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Ad-Tech Gold Rush Is On

Thu, 06 Jun 2013 12:26:39 -0400

Everywhere you look, people are using smartphones and other mobile devices. When you combine that with the billions of dollars spent on advertising each year, you get advertising technology. We head to Metamorphic Ventures, a venture capital fund that runs an incubator for ad-tech startups, to learn more about the sector and the new opportunities for ad-tech startups.

Inspiring Business Women Thriving in Online Marketing

Fri, 24 May 2013 14:27:44 -0400

By Janette Speyer and Katrina McNeill

Women have come a long way in the world of business. When we look at our role models in the online marketing industry, there are a few outstanding and inspirational influences. Today we want to share with you three successful women in online marketing who really stand out for their trailblazing achievements. These exceptional women help others in their field to find drive and motivation.

Kathy Leake

LocalResponse

President and co-founder of LocalResponse, Kathy colleagues say that she “is a visionary in the ad targeting world.” (Business Insider). LocalResponse makes ads more relevant by listening to social conversations. Over 13 billion Facebook posts, Pinterest pins, Foursquare check-ins, article shares and clicks across social media are analyzed monthly to improve the targeting and efficacy of desktop, tablet and mobile display ads. For example, if you tweet “Just went for a run”, you might see a NIKE banner ad on your desktop minutes later. Kathy doesn’t just inspire us with her success at LocalReponse. Before LocalResponse, she was a founder and chief revenue officer at Media6Degrees, a social targeting company that took the market and drove to $20 million in revenue and $100 million valuation in two years. We suggest you follow LocalRespose on Facebook for some helpful mobile targeting tips.

An Impressive Collection

These women are not only an inspiration, but they are resources! So follow the links provided in their summaries to be well on your way to conquering the world of social media! We would love to continue the discussion about the wonderful women of online marketing with you on our social platforms, come see us on Facebook, Twitter or Google+.

5 Tools Brands Can Use to Create Socially Targeted Ads

Mon, 20 May 2013 13:02:52 -0400

20 MAY 2013 BY STEPHANIE MILES

In a single day, a tech-savvy twenty-something might tweet about a yoga class, check-in at Target, ask friends on Facebook to recommend a local cafe, and post photos on Instagram from inside Whole Foods. Individually, these social media updates might not mean much. But collectively, they can be a useful tool for advertisers trying to get a deeper look inside the minds of their local customers.

Marketers hoping to capitalize on the vast amounts of data consumers post publicly online are increasingly using social media to inform their online targeting efforts. Socially targeted ads are relevant and contextual, and they’re able to carry over from mobile to desktop. Here are five tools that merchants can use to create socially targeted ads.

1. LocalResponse: Respond to social intent.
LocalResponse specializes in intent marketing, leveraging the millions of updates that consumers post on social media each day as a way to drive targeted awareness of brands. For example, companies like Starbucks or Peet’s Coffee could use LocalResponse to ensure their ads show up on the desktops of any consumers who tweet about being sleepy or tired. Similarly, a person who complains about doing his taxes on Facebook might see a TurboTax banner ad show up on his screen the next time he clicks over to CNN.com. LocalResponse operates on a CPM model.

It’s Never Win or Lose – It’s Always Win or Learn

Mon, 13 May 2013 13:08:08 -0400

BRAD KEYWELL: “I do not think there is any other quality so essential to success of any kind as the quality of perseverance. It overcomes almost everything, even nature.” – John D. Rockefeller

Nihal Mehta launched real-time city guide buzzd in 2007, raising about $4 million in venture funding and drawing about two million users. But in an era before the smartphone craze, he struggled to find a great mobile revenue model. By mid-2010, he was forced to slash his staff by more than half and personally float payroll.

While buzzd was on its deathbed, Mehta took the time to fortify the relationships he had built over the years. He persuaded investors to convert their preferred stock to common stock and reconstituted the board – all while selling them on a new product that would help connect brands almost instantly with targeted consumers.

There is no winding down for entrepreneurs. There’s only winding up. Rather than just accept defeat and pack it up, Mehta raced to figure out how to preserve capital, modify his vision and refocus his efforts.

While the media may describe your struggling company as “failing,” the only way you can truly fail is by bringing your venture to a complete stop. You should try to never hit zero mph – just slow down the pace enough to catch your breath and gather all the hard work, talent, relationships and personal equity that you have worked so hard to build. Then take all that you can gather from the startup experience of disrupting a targeted industry and figure out how those assets can best be used to build something new.

Mehta did just that. LocalResponse rose from buzzd’s ashes, raising an estimated $7 million in 2011. And now major companies — ranging from Coca-Cola to McDonald’s to GMC — use LocalResponse in harmony with social media to find and reach potential customers. For example, if someone tweets about being hungry, an ad for Pizza Hut appears. Or if someone posts a status update about hating tax season, a TurboTax ad shows up on their screen.

