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THE STATE
OF LOCATION
BY GREG STERLING, ANDREW
SHOTLAND AND YEXT

INSIDE
MOST COMMON
BUSINESS
LOCATION DATA
PROBLEMS
HIDDEN COST OF
HIDDEN DATA
LOCAL SPEND VS.
E-COMMERCE
YOU NEED TO
KNOW: SEARCH
STRATEGIES
INTERVIEW WITH
GROUPON’S
ANDREW MASON
2013 / ISSUE 1
Inside the State of Location
Introduction from the YQ............................................................. 3
Most Common Problems with Listings Data..................................... 4
The Hidden Cost of Hidden Listings.............................................. 6
Local is Bigger than E-commerce.................................................. 9
You Need to Know: Multi-Location Search.................................... 11
Q&A with Andrew Mason........................................................ 12
Directions............................................................................... 14

Greg Sterling
Greg Sterling is senior analyst for Opus Research tracking the evolution of the mobile Internet.
Sterling is also a contributing editor for Search Engine Land and Marketing Land, leading
online technology blogs. And he is the founder of Sterling Market Intelligence, focused on the
Internet’s impact on offline consumer behavior.
Sterling previously ran BIA/Kelsey’s Interactive Local Media program from 2001 to 2006.
Before ILM he was a producer at TechTV. Prior to TechTV, Sterling was a founding editor at
AllBusiness.com. Before all that he was a practicing attorney in Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Sterling is frequently quoted in leading US publications regarding the search, local and
mobile markets.

Andrew Shotland
Andrew Shotland is the proprietor of www.localseoguide.com a leading search consultancy
with a specialty in SEO for local search and enterprise-level search marketing. He is a regular
contributor to SearchEngineLand.com and author of the definitive Google News Ranking
Factors survey. Andrew recently launched AppleMapsMarketing.com, a blog focused on
helping businesses navigate Apple Maps and SIRI.
Andrew has over 15 years of experience in the Internet. He was a founding member of NBC’s
Internet group and a former GM of NBC.com. He helped start Insider Pages, a pioneering
local-social search engine, which was acquired by CitySearch in 2006. He is a co-founder of
Backyard, a local deals service that was acquired by Pixelfish in 2011.

Study Methodology:
 
The Yext survey was conducted using the Google Consumer Survey tool between December 17 and December 22, 2012.
There were 1,004 online adult respondents representing a sample allocated to mirror the demographic spread of US internet
users. The survey has a margin of error of ± 4%.

2
Local Discovery is Broken
Howard Lerman
Welcome to the first issue of the Yext Quarterly!

5

We’ve created the Quarterly because local
discovery is broken. It’s not working for businesses.
It’s not working for customers. And we believe that
together we can fix it.

	 • No systems exist to connect the structured
	 data needed to power maps and match local
	 consumer intent with the businesses that own it
6

Local Discovery Problems
Local discovery is important for business and
customers alike. And I can talk about the problems
with it all day long, but in this issue we’re focusing
on a few main issues:
1

Imagine the possibilities and applications for
structured, useful local data. Everyone wins, and we
want to help.

	 Location information is fragmented
inside and outside of businesses

“	Businesses need an easy
way to make a digital
change of address”

Business listings (where customers are
already searching) lack rich details

Housekeeping

	 •	Enterprises aren’t equipped to capture that rich
	 information at scale… And aren’t yet ready
	 to empower local store managers to do so
3

I have known Greg and Andrew for years and feel
lucky that they have agreed to join forces. For full
clarity, we are compensating Andrew and Greg for
their hard work. That said, we are giving them full
reign – they are journalists after all – but the articles
might give you insight into how we see the world.

Local discovery doesn’t yet convert
into commerce

	 •	Payments are outdated
	 •	Maps aren’t commercial
4

Businesses must navigate the 100’s of
fragmented publishers

	 • Businesses need an easy way to make a
	 digital change of address
	 • But publisher fragmentation benefits customers

	 •	There are vast numbers of small businesses
	 that have no way of capturing and utilizing
	 this location data
	 •	Businesses aren’t in control of their location
	 information online
2

Publishers can’t get the valuable, correct
information they need

We created the YQ to be a resource, that’s why
the first topic is “The State of Location. We are
publishing it quarterly full of facts, data, interviews
and infographics. And throughout the year we will
address important implications of local discovery
and location data including mobile and commerce.

	There’s no innovation in formats or
structure for location information

	 •	Mobile tools are woefully behind
	 •	Location information isn’t global in scale

We want your feedback to make it better. Seriously.
Sometime people just say that, but we mean it.
Email us at YQ@yext.com.

“	Businesses aren’t in
control of their location
information online”

Hope you enjoy it and learn something.
- Howard
Yext CEO and Co-founder
3
RESTAURANTS/QSR
FINANCE/BANKING

FINANCE/BANKING
INSURANCE
AUTO
HOSPITALITY
HOSPITALITY
REAL ESTATE

3

14%

The Most Common Problems With
Your Business Listings Data
13%

HOSPITALITY

24%

SEARCH ENGINE (E.G., GOOGLE)

2

AUTO

APPS ON MY MOBILE PHONE

3

37%
19%

WEBSITE URL MISSING
30%
SURANCE
18%
PHONE # INCORRECT / MISSING
22%
EAL ESTATE
14%
MISSING LISTING
16%
UTO
FINANCE/BANKING
16%
NANCE/BANKING Source: Yext, Sterling-Shotland, December 2012 (n=40,000 listings)
RETAIL
10%
ETAIL

OSPITALITY

NANCE/BANKING

64%

4%

INSURANCE
RESTAURANTS/QSR

2
5

14% 30%
13%
22%
41%
16%
22%

FINANCE/BANKING
INSURANCE
REALHOSPITALITY
ESTATE
FINANCE/BANKING
AUTO
AUTO

16%
19%
10%
14%

FINANCE/BANKING
HOSPITALITY
RETAIL
INSURANCE
HOSPITALITY ENGINE (E.G., GOOGLE)
REAL ESTATE
SEARCH

listings,4%
43% had at least one incorrect
or missing address on the 50+ local directory sites
in Yext’s network. 37% had at least one incorrect or
0
missing name on a listing.

Missing Listings prevent23%
customers from
ETAIL
finding your business, so they will be more
23%
SURANCE
likely to purchase from another merchant instead.
19%
UTO It’s the location information issue most damaging to
15%
sales.
ESTAURANTS/QSR

I TRY TO FIND THE CORRECT INFORMATION

62%
64%
15%
56%
62%
REAL
HOSPITALITYESTATE
11%
Other location informationWASTED MY TIME
I FEEL ANGRY BECAUSE I issues preventing
41% 56%
AUTO
REAL ESTATE
customers fromNOT UPSET, PEOPLE MAKE MISTAKES include missing/
I’M finding businesses
24% 9%
0
19%
REAL ESTATE
incorrect phone numbers, and addresses: 41%
AUTO FINANCE/BANKING
2
OTHER
13%19% 23%
RETAIL
RETAIL
FINANCE/BANKING
23%
4% 13%
INSURANCE
RETAILRESTAURANTS/QSR
MISSING/INCORRECT PHONE 19%
AUTO
4%
(AVERAGE FOR 40,000 LISTINGS)
15%
RESTAURANTS/QSR

9%

24%

B

I LOOK FOR ANOTHER MERCHANT

Across
ESTAURANTS/QSR these

EAL ESTATE

9%

HOSPITALITY

HOSPITALITY
INSURANCE

43%

NAME INCORRECT / MISSING

10%

I WON’T TRUST THAT SOURCE AGAIN

19%

4%

16%

RETAIL

41%

RESTAURANTS/QSR
ADDRESS INCORRECT / MISSING

16%

FINANCE/BANKING

FINANCE/BANKING
MOST COMMON PROBLEMS WITH TEXT CUSTOMERS’
13%
LOCAL BUSINESS LISTINGS
RETAIL

1

22%

AUTO

42%

12.8%
30%

IT
INSURANCE HAPPENS OFTEN
APPS
REAL ESTATE ON MY MOBILE PHONE

Given that this is such a critical issue to getting your
business found, we decided to see what kinds of
issues were most common among Yext customers
before they start using the service.
SEARCH
We lookedENGINE
at 40,000 U.S. business listings, the
23%
FRIEND/FAMILY REFERRAL
majority of which are for multi-location businesses.
64%
INSURANCE
16%
Not surprisingly, the data shows that location
PRINT YELLOW PAGES
62%
HOSPITALITY
data INTERNET DIRECTORY SITE
for these businesses has a large amount of
13%
56%
REAL ESTATE
inaccuracies and omissions:
7
%

15.6%

(AVERAGE FOR 40,000 LISTINGS)
IT HAS HAPPENED MULTIPLE TIMES

7
%

APPS ON MY MOBILE PHONE

13%

RETAIL
NEVER HAPPENED
4%
RESTAURANTS/QSR
HAPPENED ONCE OR TWICE
LOCATIONS WITH MISSING LISTINGS

23%

REFERRAL FROM
In the DecemberFRIEND/FAMILY Survey, we found that
2012 YQ
PRINT YELLOW PAGES
consumers regularly encounter incorrect16%
location
13%
dataINTERNET DIRECTORY SITE (E.G., YELP)
for businesses.

