Apple's Opt-In Ad Rules Hurt FacebookThere are many cynics who believe Apple's opt-in tracking rules (ATT) aren't about protecting consumer privacy but instead about boosting Apple's own ad revenue. Apple

Apple Maps Has Finally Arrived  After a botched original launch and years of playing catch-up to Google Maps, Apple Maps has finally become truly competitive. There are a wide range

LSAs and Lawyers: Heading for Divorce?  While nobody knows how much Google is making on Local Services Ads (LSAs), they're popular and growing. LSAs were introduced for the legal vertical

What's My Business: WhatsApp's 'Yellow Pages'Earlier this week we wrote about Twitter's relatively new "About Module" on its professional profiles for local businesses. David Mihm cleverly called it "Twitter My

Twitter's 'About Module' for Local BusinessesIn April Twitter launched "Professional Profiles." They offer a verified and expanded presence on the site for businesses and a few other user categories. First,

Shopify CAC, Marketing Benchmarks for SMBs Marketers are always looking for good benchmarking data. Shopify offers some (based on a survey) that reflect SMB customer acquisition (CAC) and marketing costs

Chase Buying Zagat and The Infatuation  Banking giant JPMorgan Chase said it's buying restaurant guide The Infatuation, which owns Zagat. The latter acquired Zagat from Google in 2018 and recently

News Pubs Liable for Random Facebook CommentsIn a defamation case that may have broad implications, the Australian High Court ruled that news publishers (The Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian)

Report: Intuit to Buy Mailchimp for $10BBloomberg reported this week that Intuit, maker of tax and accounting software, is seeking to buy Mailchimp for $10B or more. It would be

SMB Survey: 55% Not Buying Digital AdsA new survey of 800 SMBs by social content platform Ripl finds that 55% are not spending anything on digital advertising (organic not discussed)

Survey: Annual 'SMB' Ad Budgets $109KBorrell Associates published its annual local advertiser survey. Conducted in Q2, the sample was 2,811 "local businesses." However it represents larger "small businesses" because

WTF: Google Paying $15B for iPhone Default SearchThere have been various informed estimates over the years about how much Google is paying Apple to be the Safari browser's default search

GoLocal: Walmart's Last-Mile Delivery ServiceWalmart is doing something that would have been unthinkable in a pre-Amazon world: offering its delivery infrastructure to other retailers. Announced earlier this week, the last-mile

Study: Most Search Queries Are 'Mid-Funnel' Marketers discuss the "purchase funnel" all the time without really knowing what it means for their actual customer's journey. The familiar reverse pyramid makes

Contrarian Move: Amazon Plans Department Stores   At a time when e-commerce is driving retail growth, Amazon is planning more physical stores. The Wall Street Journal reported that the company intends

'Historic Moment': Amazon Passes Walmart  Walmart reported quarterly earnings yesterday. The world's largest traditional retailer said that sales rose 5.2% and e-commerce grew roughly 6%. Global e-commerce sales were

Apple Boosting Search with iOS 15Apple has been slowly and incrementally improving its Spotlight Search feature on the iPhone over time. With iOS 15,  there are new upgrades and enhancements,

'Vaxports' Coming to an SMB Near YouAs the seriousness of the Delta Variant sinks in, consumers are becoming more depressed at the prospect of long-haul COVID. And among the increasingly

Google Picking Winners and Losers in Food Delivery  Google is beset by antitrust critics on all sides. In its defense Google often argues its decisions are for the benefit of

Climate Crisis: No More BAUYou've probably read about a massive new UN report on the state of climate change. It's based on thousands of scientific studies and huge amounts of

Yelp Surprise Profit, Vaccination Attributes Yelp announced a surprise Q2 profit and 52% YoY revenue growth this week. The company saw gains in the number of advertisers (SMB and enterprise)

Local and Organic Drive 73% of Page ViewsIf you didn't already know, the two most effective digital channels are organic SEO and local (Google Local Pack), according to new findings