Can’t figure out how to pivot from a less-than-successful trajectory into a more promising business model? The real asset you could be sitting on is a talented and harmonious technology team — a team that could work miracles as part of another organization. Consider being acquired, because it’s rare to find the trifecta of great talent, people and teamwork in one place. Just look at Yahoo. Last week it bought MileWise and GoPollGo, just to have them shut down and roll their staff into the Yahoo mobile team. Yahoo did the same thing last year when it acquired Stamped, and it spent millions of dollars to retain all but one of the staff at San Francisco’s Web clipping startup, Snip.it. Others, such as Facebook, are also in the market for buying the talent and tech percolating from the startup world, so don’t write off acquisitions when trying to salvage your efforts.

The personal investment you make in your company should pay entrepreneurial dividends, regardless of whether you make millions or don’t make much money at all. Do not allow your startup relationships to voluntarily dissolve with your corporation. There is a reason people believed in you as an entrepreneur, and your job is to harness that entrepreneurial spark even if your current venture is not a champion. Every successful entrepreneur and investor knows that it’s never win or lose — it’s always win or learn.

LocalResponse’s socially-targeted ads pay off big with revenue up 716%

Fri, 03 May 2013 10:50:21 -0400

May 2, 2013

Devindra Hardawar

LocalResponse’s pitch is simple, but ingenious for the ad set: it combs social media data to better targets ads on mobile devices and desktops. That means more interesting ads for you, and hopefully better conversions for advertisers (especially those struggling to figure out how to make mobile ads work).

The social focus seems to be paying off for the company, as it announced today that its first quarter revenues increased 716 percent from last year. That’s particularly notable, since its revenues for January 2012 ended up equaling its sales for all of 2011.

“There’s been this hunt for [ad] inventory that performs better and is more targeted to the end user,” said Nihal Mehta, LocalResponse’s chief executive and co-founder, in an interview with VentureBeat. “I think we are one of the few ad networks that actually really perform.”

Mehta laid out three big reasons why the company is performing so well: More brands are shifting their ad spend to digital (he predicts 2013 will be the biggest ever for digital ads); the economy is on the rebound and brands are realizing consumers are ready to spend again; and finally, consumers are more social than ever, which gives LocalResponse plenty of data when it comes to targeting.

“We make ads more relevant and more contextual through these social signals,” Mehta said. “If you tweet ‘I’m hungry,’ you could see a banner ad for Pizza Hut on your phone. If you check-in to Wal-Mart on Foursquare, you could see an ad for Target the next time you go to CNN.com.”

The company’s strong ad performance has attracted some big clients like State Farm and Best Buy, 19 percent of which are Fortune 100 companies. It also announced today that it’s opening an office in Los Angeles. In an ad campaign using LocalResponse’s Direct Intent Targeting, L’Oreal saw a 0.19 percent click-through rate — ten-times the typical click-through rate of around 0.02 percent.

LocalResponse competes with 33Across and SalesForce’s Marketing Cloud (built out of the remains from Buddy Media), but Mehta tells me it has built something truly unique. The company has upgraded its infrastructure to handle 10 billion social media signals a month (which is the same as Twitter’s entire capacity), and it’s also natural language processing algorithms to determine intent from social data.

Mehta felt particularly vindicated in LocalResponse’s social focus after hearing about Foursquare’s potential plans to resell check-in data to advertisers. That’s something he predicted would be huge two years ago.

For now, LocalResponse’s technology only targets ads based on an individual device’s activity (so that Foursquare check-in on your phone won’t have any impact on the desktop). Mehta revealed that the company is eventually planning to take advantage of your social media identity to enable cross-device targeting.

Since the company is so focused on ad targeting, I asked Mehta how LocalResponse could take advantage of something like Google Glass.

“Glass for us won’t be an ad interface, but it could be a data signal,” he said. For example, it could take advantage of the fact that you’re taking a lot of pictures of a particular place or product, or simply spending a lot of time looking at something. “We want to stay laser-focused on social signals. But I think it’s cool, I think it will have as much of an impact as the iPod had in the music industry and the iPhone had in the phone industry.”

LocalResponse was founded in 2010 and has received around $8 million in funding.

Focus on your value prop & execute!

Wed, 01 May 2013 13:33:37 -0400

Kathy is currently the President and Co-Founder of Local Response, a company that helps marketers respond to social intent. At Local Response she is responsible for positioning, go-to-market, revenue generation and general operations.

Prior to joining Local Response, Kathy was a Founder and Chief Revenue Officer at Media6Degrees, a Social Targeting company. At Media6, Kathy developed the positioning, strategy and go-to-market blueprint for the company. She successfully took Media6 to market and drove the company from pre-revenue to $20 million in revenue and $100 million valuation in 2 years.

MO: How does LocalResponse work?

Kathy: LocalResponse is the first platform to help marketers respond to social intent, defined as a social media moment: a Tweet, a status update on Facebook, a photo on Instagram, a checkin to Foursquare and many more. We believe that publicly expressed intent is the strongest consumer signal for brands.

MO: Can you share with our readers a bit about the process of taking a company from ideation stage to generating significant revenue with top tier advertisers?

Kathy: it is a long and difficult road to take a company from just being an idea in a PowerPoint deck into a revenue generating business. In ad tech, we usually start with a theory about a certain type of data. We built the technology to support the theory and then we go to market and sell it to advertisers. Then you work hard to perform for your clients always, refining & fine tuning along the way.

