory. The deal expands Yelp’s sales reach while at the same time exposing YP advertisers to Yelp’s large and engaged base of consumer traffic.

We spoke with Mark Ugar, YP’s VP of business development, who said the deal was comparable to what YP already does with other local search players, including Citygrid and Dex Media.

“In this new world, YP advertisers will be able to manage their presence on Yelp,” Ugar said. He wouldn’t get into the specifics of how this would work, though he acknowledged this would be a premium level product for YP advertisers. The advantage for YP advertisers is convenience, getting their presence on both platforms managed through a single source.

The big difference is Yelp’s enormity as a consumer facing local search brand. In a recent post on Yelp’s blog, the company boasted of passing the 100 million uniques (worldwide) in a single month milestone in January. This figure that doesn’t even include traffic from the 9.4 million mobile devices carrying the Yelp app.

YP’s appeal to Yelp is pretty obvious. With 4,000 local sales people, YP is the player to beat in terms of local sales coverage.

Ugar said the deal will go live sometime over the next few months. He expects the deal to be just the beginning of a long term partnership between YP and Yelp.

“This opens up a lot of possibilities in local search,” Ugar said. When asked to elaborate, he demurred. “We will let you speculate on what those can be.”

So, taking that challenge, the most ambitious possibility to speculate is a combination of the two companies. In this age where everyone is trying to achieve maximum scale, no merger possibility should be dismissed out of hand. The combination would on balance be more complementary than overlapping. Another less bold avenue is deeper content integration, similar to Yelp’s recent deal with Yahoo, which our senior analyst Abid Chaudhry addressed on BIA/Kelsey’s most recent Analyst Roundtable.

“Neither deal reflects a change in strategy. The Yahoo deal was about surfacing more of Yelp’s rich local content in other places consumers might be looking for it, and follows on the heels of similar content deals with Apple, Bing, and car manufacturers,” said Vince Sollitto, Yelp VP of Communications.

“The YP deal is about Yelp gaining access to YP’s advertiser base by letting YP sell a basic enhanced profile on Yelp as part of their multi-platform ad network; this helps YP expand their ad network distribution and provides richer content for Yelp consumers. Yelp is happy to work with third parties that can help share more content with consumers or expose more businesses to the reach and benefits of Yelp.”

The post Strategic Deal to Boost Yelp, YP appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

BIA/Kelsey senior analysts Peter Krasilovsky and Abid Chaudhry batted around these two hot topics today on the latest in our ongoing Analyst Roundtable series.

“Newspapers need money,” Krasilovsky said, answering the basic questions of why Classified Ventures (a consortium of five newspaper groups) would sell the No. 2 auto site.

Krasilovsky then posed the bigger question, “Who would buy this property?” The property could potentially be sold from anywhere from $2.8 billion to $3.6 billion — a level accessible only to the biggest media and technology players. Peter suggested Gannett and Google could be potential buyers, with Autotrader, the No. 1 player, being a potential dark horse.

Next, Chaudhry shared his insights on the recent Yahoo-Yelp partnership.

“This is a pretty big development,” Chaudhry said. “It provides more fuel to the fire to all the speculation that Marissa Mayer and her intentions to rebuild Yahoo’s search engine business.”

The big question is how will Yahoo compete with Google? Chaudhry doesn’t see Yahoo taking Google on directly. Instead, he expects Yahoo to carve out a niche for itself in the mobile search market. He highlighted Yahoo’s efforts to incorporate more native and streaming advertising from Yahoo’s Gemini platform.

Click on this video to enjoy today’s Analyst Roundtable in its entirety.

The post Analyst Roundtable: A Week in Review appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.