The (New) Ethics of Targeting and Tracking For 20+ years, digital marketers essentially captured as much data as they could about consumer behavior and identities, as quietly as possible – so

Snap Personalizes Map with 'My Places' It's "places week." On Wednesday Apple relaunched its Maps Connect listings portal, as Places on Maps. And now Snap has introduced "My Places" on

Apple 'Places' Replaces Maps Connect Apple's self-service listings management portal Maps Connect, which launched in 2014, is now "Places on Maps." Supporting this is the Apple Business Register where listings

Roofer Sues Over 1-Star Reviews, Gets BombedFile this in the "will they never learn" column. A couple renting a house in Vancouver, Washington engaged with a roofer, Executive Roof Services

Section 230 Bill Takes Aim at FacebookOne of the first concrete acts of "Section 230 reform" is Senator Amy Klobuchar’s proposed Health Misinformation Act of 2021. Aimed squarely at

Square Bank Should Scare Traditionals Square has expanded its banking capabilities and is now offering full-service banking for small business customers. Formally called "Square Banking," the service follows the launch

Olympics Race to Avoid Financial DisasterIn an ominous sign for the 2021 Olympics, Toyota said it will not air TV commercials during the games. Fear of a tainted Olympics could

What's Really Going on with IDFA? There's a lot of conflicting information about Apple's AppTrackingTransparency (ATT) and the number of opt-ins. According to Flurry Analytics, it's either 14% or 6%

Craigslist Revenue Off Almost 50% Since 2018Haven't used Craigslist lately? You aren't alone. According to a report from AIM Group earlier this year, the site's traffic is down roughly 40%

Biden's Sweeping Competition Order Faces Challenges  On Friday President Biden signed an expansive executive order "promoting competition in the American economy." It seeks to address "excessive market concentration" (and power)

Regulating Google Play: Would It Matter?  Earlier this week Attorneys general from 36 states and Washington DC filed an antitrust suit over Google Play app store fees and alleged anticompetitive

$4.3 billion: Nextdoor Finally Going Public Current CEO Sarah Friar replaced founding CEO Nirav Tolia in late 2018, roughly a decade after the company that became Nextdoor was founded

Location Intelligence Enters a Challenging New Phase  Foursquare founder Dennis Crowley said he's "stepping back" from his current role at the company (executive chairman, head of R&D). He'll

FTC Humiliated, Facebook Antitrust Case Dismissed Earlier today, a federal court judge dismissed state and FTC antitrust lawsuits against Facebook. Like that. The news propelled Facebook's market capitalization above $1

Google Gives Cookies a Temporary Reprieve Google said this week that it's going to push back the Chrome deprecation of third party cookies to 2023 – two years from now. The

E-commerce Review Fraud a $152B Problem Nearly 90% of global e-commerce spending (eMarketer: $4.3 trillion) is influenced by reviews. That means product reviews on Amazon and other marketplaces are

Amazon Prime Day Sales May Reach $11B Last year Amazon Prime Day generated almost $10.5 billion in sales. This year should beat that, although Prime Day won't benefit from

Google Building Search to Sale Local ExperiencesGoogle is making it easier for local business owners to input their content directly from SERPs and Maps, after a search on the business

Uberall Raises $115M, Buys MomentFeedGiven that I work for Uberall we debated whether to cover this. But it is a big story; so here's the news: Uberall raised a $115M

Digital Boosted SMBs, Can They Keep It Up? Many small businesses pivoted during COVID to offer more digital capabilities: better websites, chatbots, online appointments, ordering and food delivery. Half of

Antitrust Bills 'Package' Takes Aim at Big TechA bipartisan group of House lawmakers today introduced five separate reform bills aiming to rein in the power of big technology companies. They

Apple Goes All Google Maps  Apple made a ton of OS and feature announcements during its WWDC developer keynote on Monday. The Verge and TechCrunch have good, comprehensive roundups. Here

Google: Newspaper Ad Losses Not Our FaultNewspaper publishers often blame Google for the decline of ad revenues. In the US, Craigslist took lots of blame early on. More recently, EU

Nextdoor Revamps Classifieds – Now Called 'Finds'Nextdoor announced a new section in its classifieds marketplace, for free items: Free Finds. That ties into an overall rebranding of its marketplace as "Finds.