A

19%

FINANCE/BANKING

42%

56%

41%

AUTO

Andrew Shotland

6
37%
62

4

RESTAURANTS/QSR FRIEND/FAMILY
RETAIL
REFERRAL FROM
RESTAURANTS/QSR PAGES
PRINT YELLOW

9% 13%
4% 9%
4%

16%
13%

INTERNET DIRECTORY SITE (E.G., YELP) ADDRESS
MISSING/INCORRECT
(AVERAGE FOR 40,000 LISTINGS)
7%
APPS ON MY MOBILE PHONE
24%
REAL ESTATE

23%

RETAIL
REAL ESTATE
AUTO
RETAIL

14%

On average 14% of all listings checked were
13%
missing, which is costing businesses millions
in sales:

RESTAURANTS/QSR
RESTAURANTS/QSR
SEARCH ENGINE
FINANCE/BANKING
FINANCE/BANKING REFERRAL
FRIEND/FAMILY
HOSPITALITY
AUTO
PRINT YELLOW PAGES
HOSPITALITY DIRECTORY SITE
INTERNET

OSPITALITY

APPS ON MY MOBILE PHONE

4

SEARCH ENGINE (E.G., GOOGLE)

57%

23%

INSURANCE
INSURANCE

A

23%

19%
15%
14%

55%
43%
41%

40%
23%
13%
16% 37%
24%
13%

42%

7
%

42%
2

0

30%

INSURANCE

5

22%

REAL ESTATE

FINANCE/BANKING

22%

AUTO

The Most Common Problems With
16%
10%
Your Business Listings Data (cont.)
16%

AUTO

19%

HOSPITALITY

FINANCE/BANKING
RETAIL

14%

INSURANCE

REAL ESTATE

HOSPITALITY
Andrew Shotland 4% 9%

RETAIL
RESTAURANTS/QSR

RESTAURANTS/QSR

24%
23%

RETAIL
INSURANCE
AUTO
RESTAURANTS/QSR
FINANCE/BANKING
HOSPITALITY

23%

INTERNET DIRECTORY SITE (E.G., YELP)
APPS ON MY MOBILE PHONE

4%

RETAIL

43

In some ways, this data is no surprise. Local
41%
RESTAURANTS/QSR
business data on the Web has always been a
40%
FINANCE/BANKING
mess, suffering from a combination of marrying
37%
conflicting AUTO
information from multiple sources and
24%
lack of awareness by the businesses themselves. But
HOSPITALITY
with so many tools now available for businesses to
control this information, it is surprising that the data
consistency problem is still so common.

19%
15%
14%
13%

While local directories can do a pretty good job
of providing key information about your business,
SEARCH ENGINE (E.G., GOOGLE)
allowing consumers to do a deeper dive by visiting 42%
23%
your website FRIEND/FAMILYstrong driver of conversions –
REFERRAL FROM can be a
assuming your website is set up to convert.
16%
PRINT YELLOW PAGES

9%

Your website can also be helpful in creating more of
a connection with potential customers by providing
them with more info on your services and making
4
REAL ESTATE
it easy to find your social media profiles where you
share additional information.
INSURANCE

INCORRECT/MISSING WEBSITE
(AVERAGE FOR 40,000 LISTINGS)

REAL ESTATE

13%

13%

NEVER HAPPENED
HAPPENED ONCE OR TWICE
IT HAS HAPPENED MULTIPLE TIMES
IT HAPPENS OFTEN

7
%

15.6%
12.8%

APPS ON MY MOBILE PHONE

You Need To Know: Apple Maps Optimization Tips
Andrew Shotland
Apple Maps has received much bad press, but there are
hundreds of millions of iOS devices and thousands of 42%
SEARCH ENGINE
apps that use it as the default mapping application. So
23%
FRIEND/FAMILY REFERRAL
make sure your business listings are optimized.
16%
PRINT YELLOW PAGES

13%
Make Sure Your Business Is Listed
INTERNET DIRECTORY SITE
Search for your business on Apple Maps. If it does
7
%
APPS ON MY MOBILE PHONE
not appear, Apple does not have your business in its
database. Currently, there is no “official” way to add/
edit your business, but you can “Report a Problem” via
Apple Maps, and make sure your business is listed in
Yelp and the major business listing data suppliers for
43%
ADDRESS INCORRECTAcxiom, Factual, Localeze, and TomTom.
Apple Maps / MISSING
37%
NAME INCORRECT / MISSING

I LOOK FOR ANOTHER MERCHANT

19%
Yelp Profile is Positive
The latest three Yelp reviews appear in the “Reviews” tab
18%
PHONE # INCORRECT / MISSING
of an Apple Maps business profile. Make sure the most
14%
MISSING LISTING
FINANCE/BANKING

5

15%

11%
I FEEL ANGRY BECAUSE I WASTED
Check Your Listings Often MY TIME
Apple MapsI’M NOT UPSET, PEOPLElot of changes over the 9%
will make a MAKE MISTAKES
next
year as it tries to improve. Inevitably, it will make a lot of
OTHER
errors with its data. Stay on top of your listings regularly
to spot problems early on.
Some Further Reading
How To Add Your Business Listing To Apple Maps
Apple Maps Business Listings Data Suppliers By Country
Reputation Management for Apple Maps
The Apple Maps Ecosystem
Why Isn’t My Business Showing Up On Apple Maps?

Make Sure
WEBSITE URL MISSINGYour

RETAIL

recent photos and reviews are positive. I saw a hotel
that had a cockroach shot added by a Yelp reviewer
B I TRY TO FIND THE CORRECT INFORMATION
which showed up as THAT SOURCEphoto displayed on its
the first AGAIN
I WON’T TRUST
Apple Maps profile!

20
0

24%

REAL ESTATE

4

Hidden Cost of Hidden Listings
23%
23%

RETAIL

INSURANCE

Greg Sterling

INSURANCE
RETAIL

19%

AUTO

RESTAURANTS/QSR

15%

RESTAURANTS/QSR

FINANCE/BANKING

14%
What’s the cost of a bad phone number or a missing
FINANCE/BANKING
13%
business address on the internet? The surprising
HOSPITALITY
answer is billions: $10.3 billion in annual offline
sales are potentially lost from missing listings online.

PRINT YELLOW PAGES
INTERNET DIRECTORY SITE
APPS ON MY MOBILE PHONE

43%
41%
40%

41.7%
In assessing HAPPENED
NEVER the current accuracy of local data, we
looked HAPPENED ONCEbusiness listings on 50+ local
at 40,000 OR TWICE
22.7%
directory sites. These listings included national,
15.6%
IT HAS HAPPENED MULTIPLE TIMES
multi-location businesses as well as independent,
12.8%
IT HAPPENS OFTEN
small merchants. The listings were drawn from a
APPS of business categories.
wide rangeON MY MOBILE PHONE

We discovered that 43% of listings – almost half –
had at least one incorrect or missing address and
37% had at least one incorrect or missing name on
24
a listing. TRY TO FINDdoes this matter? Bad data have a
B I Why THE CORRECT INFORMATION
hidden but very THAT SOURCE AGAIN
real cost.
22%
I WON’T TRUST

WHAT’S THE MAIN WAY TO FIND LOCAL MERCHANTS OR
SERVICE PROVIDERS IN YOUR AREA?

42%
23%

FRIEND/FAMILY REFERRAL

55%

Errors inAUTO critical online database can be 37%
one
24%
multiplied across networks of sites that rely upon it.
HOSPITALITY
Even if the problem is discovered it often can take
months for corrections to appear in all the relevant
places consumers look online for local information.

The internet is now the primary way that most US
42%
consumers find local business information. In a
SEARCH ENGINE (E.G., GOOGLE)
December 2012 Yext Quarterly survey of more than
23%
REFERRAL FROM FRIEND/FAMILY
1,000 US adults, the internet beat out even friend
16%
PRINT YELLOW PAGES
and family referrals. And among online sources,
13%
INTERNET DIRECTORY were YELP)
search engines SITE (E.G., identified as the primary tool
APPS by consumers
used ON MY MOBILE PHONE to find local 7%
information.