MO: What advice would you give to a startup seeking investment?

Kathy: Do your homework on the types of companies a particular VC has invested in, in the past. It will save you a mountain of time to seek investment from a VC that understands your business from the outset.

MO: Where does your entrepreneurial spirit come from? What was the first business that you ever helped launched and what early lessons did you learn?

Kathy: I think from my drive to control my own destiny. My first business was launched in 2007. I learned that you have to take a leap of faith and be willing to take risks to be an entrepreneur. In my business 90% of start-ups fail, so having a unique offering isn’t enough. You have to have the right team, solid technology and passion to succeed.

MO: How do you bring ideas to life?

Kathy: Passion for what you are doing is key to bringing ideas to life. That and believing in what you are doing (both in the idea and yourself) is the only way to bring an idea to life.

MO: What’s the most exciting thing on the horizon for you personally or professionally?

Kathy: Professionally, building and scaling my company in 2013. It’s an exciting time in the lifecycle of a start-up. Personally, continuing to try and balance home, family, baby, health and work!

The 30 Most Creative People In Mobile Advertising

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 16:38:54 -0400

Laura Stampler | Apr. 15, 2013

Being creative in mobile advertising is much more difficult than in traditional media.

The real estate — the “creative palette,” if you will — is smaller. The users’ attention span is shorter. The medium itself is new.

And a lot of it can’t be seen easily, the way TV commercials or magazine ads can be seen online.

After extensive research — and reading nominations from movers and shakers in the field — we have ranked the 30 most creative people in the mobile advertising. We defined creativity broadly, from people using the new technology in innovative ways, to those who are creating new tech for the medium, to those with more traditional ideas or design-driven roles.

While it’s unfair to compare people from different fields of the mobile ad sphere, we tried to rank the nominees based on experience, contributions to the field, and out-of-the-box thinking.

We also noticed that both our research, and the nominations process, produced a shockingly undiverse list in terms of race and gender. (If we missed anyone who deserves to be on here, please let us know.)

13 & 14. Nihal Mehta and Kathy Leake, co-founders of LocalResponse

Banner ads can be pretty boring, but LocalResponse found a really creative and interesting way to approach them.

This is appropriate given that one of Mehta’ favorite sayings is, “Ads suck. I am here to make them suck less.”

LocalResponse uses consumers’ tweets and social media actions to trigger ads that appear on the user’s device. The company plans to expand into the desktop display arena too.

For example, a Turbo Tax banner might appear on NYTimes.com after complaining about tax season on Twitter.

Some private equity negotiating tips for women working for a startup

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 15:10:49 -0400

By Michelle Atagana
03.22.13

Before I get on my soapbox and begin waving the women-can-do-all-things flag I would like take a breath and point you all to some well thought-out advice.

I was hopping around the web as one does on a Friday morning and I picked up this piece by Kathy Leake, Co-founder and President of LocalResponse, on AllThingsD. Based in New York’s emerging startup scene in trendy Chelsea, LocalResponse claims to be the first platform to help marketers respond to social intent, defined as a social media moment: a tweet, a status update on Facebook, a photo on Instagram and a check-in to Foursquare.

In her latest AllThingsD offering, Leake divulges some advice for women entrepreneurs tackling the sometimes murky world of equity.

“As more and more women begin to populate CEO and founder-level positions, and we get closer to income equality between genders, I feel it’s increasingly important that we not only understand our merited assets, but more importantly, we learn how to ink them into our contracts upfront,” writes Leake.

She highlights five key guidelines that women need to be aware of when it comes to negotiating equity so they get the highest possible stake in their company — but I think some of these aren’t all that gender-specific. So men listen up too.

Leake encourages women to fight for what they deserve.

“Your title costs the company nothing. If your role is going to include getting the company on the map, shoot for C-Level or Founding Partner. It doesn’t matter if it’s not your idea.”

Just because you’re working for a startup doesn’t mean you should get screwed in the salaries department. Get raises and bonuses tied to performance.

According to Leake, most startups pre-Series A can’t offer you a market-related salary but attempt to make up for that in equity, Although that is good pre-Series A, it might not work out afterwards.

“Begin negotiating pre-A to get you where you want to be post-A. If you are willing to put skin in the game and take a risk in joining a startup, you should also benefit along the way by virtue of your performance.”

Get some share options.

“Four-year vesting is not an absolute. Ask for some of your shares to vest earlier, so that you have ownership earlier. I recommend asking for two years post the initial year, meaning after three years your stock is fully vested, rather than four. That ownership is empowering and motivating,” she says.

Get an anti-dilution clause or you’ll be in for a nasty surprise when your shares drop dramatically. Think what happened to the other Facebook guy post-funding.

“So ask for an anti-dilution clause for, at the very least, the Series A. If you don’t, you’ll be in for an unpleasant surprise post-A. It’s possible to find yourself with only two-thirds (or less) of what you originally thought was your percentage share in the company once you have closed that first round of funding.”