To the Winners Go the Stores  Even as many retailers struggle and pundits pronounce stores endangered, we're entering a new era where stores will play a reinvigorated role. Successful DTC

Google: 'Content for Data' Is OverGoogle held its annual Google Marketing Live event this week. There were many ads- and analytics- related announcements involving automation, simplification and reach. Several focused

Fake Review Economy Is Booming Google is the dominant local reviews platform. It also dominates the world of fake reviews. A new investigation by the CBC discusses the problem and

Food Fight: DoorDash vs. UberEats Food delivery in the US is estimated to be worth nearly $30 billion according to estimates. It's a high stakes market with intense competition among

20 Years After Apple, Google Opens a Retail StoreIt's 20 years since the first Apple Store opened in Tyson's Corner VA. And it's hard to overstate the importance of Apple's

AI Making 'Search' More Conversational AI was center stage at Google's I/O developer event. During a 2+ hour long keynote yesterday, Google made announcements across categories. Among them, were

Mask Confusion Hits States, Retailers Last week the CDC changed its mask guidance. The agency proclaimed that fully vaccinated people didn't need a mask outdoors or in most indoor settings.

The Future of (Local) CommerceShopify's new Future of Commerce report builds on surveys as well as customer data. It's a kind of soup-to-nuts discussion of  shopping and commerce trends, including

Nextdoor: Preference for SMBs Growing Nextdoor released a new report, showcasing attitudes and behaviors of its audience ("consumers 16-64 who have used the Nextdoor app/platform in the last month"

Leak Shows Massive Scale of Review FraudThe scale of the review fraud problem online is not precisely known, except that it's big. This is especially true for destinations like Google

IDFA: Consumers Saying "No" to Tracking According to a new report from Flurry Analytics (Verizon Media), based on roughly 10 days of data, the iOS 14.5 opt-in rate for

Facebook's Trump Ban: Who Gets to Speak Online? The world's most important political debates are now happening on social media. Over the past several weeks, for example, Indian Prime Minister

Yahoo's Death By 1000 Cuts Continues with PE Sale Verizon is selling its media and ad-tech assets, AOL and Yahoo, to Apollo Global Management for $5 billion. The company paid

SMB Websites and Commerce Now Inseparable Mailchimp started as an email platform and moved into "marketing automation." It has now become an all-inclusive SMB SaaS platform for digital marketing. The

Apple Tracking Earnings: MSFT, Shopify, Facebook, Apple & Google BeatIt's a big earnings week. Microsoft and Shopify reported strong revenue growth. Shopify was described as a "blowout" (up 110% YoY)

Google Poised to Disrupt the $27B Food Delivery BusinessGoogle has become a potentially disruptive player in the multi-billion dollar food delivery business. One estimate of the market's current value is

Native Apple Maps Ratings Coming Soon to USIn September 2020, it became clear that Apple Maps was going to start collecting its own user photos and local recommendations (thumbs up/

Zagat Relaunches with New Scoring, Emphasis on Photos The Zagat restaurant guide was first published in 1979 by Nina and Tim Zagat. After many years as a print publication, its

Most Franchise Brands Local Marketing Laggards SOCi's recently published "Localized Marketing Benchmark Report" (reg. req'd) scores 275 franchise brands on local marketing maturity and effectiveness. The study uses a range

Stim-Driven Retail Booming, Online and OffMarch retail sales grew by almost 10%, driven by government stimulus checks, vaccinations and increasing consumer confidence. New jobless claims were also lower than expected

FB Survey: SMBs Remain Fragile As Economy ReopensA recent report (.pdf) from Facebook chronicles the challenges SMBs faced in 2020 and continue to face. Despite positive economic signals suggesting strong