SEARCH ENGINE

57%

REAL ESTATE

16%

I LOOK FOR ANOTHER MERCHANT

15%

We calculated that missing listings cost retailers and
11%
I FEEL ANGRY BECAUSE I WASTED MY TIME
local merchants at least $10.3 billion* annually in
9%
I’M NOT
lost potentialUPSET, PEOPLE MAKE MISTAKES
revenue. That determination is partly
20%
OTHER
a function of how many people will switch to a
competitor or give up looking if they encounter
missing or inaccurate online business information.

13%
7%

Source: Yext, Sterling-Shotland, December 2012 (n=1,004 US adults)

Despite their popularity most internet sources,
43%
including search engines, directories and mapping
37%
NAME INCORRECT / MISSING
sites, are full of errors and outdated information.
19%
WEBSITE URL MISSING
This is because businesses relocate, change names
18%
or INCORRECT phone
PHONE #get new / MISSING numbers. Sometimes inaccurate
14%
information is uploaded by business owners
MISSING LISTING
themselves or competing listings exist for the
FINANCE/BANKING
same location.
ADDRESS INCORRECT / MISSING

“The impact of bad
business information
is mostly invisible to
everyone in the ecosystem
but the consumer”

RETAIL

 

6
55%

INSURANCE

43%

RETAIL

41%
Hidden Cost of Hidden Listings
40%
37%
(cont.)
RESTAURANTS/QSR
FINANCE/BANKING
AUTO

HOSPITALITY
Greg Sterling

24%

The survey found that 47.6% of respondents had a
negative reaction to the discovery of incorrect local
information. Roughly 22% said that they “won’t trust
41.7%
NEVER HAPPENED
the source again.” But more importantly, 15.1% of
22.7%
HAPPENED ONCE OR TWICE
people said they would “look for another
15.6%
IT HAS HAPPENED MULTIPLE TIMES
merchant.” An additional 10.7% agreed with
12.8%
IT HAPPENS OFTEN
the statement “I feel angry because I’ve wasted
my time.”
APPS ON MY MOBILE PHONE

The lost revenue opportunity asssociated with
missing and inaccurate business information affects
both online publishers and merchants alike. The
toll, however, is heaviest on local merchants and
retailers, which lose the chance to make sales.
 
Though real, the impact of bad business information
is mostly invisible to everyone in the ecosystem but
the consumer -- who simply gives up or finds another
place to spend her money.

WHICH OF THE FOLLOWING BEST DESCRIBES YOUR REACTION
IF LOCAL BUSINESS INFORMATION ONLINE TURNS OUT
LATER TO BE WRONG

B

24%

I TRY TO FIND THE CORRECT INFORMATION

22%

I WON’T TRUST THAT SOURCE AGAIN

I’M NOT UPSET, PEOPLE MAKE MISTAKES
OTHER

 

15%

I LOOK FOR ANOTHER MERCHANT
I FEEL ANGRY BECAUSE I WASTED MY TIME

 
____
*Approximately $369 billion in offline purchases, out of more than $800
billion in annual discretionary consumer spending, are influenced by the
internet according to estimates based on US government data. Of that $369
billion at least $10.3 billion in annual local consumer spending is lost or at
risk from missing local business information online.

11%
9%
20%

Source: Yext, Sterling-Shotland, December 2012 (n=1,004 US adults)

7
The Cost of Bad Location Data
The Cost of Bad Location Data
Local Information
for Many Businesses
Is Wrong…
Incorrect local business
information in search,
maps, and apps

% OCCURRENCE IN EACH INDUSTRY
MISSING/
INCORRECT
PHONE #

18%
occurrence
overall

30% Insurance

22% Real estate

16% Banking

41% Banking

22% Auto

19% Hospitality

MISSING
WEB URL

19%
occurrence
overall

MISSING/
INCORRECT
ADDRESS

43%

64% Insurance

62% Hospitality

56% Real estate

14% 30% Insurance

21% Real estate

16% Auto

occurrence
overall

MISSING
LISTING

occurrence
overall

The Hidden Cost
of Hidden Listings

$10.3B in
lost sales for
merchants with
missing listings

14% of listings
are missing
($10.3B)

Customers use 5 sources
when shopping locally, so
businesses have a 20%
chance of conversion
($73.75B).

51% of purchases
are by people who
research before
buying at location
($369B)

$

Sources: Yext, Dec 2012; Google Oct 2012; LSA, June 2011; Yext, Sterling-Shotland, Dec 2012
®

8

723B annual
discretionary spend
purchase offline
Internet-Influenced Local Spending
Worth Roughly 10X E-Commerce
Greg Sterling

Netscape co-founder and venture capitalist Marc
Andreesen said in a recent interview that traditional
retail is doomed and that e-commerce will be the
way that people buy nearly everything in the future.
That sounds like Silicon Valley hype circa 1999
rather than an assessment of the market in 2013.

There are various estimates of the value of
e-commerce today. Online measurement firm
comScore reported that total US retail and travelrelated e-commerce spending in 2012 was $289
billion. Data aggregator eMarketer projected that
e-commerce surpassed $1 trillion in 2012 on a
global basis, with the largest single market being
the US.

In truth the “local” (or offline) market could be
compared to the Pacific Ocean and e-commerce to
a man-made lake in a public park. Bridging the two
realms is the internet’s impact on offline consumer
spending. Indeed, the relationship between “online”
and “offline” is becoming more complex and blurry
in the wake of smartphones.

“… it’s widely recognized
that approximately 75%
to 80% of disposable
consumer income is spent
within 20 miles of home.”

One thing is very clear, however, the overwhelming
majority of “commerce” still happens locally within
a relatively short distance of where people live or
work. While there is no “hard” research on this
question it’s widely recognized that approximately
75% to 80% of disposable consumer income is
spent within 20 miles of home.

These are impressive figures until you put them in the
context of total consumer spending and look at the
broader market.
Total US retail in 2012 was roughly $4.5 trillion
according to US Commerce Department data.
Spending on local services is conservatively worth
at least another $2.9 trillion according to the Bureau
of Labor Statistics. And travel spending comes
in at another $1.3 trillion or so according to US
government figures.

When CMOs and digital agencies hear the word
“local” they often think of small businesses and tend
to dismiss the market accordingly. They rarely think
of Home Depot or Verizon or Bank of America as
local businesses. However these national chains
and franchises are as much local businesses as the
independent florist or restaurant. That’s because the
overwhelming majority of their revenue comes from
people buying things in their local stores or outlets.

Although e-commerce has been growing steadily
(about a point per year) it was still just 5.2% of total
US retail in the third quarter of 2012, though that
number may rise when final Q4 data are analyzed.
And online travel bookings represent a little over 8%
of total US travel spending.

>
9
Internet-Influenced Local Spending
Worth Roughly 10X E-Commerce (cont.)

Greg Sterling

When you combine retail, local services and
travel-related spending in the US you arrive at a
“local” market that is worth more than $8 trillion
annually. In that “real-world” context, even the most
aggressive estimates of US e-commerce are still less
than 5% of total spending.

Annual Spending on
+ Travel
+ Retail
+ Local Services

What’s much more significant is the way the internet
influences an increasing percentage of consumer
spending in local markets. That phenomenon is
typically invisible to CMOs and marketers who have
trouble tracking online-to-offline consumer behavior.

=

Multiple surveys over the past few years have
established that the internet is the number one
source consumers use to find local information.
People rely upon search engines, maps and
directories, and review sites to help them make
purchase decisions before buying in stores or
spending on local services.

8T

$

Internet-Influenced
Local Spend is 51% x
Total (8T) =

4T

$

Consumer survey data also show that perhaps 50%
of purchase decisions are now impacted by the
internet in one way or another, Google cites 51%.
The percentages may be higher if digital maps and
directions are factored in. There are also data from
several analyst firms arguing even larger numbers
of consumers use the internet before buying offline.

and E-commerce is
5% of Total (8T) =

$400B

It’s thus safe to assert that at least $2 trillion in
offline economic activity and consumer spending
annually is now impacted by the internet.
That makes internet-influenced local spending
considerably more valuable than traditional
e-commerce – by roughly a factor of 10.

10
You Need to Know: How to Make
Multi-Location Search Work
Andrew Shotland

Ranking well in Google’s local search results is
critical for both local and national marketers. For a
single location business, a site for Google+ Local
(aka “G+L”) can be tricky. Optimizing for G+L with
multiple business locations can be even trickier.

elements such as NAPs, reviews, hours of
opearation, payment types, etc. Information on
how to do this can be found at Schema.org. I also
recommend this excellent article: 13 Semantic
MarkUp Tips for a 2013 Local SEO.