Get an exit strategy from the get go. Working for a startup is a big risk — so best have a plan for when things don’t quite work out.

“You are taking a risk with your career to join a startup, so try and avoid “at will” employment. Establish a minimum term of 6-12 months guaranteed employment or 3-6 months severance.”

You can read Leake’s full piece here.

Negotiating Private Equity: How Women Startup Founders Can Ensure Their Fair Share

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 15:09:05 -0400

Kathy Leake, Co-Founder and President, LocalResponse

MARCH 21, 2013

I often find myself surrounded by strong, intelligent businesswomen who are more than comfortable with tough negotiations. But the truth is that many women are new to the business world, and negotiating equity is often a mystery for even the most experienced of us. It boils down to the fact that many startup founders think they have more equity than they really do.

As more and more women begin to populate CEO and founder-level positions, and we get closer to income equality between genders, I feel it’s increasingly important that we not only understand our merited assets, but more importantly, we learn how to ink them into our contracts upfront.

With this in mind, here are five guidelines that I feel will help ensure the highest possible stake in your company.

Fight for the Title You Deserve
You may have heard that it’s not a good idea to be hung up on a title during negotiations, but in my experience, titles are important. This is especially true in regards to how you are treated as an employee both internally and externally, and they’re important for your next career move as well.

Your title costs the company nothing. If your role is going to include getting the company on the map, shoot for C-Level or Founding Partner. It doesn’t matter if it’s not your idea. If you have been hired to a) create demand for a new product, b) define a new product or c) turn an idea into a revenue-generating company (or all of the above), then you are absolutely a founding partner.

If you don’t go for that top title, you are leaving room for someone else to swoop in and nab it. I can’t tell you how many times this has happened to entrepreneurs I know (men and women).

You can point out that with a woman on board at a founding level, the company may in fact be in a better position for success. A study released last April shows that companies that have more diverse teams (gender-wise as well as cultural) in their C-Level and executive roles perform notably better financially and on equity returns.

Once you’ve defined your value in the company and your business card reflects that, confidence to negotiate a higher financial stake in the company will come much more easily.
Up the Salary Ante With Raises and Bonuses Tied to Performance
Many times when negotiating at a startup, particularly prior to Series A, you will be told they can’t pay you at market rate, but that you’ll be given equity to make up for it. That may be true at the time you start, but it shouldn’t remain true throughout your employment.

Begin negotiating pre-A to get you where you want to be post-A. If you are willing to put skin in the game and take a risk in joining a startup, you should also benefit along the way by virtue of your performance. So one way to get to your market rate is to take a lower base salary, but request additional equity grants upon completion of specific (and clearly defined) objectives throughout your employment. This is a great way to pull in more equity at a later date and also keep you motivated to hit pre-defined milestones. There’s less risk for both of you in this case.
Ask for Earlier Vesting Shares and Options
Vesting arrangements and rights can also be a little tricky to navigate within a startup.

The industry standard vesting period is four years, with a one-year cliff. The cliff means you are waiting a full year for a percentage of equity to vest (typically 25 percent), and if you leave before one year is up you get zip. Generally after the cliff, you vest on a monthly or quarterly basis for the remaining three years.

Four-year vesting is not an absolute. Ask for some of your shares to vest earlier, so that you have ownership earlier. I recommend asking for two years post the initial year, meaning after three years your stock is fully vested, rather than four. That ownership is empowering and motivating.

You should also strive for the ability to “early exercise,” which essentially means you exercise your options prior to vesting. Negotiate a certain percentage of equity to vest early, or start vesting on day one in order to avoid that one-year cliff.

In my experience, the tax treatment for this is the same as restricted stock, and you’ll only pay on your gains rather than income tax.
Don’t Forget About Anti-Dilution Protection
If you are coming in as a C-level hire, you will be key to any capital raise. Your reputation and experience will be a vital component that VCs will evaluate during their decision to invest. So ask for an anti-dilution clause for, at the very least, the Series A. If you don’t, you’ll be in for an unpleasant surprise post-A. It’s possible to find yourself with only two-thirds (or less) of what you originally thought was your percentage share in the company once you have closed that first round of funding.

Companies often throw out a share number that sounds appealing, but you really have no way of knowing its true value without some context. Ask for the percentage their number represents out of the total shares outstanding. If they won’t tell you, then it’s not a lot!

Once your stake in the company is clearly defined, the anti-dilution clause will protect you from getting washed out in every capital raise. It’s not an easy sell, but you can push for it through the first round of funding. You will not get this indefinitely, however.

If you are joining post-A, ensure your options are on a “fully diluted” cap table, so you know what you are really being offered.
Have a Plan for Your Exit Strategy
As with most phases of the startup life cycle, “the exit,” whether it is yours personally or the exit event of the company, almost never goes as planned. Of course you want (and hope) that everything will be great at your new startup, but the reality is that the startup ecosystem is a landmine for unforeseen events and obstacles. It’s important to protect yourself upfront from events you can’t always predict, like mergers, joint ventures, new management, changes in company direction, the product not working, crazy CEOs and so on.

You are taking a risk with your career to join a startup, so try and avoid “at will” employment. Establish a minimum term of 6-12 months guaranteed employment or 3-6 months severance.