MSFT Buys Speech Pioneer Nuance for $16 billion. Announced today, the Nuance acquisition becomes Microsoft's second largest after LinkedIn ($27 billion) in 2016. While it's possible Nuance could be deployed

Swyft Wants to 'Democratize' Same-Day DeliverySwyft has created a "B2B managed-marketplace solving for affordability in last-mile logistics." Its objective is to bring Amazon-like same-day delivery to more retailers – to "democratize"

Google: Local and Digital Now Joined at the HipIn a blog post Google confirms what nearly everyone in local has known for years: the web drives trillions of dollars in

Verizon Inks Catalina Deal to Track Ad Impact In-Store Last week Verizon announced a partnership with Catalina to connect digital ads to store visits for CPG brands. Verizon's ID graph

Squarespace Buying Restaurant Startup Tock for $400MBloomberg is reporting that restaurant reservations and delivery startup Tock was acquired by SMB site builder Squarespace for $400 million in cash and stock.

Vaccines Unlocking Pent-up Consumer Demand There's pent-up consumer demand for a return to normalcy. Evidence of new optimism, massive consumer savings and stimulus-driven retail spending prompted the Federal Reserve to

Amazon Is to Google As Google Is to Bing Years ago, then Google CEO Eric Schmidt said Amazon was the company's biggest competitor. He wasn't wrong. Consumer surveys indicate more

Big Tech Hearings: Likely 230 Reform but How Much? The CEOs of Google, Facebook and Twitter testified before Congress yesterday by video. They were asked about whether they bore any

Coming 'Revenge Spending Binge' Will Boost Local   We all know the e-commerce growth story. That, combined with closures from major store chains, has left many analysts wondering whether traditional retail

Does Local Dominate 'Zero-Click' Search? According to SimilarWeb data, analyzed by Rand Fishkin, nearly two-thirds (65%) of Google searches "ended in the search results without clicking to another web property.

Economy Poised for Comeback but for Whom? The US Federal Reserve is projecting white-hot economic growth in 2021: 6.5%. As vaccinations roll out demand is ramping up; people want

Survey: 73% Say Unlikely to Opt-in to IDFA TrackingAs we wait for the rollout of Apple's IDFA opt-in rules, there's ongoing speculation about how consumers will respond. A new survey

Amazon Cares About the Future of Healthcare Healthcare spending in the US is nearly $4 trillion annually, more than $11,500 per person. It's an evolving market and poised for

Near-Me Search Hits 'All Time High' in 2020, Says Google Near-Me search hit an all-time high in 2020 according to Google. That's one of several trends the company discusses in

People Want to Support SMBs but Buy from AmazonAmazon technically lost share as e-commerce expanded in 2020 but it was the big winner during COVID lockdowns. Despite its anti-union bias

The Marketing Lesson of COVID: CXA year later, there are many answers to the question, "what did we learn from COVID-19?" We could discuss policy, social or economic impacts. But

Study: 66% of Traffic in 2020 from MobileA new data analysis looks at 2020 search trends. Many desktop apologists touted the return of the PC in 2020 but study author

Does Google Challenger Neeva Have a Chance? I was given early access to Neeva, the new search engine created by former Google ad boss Sridhar Ramaswamy, who became disenchanted with

IAB: Media Companies Must Offer Trust + More ValueA new IAB report on the changing digital marketplace argues that publishers must deliver more value and increase trust and transparency or risk

Women Are Better Leaders, Only 37 CEOs in Fortune 500If you look at the data, there's no argument: women make better leaders than men. Women consistently outperform men on various

Google and Facebook Responsible for Paid-Content Rise Facebook and Google often discuss how ads help keep the web free. However, as a Bloomberg opinion piece points out, the dominance of

Privacy First or Google First? No ID Draws Mixed ReactionsOnce third party cookies disappear, Google won't replace them with an alternative identifier. Multiple companies have been working on cookie alternatives