Often brands with multiple locations (e.g.
Nordstroms) will use their homepage in their G+L
profile. This makes sense, sometimes. The majority
of your PageRank typically sits on your homepage,
which should help your organic rankings, but this
misses the opportunity to send Google stronger
local signals.

Duplicate Content Issues With
Location Pages
If you have multiple locations in the same city and
have a unique location page on your site for each,
you may consider selecting one location page as
the primary location and use a canonical tag to
point at this URL from the others. This will help the
search engines present your preferred URL when
someone searches your brand in the city (e.g.
“Nordstrom’s in Los Angeles”).

Create Pages for Each Location
I recommend creating landing pages for each
location with the location keywords in the URL,
keywords and NAPs (names, addresses & phone
numbers) in text on the page, an embedded map,
directions, etc. It couldn’t hurt to add photos, videos
and inventory and/or services where possible. Try
to use unique content on each page v. cookie cutter
text that merely switches out the location name
by page. Over time, these unique pages should
perform significantly better.

Don’t Forget About Local Citations!
For those brands that have not already built out
location pages, it can be a costly exercise to do
so. Adding them to one’s site is easy. The challenge
is updating the links in all of the local directory
profile pages for your locations. The average
cost of citation updating in the U.S. these days is
about $5/listing/location. For a thousand-location
business, doing this for the the top 50 citation
sources would be $250,000. If you are launching
location pages, you don’t necessarily have to do
citations at the start. But if your rankings are stuck,
be prepared to invest in citation building/updating.
Across a large number of locations the ROI on this
activity could be significant.

Use a HTML Sitemap
It’s important that you don’t hide these local pages
behind search forms. They need to be visibly linked
from other pages on the site. Adding a HTML
sitemap to your footer to point to these pages is a
good way to do this if you don’t want to put location
links all over each page.
Using Semantic Markup
I also recommend you add markup to your location
pages that helps search engines understand

11
Cracking the Local Code

An Interview with Groupon Co-founder Andrew Mason
The story of Groupon is well documented. Born out
of an earlier social-action startup called The Point,
Andrew Mason launched Groupon in Chicago in
2008. The company quickly attracted investment
and became the fastest-growing startup in internet
history, expanding in the US and internationally
through organic growth and acquisitions. Mason
led the company to a highly anticipated IPO in
November 2011.

AM: They’re busy and they’re happy to rely on
tried and true methods for marketing and tools to
run their business. In order to understand the virtues
of Groupon, we’ve had to hold merchants’ hands
through the process of getting signed up, and have
built a massive sales force to do so.

More impressively, Groupon accomplished all this
in the very challenging local and small business
market, effectively bringing e-commerce at scale
to local businesses for the first time. Now, in its
post-IPO period, Groupon is diversifying beyond
deals and seeking to become “the Local Commerce
Operating System” for small business. In addition
to deals the company now provides a point of sale
system, electronic and mobile payments, scheduling
and inventory management to local businesses.

AM: Groupon is a form of advertising for SMBs. 
They measure the success too often by the size
of the last tip that came through the door using
Groupon, rather than a holistic analytical approach.
We’ve found we have to coach them through how to
evaluate the profitability of a Groupon campaign. 

Yext: How have SMBs taken to adopting
new marketing and advertising tools?

They know they need tools that help them improve
their marketing and grow their business, but they
will gravitate to the ones that will help them do it in
a predictable way.

In the following interview with Yext, Mason offers
his reflections on the digital challenges facing
small businesses, what it takes to succeed as an
entrepreneur in local and what the market will look
like five years from now.

Yext: What has changed in local since
Groupon was founded?
AM: I think for sure, mobile, that’s no surprise. Our
business just in the last year has gone from 22%
mobile, which was already doubling from the year
prior, to 39-40% mobile this year. 

Yext: What is the greatest challenge local
merchants face in today’s evolving
digital landscape?

In the same way that broadband facilitated the
move of video from offline to online, mobile is doing
so for local commerce. And it’s also enabling local
ecommerce similar to how Amazon did for the move
of product from offline to online.

Andrew Mason: We’ve found that local
businesses aren’t early tech adopters. They are
people who want problems solved for them. 
Evaluating all these different tools that are available
to them, especially as we transition to mobile and
tablets, is a real challenge.

”	Our business, just in the last
	 year, has gone from 22%
	 mobile, which was already
	 doubling from the year prior, to
	 39-40% mobile this year. ”

Yext: How do they evaluate these
competing sales propositions, channels,
devices coming at them?
12
Cracking the Local Code

An Interview with Groupon Co-founder Andrew Mason
(cont.)
Yext: What role will “Big Data” play
in local?

wave. Once we get the infrastructure to plug
local businesses into the web, the innovation will
exponentially increase. 

AM: In our case, we can use just a few data
points to help us find patterns and understand what
consumers are looking for. We can also use it to
help drive the right kinds of customers to a local
business when they most need them. We’re just
beginning to scratch the surface on how to use the
data to build a local ecommerce ecosystem. The
possibilities are endless.

“There hasn’t been real tech
innovation in local since the
invention of the credit card,
and mobile has catalyzed the
disruption wave. “

Yext: What are the success factors for
startups and digital media companies in
the local market today?

Yext: What’s one thing you wish you
would have known before you started
Groupon?

AM: I was very deliberate when starting Groupon
to make sure I had a model that did not have
a chicken and egg problem – it had to work
effectively at a small scale. Instead we actually
had the opposite issue, it worked very well at small
scale and, as we grew, we ran into issues bringing
businesses too many customers. And we’ve had to
innovate out of that problem.

AM: We didn’t just create a business; we created
a category. Four and a half years later we are
doing $5 billion in sales in 48 countries. The thing
has grown massively and it continues to evolve at
a similar rate. But you don’t have to be that smart
to do well in business, you just have to have the
courage to follow your intuition. 

They should also find a win-win-win model, where
the business wins when consumers and merchants
win. It’s unpleasant to have a business where you’re
constantly forced to make tradeoffs between the best
interest of the business and the best interest of the
customers.

My intuition has always been starting with the
customers and building something that optimizes not
for 2-3 months, but 2-3 years or even 20-30 years.
And being convicted about those principles and
being unwilling to stray from them is the difference
between success and failure.

All of our success happens when we ruthlessly
adhere to our values, which are to start with the
customer and work backwards.
Yext: Five years from now, what problems
in local will have been solved?
AM: The way people buy locally is going to be
fundamentally different. There hasn’t been real tech
innovation in local since the invention of the credit
card, and mobile has catalyzed the disruption

Andrew Mason
Co-founder
Groupon
13
Directions: 10 Local Digital
Marketing Predictions for 2013
Greg Sterling and Andrew Shotland
1	

Mobile an Imperative for Local
Marketers

6 Local Data Syndication Becomes
	

Progressively Richer 

Location data used to mean just business name, address
and phone number. Increasingly “location data” will
expand to include a broader array of information:
images, product and service pricing, inventory, social
content and other relevant information. Companies
managing local data will become more content
syndicators rather than just databases of basic
business information.  

The “need it now” local orientation of mobile users
makes local-mobile marketing the top priority for
national-local marketers and small businesses alike. But
because of complexity, fragmentation and confusion,
most marketers will still be unable to fully take
advantage of the opportunity. 

2	 Location Packaged as Audience for National
Marketers
To address some of the confusion surrounding locationbased mobile marketing, location and related data
will be increasingly used as a way to target specific
audiences in the real world. Agencies and national
brands understand audience more than they understand
the nuances of location and related targeting technology.
So local-mobile marketing substantially evolves into
audience targeting via location. 

“ Increasingly “location data” will
expand to include a broader
array of information: images,
product and service pricing,
inventory, social content and
other relevant information.”

3	 Mobile Data Increasingly Connect Online
Ads to Offline Action

	 Google Will Push More Local Information
7
Into Its Search Results

The capacity to “close the loop” and provide realworld analytics on digital ad performance gains steam.
Marketers will gain increasing visibility and insight into
which campaigns and ads are driving foot traffic into
local outlets and stores, as well as driving actual sales.

And most of that information will be owned by
Google. National brands will find it increasingly
challenging to play at the SEO game without providing
true local value. 
8
	 Google Business Builder Will Finally Arrive

4	 The Year of Conquesting 

More than a year after it was leaked to the Wall Street
Journal, Google will finally roll out a Google+ for
Businesses marketing dashboard. And yes, it will be
buggy, frustrating and essential for anyone doing
local marketing.