If you depart “due to good reason” (for example, an unfavorable change to your job title, compensation or role) before that term is over, you will still get paid your base salary. Also, try to get some percentage of unvested options to vest upon your departure.

Protect yourself in case you are terminated “without cause,” and negotiate into your contract full or partial acceleration on options as a condition of an early/unforeseen exit.

Keep in mind that it’s likely you won’t get everything you ask for. But if you aim high, you should find yourself in a much better place in terms of equity, incentives and material wealth.

Kathy Leake is co-founder and president of the highly successful intent targeting network, LocalResponse. Kathy comes from a long background in startup entrepreneurship, particularly in the ad tech space (prior to LocalResponse she co-founded Media6Degrees), and as the only woman at the board table for 25+ years, she’s learned a thing or two about tough negotiations and standing up for the title, salary, equity and respect that she deserves.

Can Mobile Targeting Ever be as Accurate as Cookies on the Desktop?

Thu, 21 Mar 2013 15:09:37 -0400

Tapad, Drawbridge, LocalResponse and Others Hope So

By: John McDermott
Published: March 21, 2013

Mobile ad startup Tapad announced on Thursday it closed a $6.5 million series B funding round led by venture capital fund Firsthand Technology. By analyzing hundreds of data points including device type, browser type and content source, Tapad says that it can target consumers across devices with 70% to 75% accuracy. In turn, the company has attracted high-profile investors and 75 customers in Fortune 500.

But Tapad is just one of numerous cross-device tracking companies to capture the attention of Madison Avenue and Silicon Alley with such claims. While mobile device adoption has been a boon to Apple and Samsung, it has threatened to make cookies—the lifeblood of digital advertising—less relevant. As the cookie slowly crumbles, advertisers have heralded new technologies that will one day replace them.

“I don’t think cookies on the desktop are going away.” Nihal Mehta, CEO and co-founder of social intent targeting startup LocalResponse, said. “They’re always going to exist.” That said, his company is among an emerging group focused on how to track people’s media behavior across devices that goes beyond basic cookie tracking.

Cookies are functionally irrelevant on mobile devices, but there’s no universal tracking solution for them (yet). Apple used to allow app developers to identify users based upon the Universal Device Identifiers (UDID), a unique series of numbers and letters placed in every iOS device. Then it then decided it would only allow tracking via IFAs (Identifiers For Advertising), functionally the same as a UDID, only it’s a piece of software rather than an identifier directly connected to the physical device.

Google, meanwhile, has an identifier all its own, the Android ID. And all web-enabled devices have a media access control address that can be tracked by a Wi-Fi receiver, but experts agree that this technology is likely to frighten consumers. (That hasn’t stopped Nomi, which recently raised $3 million in seed funding, from doing that, though.)

Factor in other platforms and device makers such as BlackBerry and Windows and it’s easy to see why the imprecise science of mobile tracking and measurement is impeding the flow of marketers’ dollars.

The ad tech entrepreneurs developing cross-device tracking believe their solutions will eventually be more effective than the current cookie-based solution is for online tracking.

“The future [of mobile] is that we’ll know which exact dollars are being effective,” Mr. Mehta said.

LocalResponse, for instance, connects cookies to social media accounts (Twitter, mostly), thus allowing brands to target consumers based upon what they share. If a user tweets that she’ll soon be filing her taxes from her Galaxy S III, LocalResponse can serve her a TurboTax ad next time sits down to peruse the New York Times on her iPad.

There are only 200 million active Twitter users worldwide, however, a razor thin slice of the Internet population. And of Twitter’s 56.7 million U.S. users, only 53.6% access Twitter from mobile devices, according to comScore.

Companies like Tapad hope to replace cookies by aggregating information from the billions of ad requests sent through ad exchanges and analyzing the data across hundreds of categories including device ID, IP address, language settings and time of day.

But even with massive amounts of data, these companies are far from perfect at tracking users across devises. Drawbridge, which recently raised $14 million in a recent funding round, can identify users across various devices at 60% to 70% accuracy. Competitor AdTruth says its cross-device tracking accuracy is between 80% to 85%.

As indefinite as cross-device tracking may be, the only other choice for marketers would be to neglect these developing technologies.

“People have already invested quite a lot in the tools and techniques that use this kind of data to function, so this is better than starting over,” Andrew Frank, Gartner’s VP-research, said.

Brands Are Reading Your Tweets and Showing You Ads Based on What They See

Wed, 20 Feb 2013 11:43:04 -0500

Alex Kantrowitz

Imagine you finish up a run, tweet about it, and then, minutes later, see an ad for a refreshing beverage. If you think it’s coincidental, it might not be. Brands are already reading tweets and serving ads based on what’s written to people on mobile devices, and the practice is now set to expand to desktop too.

According to a recent report in Ad Age, brands like Coke, Nike, Verizon and L’Oreal are about to start serving “tweet reaction” ads via a partnership withLocalResponse, a New York City based startup. The ads, based on cookies, respond to certain cues from individual users’ tweets and serve ads to those individuals based on what they wrote about.