Survey: We Don't Care That Google Has Our DataThere's a gap between how many Americans feel about the tech companies that rule their lives and what they're actually doing about

Coming Soon: The Bank of Walmart Walmart just hired two senior Goldman Sachs bankers; could “The Bank of Walmart” be far behind? New FDIC rules permit non-financial firms to effectively

The Antitrust Stars Are Aligning  The antitrust stars are apparently aligned. The US House of Representatives is confident it can produce bipartisan antitrust reform soon. There are three areas where

Facebook Says Personalized Ads 'a Lifeline' for SMBsFacebook has complained that Apple's coming App Tracking Transparency privacy rules will materially impact its revenue. The company has staked out an anti-Apple

Yelp: SaaS Tool Provider for Restaurants Google is badly beating Yelp. It's the top reviews destination by far and has much more review volume across categories. Yelp is in a

Shiny New Object: Augmented Reality Glasses  Global smartphone sales were down 12.5% in 2020. Apple was the top smartphone maker in Q4 and number 2 in 2020 after Samsung,

E-commerce in 2020 Was 14% (or 20%) of US RetailUS e-commerce in 2020 was nearly $800 billion, compared with about $600 billion in 2019. Year-over-year growth came in at 32%

Ghost Kitchens: The Future of Restaurants? There may already be as many as 100,000 cloud or ghost kitchens in the US. They're part of a growing trend: meals consumed

Angry Facebook Bans News in Australia  Google and Facebook have been resisting Australia's News Media Bargaining Code (.pdf), which compels them to pay for content. In principle they'll pay for

Amazon Buys Shopify Competitor SelzSelz is an Australia-based e-commerce platform for SMBs. It was acquired by Amazon in mid-January. Specific deal terms weren't disclosed by either company. Selz "enables [SMB]

Google Testing 'Find Results' on Yelp in Local SERP Early last year Google implemented a new local SERP in Europe, featuring a carousel that pointed to other directories and local

Facebook's Smartwatch Is Probably DOALast week The Information first reported that Facebook was working on an Apple Watch competitor. This is partly driven by perceived market opportunity and partly by

Poll Finds Digital Ad Burnout from Screen Overload Are people paying less attention to digital advertising? A new survey from Harris for OAAA, the out-of-home (OOH) trade association, argues they

Private Equity to Spin Out Constant ContactWeb hosting holding company Endurance International Group acquired Constant Contact in 2015 for roughly $1 billion. The latter was supposed to add new marketing

Survey: Majority Will Say No to Facebook Ad Tracking Facebook has begun testing a prompt asking users to embrace ad tracking ahead of Apple's App Tracking Transparency (ATT) consent requirement.

Facebook Moderates Ahead of Section 230 ChangesFacebook announced yesterday it's getting deeper into content moderation by taking down posts making false claims about COVID-19. This is another incremental step for

The Super Bowl Was Boring, So Were Most of the AdsDefying predictions of close game, the Super Bowl was essentially over early in the first half. Unless you're a rabid

Every Super Bowl We Ask: 'Is It Still Worth It?' The Super Bowl is Sunday. You know that. And while some high-profile advertisers such as Coke, Ford and Budweiser

Walmart Buys Dynamic Creative Platform Thunder Walmart is buying PaperG/Thunder and its dynamic display ad platform, in part to lure more SMB advertisers. The self-service technology will be used

Report: Store Foot Traffic to Remain Down Post-Vaccine Businesses ravaged by COVID-19 hope widespread vaccination will trigger a return to pre-pandemic consumer behavior. But survey data from First Insight argues

Apple Confirms ‘IFDA Deprecation’ Will Go Live in Early SpringOn Thursday, Data Privacy Data, Apple confirmed that its App Tracking Transparency requirement, which was originally supposed to go into effect

What the FLoC? Google says its cookie alternative is working The acronym stands for Federated Learning of Cohorts, which replaces third party cookies with a targeting approach that uses groups