Targeting mobile consumers while they are physically at
or near your competition to lure them away will become
one of the fastest-growing local marketing tactics. An
entire industry will spring up around turning mobile user
travel patterns into actionable marketing data.

	9 The 800lb Facebook Graph Search Gorilla

5	 Mobile Payments for Real-World
Transactions Gains Momentum

As Graph Search goes nationwide, it will have a
dramatic impact on social review sites (e.g. Look out
Yelp). It will also quite likely become the infrastructure for
a social Adwords-type service. Look out Google.

The mobile payments landscape is noisy and fairly
chaotic today. As we get farther into 2013, mobile
payments (for offline transactions) will gain real steam,
driven by Square, PayPal and others. Consumers will
become increasingly comfortable with paying for things
with a “digital wallet” on their smartphones. Mobile
payments data will help feed several of the other trends.

10 Apple Maps Will Sneak Up On Us
	

Apple will spend 2013 quietly rebuilding the maligned
Apple Maps service. At Christmas time, the new iPhone
will cause consumers, analysts and marketers to give the
much-maligned Apple Maps another shot.   

	
14

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2 26731 the-state_of_location_-_the_yext_quarterly

  • 1. THE STATE OF LOCATION BY GREG STERLING, ANDREW SHOTLAND AND YEXT INSIDE MOST COMMON BUSINESS LOCATION DATA PROBLEMS HIDDEN COST OF HIDDEN DATA LOCAL SPEND VS. E-COMMERCE YOU NEED TO KNOW: SEARCH STRATEGIES INTERVIEW WITH GROUPON’S ANDREW MASON 2013 / ISSUE 1
  • 2. Inside the State of Location Introduction from the YQ............................................................. 3 Most Common Problems with Listings Data..................................... 4 The Hidden Cost of Hidden Listings.............................................. 6 Local is Bigger than E-commerce.................................................. 9 You Need to Know: Multi-Location Search.................................... 11 Q&A with Andrew Mason........................................................ 12 Directions............................................................................... 14 Greg Sterling Greg Sterling is senior analyst for Opus Research tracking the evolution of the mobile Internet. Sterling is also a contributing editor for Search Engine Land and Marketing Land, leading online technology blogs. And he is the founder of Sterling Market Intelligence, focused on the Internet’s impact on offline consumer behavior. Sterling previously ran BIA/Kelsey’s Interactive Local Media program from 2001 to 2006. Before ILM he was a producer at TechTV. Prior to TechTV, Sterling was a founding editor at AllBusiness.com. Before all that he was a practicing attorney in Los Angeles and San Francisco. Sterling is frequently quoted in leading US publications regarding the search, local and mobile markets. Andrew Shotland Andrew Shotland is the proprietor of www.localseoguide.com a leading search consultancy with a specialty in SEO for local search and enterprise-level search marketing. He is a regular contributor to SearchEngineLand.com and author of the definitive Google News Ranking Factors survey. Andrew recently launched AppleMapsMarketing.com, a blog focused on helping businesses navigate Apple Maps and SIRI. Andrew has over 15 years of experience in the Internet. He was a founding member of NBC’s Internet group and a former GM of NBC.com. He helped start Insider Pages, a pioneering local-social search engine, which was acquired by CitySearch in 2006. He is a co-founder of Backyard, a local deals service that was acquired by Pixelfish in 2011. Study Methodology:   The Yext survey was conducted using the Google Consumer Survey tool between December 17 and December 22, 2012. There were 1,004 online adult respondents representing a sample allocated to mirror the demographic spread of US internet users. The survey has a margin of error of ± 4%. 2
  • 3. Local Discovery is Broken Howard Lerman Welcome to the first issue of the Yext Quarterly! 5 We’ve created the Quarterly because local discovery is broken. It’s not working for businesses. It’s not working for customers. And we believe that together we can fix it. • No systems exist to connect the structured data needed to power maps and match local consumer intent with the businesses that own it 6 Local Discovery Problems Local discovery is important for business and customers alike. And I can talk about the problems with it all day long, but in this issue we’re focusing on a few main issues: 1 Imagine the possibilities and applications for structured, useful local data. Everyone wins, and we want to help. Location information is fragmented inside and outside of businesses “ Businesses need an easy way to make a digital change of address” Business listings (where customers are already searching) lack rich details Housekeeping • Enterprises aren’t equipped to capture that rich information at scale… And aren’t yet ready to empower local store managers to do so 3 I have known Greg and Andrew for years and feel lucky that they have agreed to join forces. For full clarity, we are compensating Andrew and Greg for their hard work. That said, we are giving them full reign – they are journalists after all – but the articles might give you insight into how we see the world. Local discovery doesn’t yet convert into commerce • Payments are outdated • Maps aren’t commercial 4 Businesses must navigate the 100’s of fragmented publishers • Businesses need an easy way to make a digital change of address • But publisher fragmentation benefits customers • There are vast numbers of small businesses that have no way of capturing and utilizing this location data • Businesses aren’t in control of their location information online 2 Publishers can’t get the valuable, correct information they need We created the YQ to be a resource, that’s why the first topic is “The State of Location. We are publishing it quarterly full of facts, data, interviews and infographics. And throughout the year we will address important implications of local discovery and location data including mobile and commerce. There’s no innovation in formats or structure for location information • Mobile tools are woefully behind • Location information isn’t global in scale We want your feedback to make it better. Seriously. Sometime people just say that, but we mean it. Email us at YQ@yext.com. “ Businesses aren’t in control of their location information online” Hope you enjoy it and learn something. - Howard Yext CEO and Co-founder 3
  • 4. RESTAURANTS/QSR FINANCE/BANKING FINANCE/BANKING INSURANCE AUTO HOSPITALITY HOSPITALITY REAL ESTATE 3 14% The Most Common Problems With Your Business Listings Data 13% HOSPITALITY 24% SEARCH ENGINE (E.G., GOOGLE) 2 AUTO APPS ON MY MOBILE PHONE 3 37% 19% WEBSITE URL MISSING 30% SURANCE 18% PHONE # INCORRECT / MISSING 22% EAL ESTATE 14% MISSING LISTING 16% UTO FINANCE/BANKING 16% NANCE/BANKING Source: Yext, Sterling-Shotland, December 2012 (n=40,000 listings) RETAIL 10% ETAIL OSPITALITY NANCE/BANKING 64% 4% INSURANCE RESTAURANTS/QSR 2 5 14% 30% 13% 22% 41% 16% 22% FINANCE/BANKING INSURANCE REALHOSPITALITY ESTATE FINANCE/BANKING AUTO AUTO 16% 19% 10% 14% FINANCE/BANKING HOSPITALITY RETAIL INSURANCE HOSPITALITY ENGINE (E.G., GOOGLE) REAL ESTATE SEARCH listings,4% 43% had at least one incorrect or missing address on the 50+ local directory sites in Yext’s network. 37% had at least one incorrect or 0 missing name on a listing. Missing Listings prevent23% customers from ETAIL finding your business, so they will be more 23% SURANCE likely to purchase from another merchant instead. 19% UTO It’s the location information issue most damaging to 15% sales. ESTAURANTS/QSR I TRY TO FIND THE CORRECT INFORMATION 62% 64% 15% 56% 62% REAL HOSPITALITYESTATE 11% Other location informationWASTED MY TIME I FEEL ANGRY BECAUSE I issues preventing 41% 56% AUTO REAL ESTATE customers fromNOT UPSET, PEOPLE MAKE MISTAKES include missing/ I’M finding businesses 24% 9% 0 19% REAL ESTATE incorrect phone numbers, and addresses: 41% AUTO FINANCE/BANKING 2 OTHER 13%19% 23% RETAIL RETAIL FINANCE/BANKING 23% 4% 13% INSURANCE RETAILRESTAURANTS/QSR MISSING/INCORRECT PHONE 19% AUTO 4% (AVERAGE FOR 40,000 LISTINGS) 15% RESTAURANTS/QSR 9% 24% B I LOOK FOR ANOTHER MERCHANT Across ESTAURANTS/QSR these EAL ESTATE 9% HOSPITALITY HOSPITALITY INSURANCE 43% NAME INCORRECT / MISSING 10% I WON’T TRUST THAT SOURCE AGAIN 19% 4% 16% RETAIL 41% RESTAURANTS/QSR ADDRESS INCORRECT / MISSING 16% FINANCE/BANKING FINANCE/BANKING MOST COMMON PROBLEMS WITH TEXT CUSTOMERS’ 13% LOCAL BUSINESS LISTINGS RETAIL 1 22% AUTO 42% 12.8% 30% IT INSURANCE HAPPENS OFTEN APPS REAL ESTATE ON MY MOBILE PHONE Given that this is such a critical issue to getting your business found, we decided to see what kinds of issues were most common among Yext customers before they start using the service. SEARCH We lookedENGINE at 40,000 U.S. business listings, the 23% FRIEND/FAMILY REFERRAL majority of which are for multi-location businesses. 64% INSURANCE 16% Not surprisingly, the data shows that location PRINT YELLOW PAGES 62% HOSPITALITY data INTERNET DIRECTORY SITE for these businesses has a large amount of 13% 56% REAL ESTATE inaccuracies and omissions: 7 % 15.6% (AVERAGE FOR 40,000 LISTINGS) IT HAS HAPPENED MULTIPLE TIMES 7 % APPS ON MY MOBILE PHONE 13% RETAIL NEVER HAPPENED 4% RESTAURANTS/QSR HAPPENED ONCE OR TWICE LOCATIONS WITH MISSING LISTINGS 23% REFERRAL FROM In the DecemberFRIEND/FAMILY Survey, we found that 2012 YQ PRINT YELLOW PAGES consumers regularly encounter incorrect16% location 13% dataINTERNET DIRECTORY SITE (E.G., YELP) for businesses. A 19% FINANCE/BANKING 42% 56% 41% AUTO Andrew Shotland 6 37% 62 4 RESTAURANTS/QSR FRIEND/FAMILY RETAIL REFERRAL FROM RESTAURANTS/QSR PAGES PRINT YELLOW 9% 13% 4% 9% 4% 16% 13% INTERNET DIRECTORY SITE (E.G., YELP) ADDRESS MISSING/INCORRECT (AVERAGE FOR 40,000 LISTINGS) 7% APPS ON MY MOBILE PHONE 24% REAL ESTATE 23% RETAIL REAL ESTATE AUTO RETAIL 14% On average 14% of all listings checked were 13% missing, which is costing businesses millions in sales: RESTAURANTS/QSR RESTAURANTS/QSR SEARCH ENGINE FINANCE/BANKING FINANCE/BANKING REFERRAL FRIEND/FAMILY HOSPITALITY AUTO PRINT YELLOW PAGES HOSPITALITY DIRECTORY SITE INTERNET OSPITALITY APPS ON MY MOBILE PHONE 4 SEARCH ENGINE (E.G., GOOGLE) 57% 23% INSURANCE INSURANCE A 23% 19% 15% 14% 55% 43% 41% 40% 23% 13% 16% 37% 24% 13% 42% 7 % 42%