A graphic on LocalResponse’s website, for instance, shows a user talking about tax season and then being shown an ad for TurboTax on newyorktimes.com. “Get your fasterst refund possible—FREE,” it says. Ad Age gave an example of a jogger. By using LocalResponse, the wrote, Coca-Cola would be able to deliver a Dasani ad immediately after the jogger tweets about it. The ads can then follow her around the web via integrations with ad networks.

Openness has always been one of Twitter’s virtues. Tweeting publicly is essential for the spreading of ideas, forming of connections and building of followings that make Twitter great. But, there is another side to the equation– anyone can listen in on what you’re saying and do what they want with the information. This service might be a valuable to brands, but the guess here is that it creeps out the average Twitter user.

Startup LocalResponse Targets Twitter Conversations With Display Ads

Wed, 20 Feb 2013 11:39:41 -0500

Coca-Cola, Nike, L’Oreal and Others Target Content of Tweets As Users Move to PCs

By:

Published: February 15, 2013

Tweet a complaint about bad AT&T cell coverage? Don’t be shocked to get an ad from Verizon with information on how to switch carriers the next time you sit down at a PC.

Soon, big brands like Coca-Cola, Verizon, Nike and L’Oreal and others will start serving ads targeted to what consumers are saying in social media. These brands and 11 others have teamed up with New York City-based LocalResponse on what it calls “social intent marketing,” which means ad that respond to social media conversations in real-time.

Using LocalResponse’s technology will allow these brands to serve ads targeted to what customers tweet. If a Twitter user tells her followers she just finished a jog, Coca-Cola can immediately deliver her a Dasani ad on almost any website backed by an ad network such as AppNexus.

The technology works by connecting cookies to Twitter accounts. These cookies last for 30 days and allow advertisers to immediately target users on PCs based upon the language used in their tweets. The technique results in higher click-through rates, according to CEO and co-founder Nihal Mehta.

So far, LocalResponse’s technology has been limited to serving banner ads on mobile devices. Adding this technology to the desktop brings the company one step closer to developing a frictionless cross-device ad tracking system.

In order to do that, however, the company will need to extend beyond just Twitter and outside the U.S. LocalResponse currently tracks the tweets of 80% of U.S. Twitter users—approximately 40 million people—Mehta said. Facebook, meanwhile, has more than one billion monthly active users worldwide.

Mr. Mehta said LocalResponse is close to establishing partnerships with other social media outlets, but would not say which ones. Working with other social companies would help the company create more robust social profiles and offer more highly-targeted ad opportunities to brands.

“Last year, our data was predominantly all from Twitter,” he said. “That will be less than half of our data signal by the end of this year.”

LocalResponse—founded in 2007—earned $4 million in revenue in 2012 and projects to earn at least three times as much this year. Working with marketers of this caliber will certainly help them achieve that goal.

Six of the companies using LocalResponse’s Desktop Intent Targeting arere among the 100 largest U.S. ad spenders, according to Ad Age’s DataCenter. Verizon, ranked No. 3, and L’Oreal, No. 9, were in the top 10. Nike (42), Coca-Cola (66), Walgreen Co. (78), Dell (92) are also top 100 marketers now working with LocalResponse. Other partners include 7-Eleven, American Express, Arby’s, Emergen-C, Sam’s Club, T-Mobile, Quidsi and the Veterans of Foreign Wars.

America's Most Promising Companies

Wed, 06 Feb 2013 16:48:45 -0500

11 Women Who Started Amazing Companies

2/06/2013 Emily Canal

Kathy Leake, 46, LocalResponse

Kathy Leake cofounded LocalResponse, a company that helps brands target consumers based on social media activity, in 2011. The 46 year-old now serves as president.

How 5 Successful Entrepreneurs Bounced Back After Failure

Wed, 23 Jan 2013 11:10:43 -0500

BY JENNIFER WANG

Failure is a part of life, and maybe even a bigger part of business. If fear of failure is holding you back, take inspiration from the stories of these successful entrepreneurs who have bounced back after major failures.

From I Can Haz Cheezburger’s Ben Huh’s first failed dot com to Frank Jadhavji of electronic deal site Just Deals.com dealing with $300,000 in stolen merchandise, these five entrepreneurs had the guts to get up and try again.

Nihal Mehta

Entrepreneur: Nihal Mehta, CEO and co-founder of LocalResponse, a New York-based ad-tech firm that leverages social media signals to run intent-targeted ads. (Example: Tweet “I’m hungry,” and a banner ad for Pizza Hut shows up on your browser.)

Setup: Mehta has dealt with the ups and downs of startups for 13 years. His first venture went bankrupt in 1999, but the assets were folded into a mobile-marketing company that eventually sold to Omnicom Group in 2005. In 2007 he started buzzd, a real-time mobile city guide that snagged $4 million in funding.

“Uh-oh” moment: This was before the iPhone kicked off the mobile revolution, and Mehta couldn’t pin down a revenue model. He started running out of money in early 2010, and the next six months were torturous. Staff shrank from 20 to six, and he had to float the payroll personally. His co-founder burned out and left. “I remember negotiating his departure on the phone, on my birthday, April 22, 2010, walking around Central Park. Definitely a low point,” he says.

The way out: A pivot. For half a year, Mehta negotiated with buzzd investors to recapitalize the company, touting a new “direct-response” product that could help big brands get high click-through rates. He ultimately convinced them to convert their preferred stock to common stock and leave the board. In October 2011 he raised about $7 million to scale the company, newly renamed LocalResponse.

Success: By the end of 2012 LocalResponse had hired more than 30 employees and was projecting a run rate of $10 million, with profitability just around the corner thanks to a flurry of campaigns with clients like McDonald’s, Audi and FedEx.

Take-away: Stay in the game as long as possible. “I learned this the hard way—it was six years from my first company to my first exit,” Mehta says. “Building products isn’t easy, but if you keep working hard, keep throwing things at the wall, you will find a way.”

CEO Pitch: 'Ads Suck'…We Make Them 'Suck Less'

Mon, 14 Jan 2013 16:07:31 -0500

8 Jan 2013

Serial entrepreneur Nihal Mehta has founded five startups to date, but he’s hoping his latest enterprise is a game changer. Mehta’s new business, LocalResponse, helps marketers respond instantly to consumers’ real-time content on social networks Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram.

He appeared on CNBC’s “Power Lunch”, which gives CEOs a chance to make a 60 second “Power Pitch” aimed at convincing a panel of experts that their start-up has what it takes to succeed.

LocalResponse’s “intent-based marketing” strategy allows companies to target the right ad, to the right consumer, at the right time. The founder’s motto: “We think ads suck. We’re here to make them suck less.”

LocalResponse is not alone in the mobile ad market. There’s a lot of competition from places like RadiumOne, 33Across and MillenialMedia to name a few. However, LocalResponse said it distinguishes itself by targeting the consumer to the right ad at the right time.

“We’re true one-to-one targeting” says Mehta said. Other companies target ads using approximation, Mehta added, which he believes doesn’t work.

The company, founded less than two years ago, boasts several billion impressions a month for major brands like Coca-Cola,GM, and Microsoft. It employs 27 people and has secured over $5 million in funding from venture capital firms Cava Capital, Vodafone Ventures and Verizon Investments.

4 Entrepreneurs Look Ahead to 2013

Wed, 02 Jan 2013 12:37:34 -0500

By: David Mielach, Jan 2 2013

Every year, BusinessNewsDaily interviews entrepreneurs from all over the country who tell us about their challenges and successes growing their businesses. This year, we decided to check back with some of our favorite story subjects and see how things have changed since we first met them and what the new year has in store.

Local Response

Microsoft, Revlon, Kraft, Volvo, Sears and Sony Pictures and are just a few of the companies that New York-based startup Local Response has added as clients since March 2012. That growth has been made possible by the company’s unique ability to collect real-time data from users that is then used by companies to effectively target potential customers.

“It has been incredibly exciting and difficult at the same time to build a business,” said Kathy Leake, president of Local Response. “Building a business from scratch is quite a roller coaster.”

That roller-coaster ride has been in a long ascent though as the company is slated to finish 2012 with revenue growth 10 times that of the previous year. That growth has been driven by the fact that the company is now working with 75 companies on active campaigns, up from 25 in March.

To deal with the increased company demand, Local Response has also added 10 employees, bringing the total staff to 30 people. The company also now operates out of a San Francisco office in addition to existing New York and Chicago offices. Leake hopes that Local Response will continue that growth in the coming year.

“We hope to do three times revenue in the coming year,” Leake said. “That is a huge mountain to grow, but with the trajectory of ad tech companies we should be we should be doing two to three times revenue next year. We also have a lot of interest for Local Response overseas, so I see that as a potential place for expansion.”

4 Lessons From Social Media Chatter About Holiday Shopping

Wed, 02 Jan 2013 12:15:37 -0500

Eric Savitz 12/24/2012
Guest post written by Niels Meersschaert

Niels Meersschaert is senior VP of technology at LocalResponse, which uses social media to determine consumer intentions.

With the 2012 holiday shopping season coming to a close and marketers turning their attention to closing the gap between social media advertising and point of sale purchases, there’s a massive amount of information to digest. While nearly impossible to get a complete picture of the entire retail landscape, there are a number of recent social media trends that can at least help us focus our analysis.

Looking back on the year, it’s easy see the huge role that social media has played for retailers. We are really seeing the birth and evolution of social targeting as more consumers get comfortable sharing their interests and brands and products, and following likes on Facebook, re-Tweets on Twitter, or check-ins on Foursquare, have become just as telling as Nielsen Ratings are to the broadcast industry.

Here’s a look at four trends that will have a profound affect on targeting not just over the upcoming holiday, but also in 2013 and beyond.

Intent Based on Social Media Chatter Predicts New Shopping Traffic Peaks

Ask any marketer and they’ll tell you it’s not enough to know what people are interested in buying. It’s just as important to know when consumers will make their purchasing decisions. Thanks to consumers voluntarily sharing this type of intent over social media, the data is now easier to track than ever – you just need to know where and how to look for it.