  • 5. 2 0 30% INSURANCE 5 22% REAL ESTATE FINANCE/BANKING 22% AUTO The Most Common Problems With 16% 10% Your Business Listings Data (cont.) 16% AUTO 19% HOSPITALITY FINANCE/BANKING RETAIL 14% INSURANCE REAL ESTATE HOSPITALITY Andrew Shotland 4% 9% RETAIL RESTAURANTS/QSR RESTAURANTS/QSR 24% 23% RETAIL INSURANCE AUTO RESTAURANTS/QSR FINANCE/BANKING HOSPITALITY 23% INTERNET DIRECTORY SITE (E.G., YELP) APPS ON MY MOBILE PHONE 4% RETAIL 43 In some ways, this data is no surprise. Local 41% RESTAURANTS/QSR business data on the Web has always been a 40% FINANCE/BANKING mess, suffering from a combination of marrying 37% conflicting AUTO information from multiple sources and 24% lack of awareness by the businesses themselves. But HOSPITALITY with so many tools now available for businesses to control this information, it is surprising that the data consistency problem is still so common. 19% 15% 14% 13% While local directories can do a pretty good job of providing key information about your business, SEARCH ENGINE (E.G., GOOGLE) allowing consumers to do a deeper dive by visiting 42% 23% your website FRIEND/FAMILYstrong driver of conversions – REFERRAL FROM can be a assuming your website is set up to convert. 16% PRINT YELLOW PAGES 9% Your website can also be helpful in creating more of a connection with potential customers by providing them with more info on your services and making 4 REAL ESTATE it easy to find your social media profiles where you share additional information. INSURANCE INCORRECT/MISSING WEBSITE (AVERAGE FOR 40,000 LISTINGS) REAL ESTATE 13% 13% NEVER HAPPENED HAPPENED ONCE OR TWICE IT HAS HAPPENED MULTIPLE TIMES IT HAPPENS OFTEN 7 % 15.6% 12.8% APPS ON MY MOBILE PHONE You Need To Know: Apple Maps Optimization Tips Andrew Shotland Apple Maps has received much bad press, but there are hundreds of millions of iOS devices and thousands of 42% SEARCH ENGINE apps that use it as the default mapping application. So 23% FRIEND/FAMILY REFERRAL make sure your business listings are optimized. 16% PRINT YELLOW PAGES 13% Make Sure Your Business Is Listed INTERNET DIRECTORY SITE Search for your business on Apple Maps. If it does 7 % APPS ON MY MOBILE PHONE not appear, Apple does not have your business in its database. Currently, there is no “official” way to add/ edit your business, but you can “Report a Problem” via Apple Maps, and make sure your business is listed in Yelp and the major business listing data suppliers for 43% ADDRESS INCORRECTAcxiom, Factual, Localeze, and TomTom. Apple Maps / MISSING 37% NAME INCORRECT / MISSING I LOOK FOR ANOTHER MERCHANT 19% Yelp Profile is Positive The latest three Yelp reviews appear in the “Reviews” tab 18% PHONE # INCORRECT / MISSING of an Apple Maps business profile. Make sure the most 14% MISSING LISTING FINANCE/BANKING 5 15% 11% I FEEL ANGRY BECAUSE I WASTED Check Your Listings Often MY TIME Apple MapsI’M NOT UPSET, PEOPLElot of changes over the 9% will make a MAKE MISTAKES next year as it tries to improve. Inevitably, it will make a lot of OTHER errors with its data. Stay on top of your listings regularly to spot problems early on. Some Further Reading How To Add Your Business Listing To Apple Maps Apple Maps Business Listings Data Suppliers By Country Reputation Management for Apple Maps The Apple Maps Ecosystem Why Isn’t My Business Showing Up On Apple Maps? Make Sure WEBSITE URL MISSINGYour RETAIL recent photos and reviews are positive. I saw a hotel that had a cockroach shot added by a Yelp reviewer B I TRY TO FIND THE CORRECT INFORMATION which showed up as THAT SOURCEphoto displayed on its the first AGAIN I WON’T TRUST Apple Maps profile! 20
  • 6. 0 24% REAL ESTATE 4 Hidden Cost of Hidden Listings 23% 23% RETAIL INSURANCE Greg Sterling INSURANCE RETAIL 19% AUTO RESTAURANTS/QSR 15% RESTAURANTS/QSR FINANCE/BANKING 14% What’s the cost of a bad phone number or a missing FINANCE/BANKING 13% business address on the internet? The surprising HOSPITALITY answer is billions: $10.3 billion in annual offline sales are potentially lost from missing listings online. PRINT YELLOW PAGES INTERNET DIRECTORY SITE APPS ON MY MOBILE PHONE 43% 41% 40% 41.7% In assessing HAPPENED NEVER the current accuracy of local data, we looked HAPPENED ONCEbusiness listings on 50+ local at 40,000 OR TWICE 22.7% directory sites. These listings included national, 15.6% IT HAS HAPPENED MULTIPLE TIMES multi-location businesses as well as independent, 12.8% IT HAPPENS OFTEN small merchants. The listings were drawn from a APPS of business categories. wide rangeON MY MOBILE PHONE We discovered that 43% of listings – almost half – had at least one incorrect or missing address and 37% had at least one incorrect or missing name on 24 a listing. TRY TO FINDdoes this matter? Bad data have a B I Why THE CORRECT INFORMATION hidden but very THAT SOURCE AGAIN real cost. 22% I WON’T TRUST WHAT’S THE MAIN WAY TO FIND LOCAL MERCHANTS OR SERVICE PROVIDERS IN YOUR AREA? 42% 23% FRIEND/FAMILY REFERRAL 55% Errors inAUTO critical online database can be 37% one 24% multiplied across networks of sites that rely upon it. HOSPITALITY Even if the problem is discovered it often can take months for corrections to appear in all the relevant places consumers look online for local information. The internet is now the primary way that most US 42% consumers find local business information. In a SEARCH ENGINE (E.G., GOOGLE) December 2012 Yext Quarterly survey of more than 23% REFERRAL FROM FRIEND/FAMILY 1,000 US adults, the internet beat out even friend 16% PRINT YELLOW PAGES and family referrals. And among online sources, 13% INTERNET DIRECTORY were YELP) search engines SITE (E.G., identified as the primary tool APPS by consumers used ON MY MOBILE PHONE to find local 7% information. SEARCH ENGINE 57% REAL ESTATE 16% I LOOK FOR ANOTHER MERCHANT 15% We calculated that missing listings cost retailers and 11% I FEEL ANGRY BECAUSE I WASTED MY TIME local merchants at least $10.3 billion* annually in 9% I’M NOT lost potentialUPSET, PEOPLE MAKE MISTAKES revenue. That determination is partly 20% OTHER a function of how many people will switch to a competitor or give up looking if they encounter missing or inaccurate online business information. 13% 7% Source: Yext, Sterling-Shotland, December 2012 (n=1,004 US adults) Despite their popularity most internet sources, 43% including search engines, directories and mapping 37% NAME INCORRECT / MISSING sites, are full of errors and outdated information. 19% WEBSITE URL MISSING This is because businesses relocate, change names 18% or INCORRECT phone PHONE #get new / MISSING numbers. Sometimes inaccurate 14% information is uploaded by business owners MISSING LISTING themselves or competing listings exist for the FINANCE/BANKING same location. ADDRESS INCORRECT / MISSING “The impact of bad business information is mostly invisible to everyone in the ecosystem but the consumer” RETAIL   6
  • 7. 55% INSURANCE 43% RETAIL 41% Hidden Cost of Hidden Listings 40% 37% (cont.) RESTAURANTS/QSR FINANCE/BANKING AUTO HOSPITALITY Greg Sterling 24% The survey found that 47.6% of respondents had a negative reaction to the discovery of incorrect local information. Roughly 22% said that they “won’t trust 41.7% NEVER HAPPENED the source again.” But more importantly, 15.1% of 22.7% HAPPENED ONCE OR TWICE people said they would “look for another 15.6% IT HAS HAPPENED MULTIPLE TIMES merchant.” An additional 10.7% agreed with 12.8% IT HAPPENS OFTEN the statement “I feel angry because I’ve wasted my time.” APPS ON MY MOBILE PHONE The lost revenue opportunity asssociated with missing and inaccurate business information affects both online publishers and merchants alike. The toll, however, is heaviest on local merchants and retailers, which lose the chance to make sales.   Though real, the impact of bad business information is mostly invisible to everyone in the ecosystem but the consumer -- who simply gives up or finds another place to spend her money. WHICH OF THE FOLLOWING BEST DESCRIBES YOUR REACTION IF LOCAL BUSINESS INFORMATION ONLINE TURNS OUT LATER TO BE WRONG B 24% I TRY TO FIND THE CORRECT INFORMATION 22% I WON’T TRUST THAT SOURCE AGAIN I’M NOT UPSET, PEOPLE MAKE MISTAKES OTHER   15% I LOOK FOR ANOTHER MERCHANT I FEEL ANGRY BECAUSE I WASTED MY TIME   ____ *Approximately $369 billion in offline purchases, out of more than $800 billion in annual discretionary consumer spending, are influenced by the internet according to estimates based on US government data. Of that $369 billion at least $10.3 billion in annual local consumer spending is lost or at risk from missing local business information online. 11% 9% 20% Source: Yext, Sterling-Shotland, December 2012 (n=1,004 US adults) 7
  • 8. The Cost of Bad Location Data The Cost of Bad Location Data Local Information for Many Businesses Is Wrong… Incorrect local business information in search, maps, and apps % OCCURRENCE IN EACH INDUSTRY MISSING/ INCORRECT PHONE # 18% occurrence overall 30% Insurance 22% Real estate 16% Banking 41% Banking 22% Auto 19% Hospitality MISSING WEB URL 19% occurrence overall MISSING/ INCORRECT ADDRESS 43% 64% Insurance 62% Hospitality 56% Real estate 14% 30% Insurance 21% Real estate 16% Auto occurrence overall MISSING LISTING occurrence overall The Hidden Cost of Hidden Listings $10.3B in lost sales for merchants with missing listings 14% of listings are missing ($10.3B) Customers use 5 sources when shopping locally, so businesses have a 20% chance of conversion ($73.75B). 51% of purchases are by people who research before buying at location ($369B) $ Sources: Yext, Dec 2012; Google Oct 2012; LSA, June 2011; Yext, Sterling-Shotland, Dec 2012 ® 8 723B annual discretionary spend purchase offline
  • 9. Internet-Influenced Local Spending Worth Roughly 10X E-Commerce Greg Sterling Netscape co-founder and venture capitalist Marc Andreesen said in a recent interview that traditional retail is doomed and that e-commerce will be the way that people buy nearly everything in the future. That sounds like Silicon Valley hype circa 1999 rather than an assessment of the market in 2013. There are various estimates of the value of e-commerce today. Online measurement firm comScore reported that total US retail and travelrelated e-commerce spending in 2012 was $289 billion. Data aggregator eMarketer projected that e-commerce surpassed $1 trillion in 2012 on a global basis, with the largest single market being the US. In truth the “local” (or offline) market could be compared to the Pacific Ocean and e-commerce to a man-made lake in a public park. Bridging the two realms is the internet’s impact on offline consumer spending. Indeed, the relationship between “online” and “offline” is becoming more complex and blurry in the wake of smartphones. “… it’s widely recognized that approximately 75% to 80% of disposable consumer income is spent within 20 miles of home.” One thing is very clear, however, the overwhelming majority of “commerce” still happens locally within a relatively short distance of where people live or work. While there is no “hard” research on this question it’s widely recognized that approximately 75% to 80% of disposable consumer income is spent within 20 miles of home. These are impressive figures until you put them in the context of total consumer spending and look at the broader market. Total US retail in 2012 was roughly $4.5 trillion according to US Commerce Department data. Spending on local services is conservatively worth at least another $2.9 trillion according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. And travel spending comes in at another $1.3 trillion or so according to US government figures. When CMOs and digital agencies hear the word “local” they often think of small businesses and tend to dismiss the market accordingly. They rarely think of Home Depot or Verizon or Bank of America as local businesses. However these national chains and franchises are as much local businesses as the independent florist or restaurant. That’s because the overwhelming majority of their revenue comes from people buying things in their local stores or outlets. Although e-commerce has been growing steadily (about a point per year) it was still just 5.2% of total US retail in the third quarter of 2012, though that number may rise when final Q4 data are analyzed. And online travel bookings represent a little over 8% of total US travel spending. > 9
  • 10. Internet-Influenced Local Spending Worth Roughly 10X E-Commerce (cont.) Greg Sterling When you combine retail, local services and travel-related spending in the US you arrive at a “local” market that is worth more than $8 trillion annually. In that “real-world” context, even the most aggressive estimates of US e-commerce are still less than 5% of total spending. Annual Spending on + Travel + Retail + Local Services What’s much more significant is the way the internet influences an increasing percentage of consumer spending in local markets. That phenomenon is typically invisible to CMOs and marketers who have trouble tracking online-to-offline consumer behavior. = Multiple surveys over the past few years have established that the internet is the number one source consumers use to find local information. People rely upon search engines, maps and directories, and review sites to help them make purchase decisions before buying in stores or spending on local services. 8T $ Internet-Influenced Local Spend is 51% x Total (8T) = 4T $ Consumer survey data also show that perhaps 50% of purchase decisions are now impacted by the internet in one way or another, Google cites 51%. The percentages may be higher if digital maps and directions are factored in. There are also data from several analyst firms arguing even larger numbers of consumers use the internet before buying offline. and E-commerce is 5% of Total (8T) = $400B It’s thus safe to assert that at least $2 trillion in offline economic activity and consumer spending annually is now impacted by the internet. That makes internet-influenced local spending considerably more valuable than traditional e-commerce – by roughly a factor of 10. 10
  • 11. You Need to Know: How to Make Multi-Location Search Work Andrew Shotland Ranking well in Google’s local search results is critical for both local and national marketers. For a single location business, a site for Google+ Local (aka “G+L”) can be tricky. Optimizing for G+L with multiple business locations can be even trickier. elements such as NAPs, reviews, hours of opearation, payment types, etc. Information on how to do this can be found at Schema.org. I also recommend this excellent article: 13 Semantic MarkUp Tips for a 2013 Local SEO. Often brands with multiple locations (e.g. Nordstroms) will use their homepage in their G+L profile. This makes sense, sometimes. The majority of your PageRank typically sits on your homepage, which should help your organic rankings, but this misses the opportunity to send Google stronger local signals. Duplicate Content Issues With Location Pages If you have multiple locations in the same city and have a unique location page on your site for each, you may consider selecting one location page as the primary location and use a canonical tag to point at this URL from the others. This will help the search engines present your preferred URL when someone searches your brand in the city (e.g. “Nordstrom’s in Los Angeles”). Create Pages for Each Location I recommend creating landing pages for each location with the location keywords in the URL, keywords and NAPs (names, addresses & phone numbers) in text on the page, an embedded map, directions, etc. It couldn’t hurt to add photos, videos and inventory and/or services where possible. Try to use unique content on each page v. cookie cutter text that merely switches out the location name by page. Over time, these unique pages should perform significantly better. Don’t Forget About Local Citations! For those brands that have not already built out location pages, it can be a costly exercise to do so. Adding them to one’s site is easy. The challenge is updating the links in all of the local directory profile pages for your locations. The average cost of citation updating in the U.S. these days is about $5/listing/location. For a thousand-location business, doing this for the the top 50 citation sources would be $250,000. If you are launching location pages, you don’t necessarily have to do citations at the start. But if your rankings are stuck, be prepared to invest in citation building/updating. Across a large number of locations the ROI on this activity could be significant. Use a HTML Sitemap It’s important that you don’t hide these local pages behind search forms. They need to be visibly linked from other pages on the site. Adding a HTML sitemap to your footer to point to these pages is a good way to do this if you don’t want to put location links all over each page. Using Semantic Markup I also recommend you add markup to your location pages that helps search engines understand 11
  • 12. Cracking the Local Code An Interview with Groupon Co-founder Andrew Mason The story of Groupon is well documented. Born out of an earlier social-action startup called The Point, Andrew Mason launched Groupon in Chicago in 2008. The company quickly attracted investment and became the fastest-growing startup in internet history, expanding in the US and internationally through organic growth and acquisitions. Mason led the company to a highly anticipated IPO in November 2011. AM: They’re busy and they’re happy to rely on tried and true methods for marketing and tools to run their business. In order to understand the virtues of Groupon, we’ve had to hold merchants’ hands through the process of getting signed up, and have built a massive sales force to do so. More impressively, Groupon accomplished all this in the very challenging local and small business market, effectively bringing e-commerce at scale to local businesses for the first time. Now, in its post-IPO period, Groupon is diversifying beyond deals and seeking to become “the Local Commerce Operating System” for small business. In addition to deals the company now provides a point of sale system, electronic and mobile payments, scheduling and inventory management to local businesses. AM: Groupon is a form of advertising for SMBs.  They measure the success too often by the size of the last tip that came through the door using Groupon, rather than a holistic analytical approach. We’ve found we have to coach them through how to evaluate the profitability of a Groupon campaign.  Yext: How have SMBs taken to adopting new marketing and advertising tools? They know they need tools that help them improve their marketing and grow their business, but they will gravitate to the ones that will help them do it in a predictable way. In the following interview with Yext, Mason offers his reflections on the digital challenges facing small businesses, what it takes to succeed as an entrepreneur in local and what the market will look like five years from now. Yext: What has changed in local since Groupon was founded? AM: I think for sure, mobile, that’s no surprise. Our business just in the last year has gone from 22% mobile, which was already doubling from the year prior, to 39-40% mobile this year.  Yext: What is the greatest challenge local merchants face in today’s evolving digital landscape? In the same way that broadband facilitated the move of video from offline to online, mobile is doing so for local commerce. And it’s also enabling local ecommerce similar to how Amazon did for the move of product from offline to online. Andrew Mason: We’ve found that local businesses aren’t early tech adopters. They are people who want problems solved for them.  Evaluating all these different tools that are available to them, especially as we transition to mobile and tablets, is a real challenge. ” Our business, just in the last year, has gone from 22% mobile, which was already doubling from the year prior, to 39-40% mobile this year. ” Yext: How do they evaluate these competing sales propositions, channels, devices coming at them? 12
  • 13. Cracking the Local Code An Interview with Groupon Co-founder Andrew Mason (cont.) Yext: What role will “Big Data” play in local? wave. Once we get the infrastructure to plug local businesses into the web, the innovation will exponentially increase.  AM: In our case, we can use just a few data points to help us find patterns and understand what consumers are looking for. We can also use it to help drive the right kinds of customers to a local business when they most need them. We’re just beginning to scratch the surface on how to use the data to build a local ecommerce ecosystem. The possibilities are endless. “There hasn’t been real tech innovation in local since the invention of the credit card, and mobile has catalyzed the disruption wave. “ Yext: What are the success factors for startups and digital media companies in the local market today? Yext: What’s one thing you wish you would have known before you started Groupon? AM: I was very deliberate when starting Groupon to make sure I had a model that did not have a chicken and egg problem – it had to work effectively at a small scale. Instead we actually had the opposite issue, it worked very well at small scale and, as we grew, we ran into issues bringing businesses too many customers. And we’ve had to innovate out of that problem. AM: We didn’t just create a business; we created a category. Four and a half years later we are doing $5 billion in sales in 48 countries. The thing has grown massively and it continues to evolve at a similar rate. But you don’t have to be that smart to do well in business, you just have to have the courage to follow your intuition.  They should also find a win-win-win model, where the business wins when consumers and merchants win. It’s unpleasant to have a business where you’re constantly forced to make tradeoffs between the best interest of the business and the best interest of the customers. My intuition has always been starting with the customers and building something that optimizes not for 2-3 months, but 2-3 years or even 20-30 years. And being convicted about those principles and being unwilling to stray from them is the difference between success and failure. All of our success happens when we ruthlessly adhere to our values, which are to start with the customer and work backwards. Yext: Five years from now, what problems in local will have been solved? AM: The way people buy locally is going to be fundamentally different. There hasn’t been real tech innovation in local since the invention of the credit card, and mobile has catalyzed the disruption Andrew Mason Co-founder Groupon 13
  • 14. Directions: 10 Local Digital Marketing Predictions for 2013 Greg Sterling and Andrew Shotland 1 Mobile an Imperative for Local Marketers 6 Local Data Syndication Becomes Progressively Richer  Location data used to mean just business name, address and phone number. Increasingly “location data” will expand to include a broader array of information: images, product and service pricing, inventory, social content and other relevant information. Companies managing local data will become more content syndicators rather than just databases of basic business information.   The “need it now” local orientation of mobile users makes local-mobile marketing the top priority for national-local marketers and small businesses alike. But because of complexity, fragmentation and confusion, most marketers will still be unable to fully take advantage of the opportunity.  2 Location Packaged as Audience for National Marketers To address some of the confusion surrounding locationbased mobile marketing, location and related data will be increasingly used as a way to target specific audiences in the real world. Agencies and national brands understand audience more than they understand the nuances of location and related targeting technology. So local-mobile marketing substantially evolves into audience targeting via location.  “ Increasingly “location data” will expand to include a broader array of information: images, product and service pricing, inventory, social content and other relevant information.” 3 Mobile Data Increasingly Connect Online Ads to Offline Action Google Will Push More Local Information 7 Into Its Search Results The capacity to “close the loop” and provide realworld analytics on digital ad performance gains steam. Marketers will gain increasing visibility and insight into which campaigns and ads are driving foot traffic into local outlets and stores, as well as driving actual sales. And most of that information will be owned by Google. National brands will find it increasingly challenging to play at the SEO game without providing true local value.  8 Google Business Builder Will Finally Arrive 4 The Year of Conquesting  More than a year after it was leaked to the Wall Street Journal, Google will finally roll out a Google+ for Businesses marketing dashboard. And yes, it will be buggy, frustrating and essential for anyone doing local marketing. Targeting mobile consumers while they are physically at or near your competition to lure them away will become one of the fastest-growing local marketing tactics. An entire industry will spring up around turning mobile user travel patterns into actionable marketing data. 9 The 800lb Facebook Graph Search Gorilla 5 Mobile Payments for Real-World Transactions Gains Momentum As Graph Search goes nationwide, it will have a dramatic impact on social review sites (e.g. Look out Yelp). It will also quite likely become the infrastructure for a social Adwords-type service. Look out Google. The mobile payments landscape is noisy and fairly chaotic today. As we get farther into 2013, mobile payments (for offline transactions) will gain real steam, driven by Square, PayPal and others. Consumers will become increasingly comfortable with paying for things with a “digital wallet” on their smartphones. Mobile payments data will help feed several of the other trends. 10 Apple Maps Will Sneak Up On Us Apple will spend 2013 quietly rebuilding the maligned Apple Maps service. At Christmas time, the new iPhone will cause consumers, analysts and marketers to give the much-maligned Apple Maps another shot.    14