Sharing a glimpse of our proprietary Black Friday check-in data across all major social media channels showed that after the initial rush of shoppers at midnight Eastern Time, the second most popular time for shopping was 10 a.m. Eastern time Saturday morning. Interestingly, 10 a.m. ET was also the most popular time for Cyber Monday shopping.

This is a pretty significant departure from regular shopping peaks found earlier in the year, which showed that Saturday between 2 and 3 p.m ET accounted for the highest broadcasts of intent and check-ins, followed by Friday between 8 and 9 p.m. ET. Smart retailers will be wise to consider this when implementing promotions and other incentives into the display campaigns, especially if they want to influence and increase transactions at the register.

Big Shopping Days Can Actually Mean LESS Business for Some Retailers

According to ShopperTrak, the November-December time period can account for as much as 40 percent of retailer’s annual sales, so it would seem like common sense to assume that retailers should expect to see a huge spike over these heavy shopping periods. The data tells a different story however. According to our reports, some large retailers actually saw a decrease in check-ins compared to the weekend before Black Friday.

Costco, for instance was the big loser over Thanksgiving weekend, with check-in traffic decreasing by about half from the previous weekend. The mega-retailer’s traditionally low prices actually drove consumers to search for unusually good deals offered elsewhere.

Data Shows An Early Hook for the Nook

It doesn’t take a mathematics genius to figure out that the Apple iPad will clearly dominate tablet sales this holiday. Based on social media chatter, Apple’s hit tech gadget captured the clear majority of displayed intent among all major tablet brands. A distant second from iPad and certainly not surprising runner-up was Amazon’s Kindle, with about one quarter the volume of intent of iPad across the same media channels.

However, looking at mentions over the Black Friday weekend, most surprising of all was Barnes & Noble’s Nook line of tablets and e-readers, which saw social media intent increase significantly from the previous weekend.

That was by far the largest increase in the tablet category. Important to note here that Nook also had four times as much intent displayed across public social media channels as the Microsoft Surface tablet, and twice as much as theGoogle Nexus tablets.

Judging from this lift, all signs point toward renewed interest in the Nook line, especially the recently introduced Nook HD and HD+. And not surprisingly, Nook sales reflected this, as Barnes & Noble was recently quoted as saying that sales of its Nook had doubled over the weekend compared to the previous weekend.

Check-Ins Changing Charts as Retailers Take Stock of their Stock

Let’s face it. Every consumer wants a fantastic deal. But affordable prices are only half the battle when it comes to retail sales. How stock prices fluctuate in response to this surge in shopping behavior can ultimately determine the real winners and losers.

Among the retailers we tracked, Best Buy had the greatest proportional increase in check-ins during Black Friday and over the course of the weekend, which translated into a noticeable bump in its stock immediately after the weekend.

Target saw a substantial, but far smaller increase in check-ins than Best Buy, and Target stock was also one of the first to see a decline after Black Friday weekend.

While there are many factors affecting stock prices, it’s an intriguing possibility that social intent expressed by consumers could trend so strongly with retail stocks. It might be assumed that aggregate data could then be used to determine the strength of other markets as well, including automotive, fashion, and others, offering further evidence of intent/stock price correlation.

With consumers sharing more and more about their interests and purchasing habits, social media analytics has emerged from the engineering room to fast become one the most useful tools in a retailers arsenal. Brands, or savvy hedge funds for that matter, who use this information will have a noticeable advantage over their competition, leading to better targeting, hyper-targeting and an array of new opportunities that this information opens up.

Disclosure: BestBuy and Microsoft are previous LocalResponse clients.

Mobile Women to Watch 2013

Thu, 20 Dec 2012 14:14:23 -0500

Kathy Leake
President and cofounder
LocalResponse
New York

What do you most like about your job?

The ability to innovate in a growing field. I get a lot of satisfaction from inventing new methods of targeting and putting them on the map in the ad ecosystem.

Also, taking a company from ideation stage and turning it into a revenue-generating business is really rewarding for me.

What is the biggest challenge in your job?

All of the above. There is nothing tougher than taking something that is just an idea in a PowerPoint and turning it into a real business. Creating demand for something that never existed before, in the ad industry, is a nearly impossible task. Since this is my second time doing that, I guess I am a masochist.

What is your work priority for 2013?

Taking the company to the next level. We need to continue our trajectory aggressively in 2013. And by that I mean, at a minimum, doubling revenue and demand

What will it take to attract more women to mobile marketing?

This probably applies to both women and men, but seeing mobile ad spend increase in alignment with consumer adoption and usage will attract more to our field. Once this happens, it will truly be a greenfield opportunity for everyone.

There is also an opportunity for women to snag new jobs at a Fortune 500 brand, as the creation of the head of mobile position is on the rise.

Your proudest achievement in mobile?

The fact that Local Response has been able to help marketers capitalize on real time intent-based data, helping them reach consumers at the point of decision on their mobile phone. It is a huge and growing opportunity for marketers.

The Moment You Tweet Or Take An Instagram Photo, LocalResponse Helps Relevant Advertisers Find You

Fri, 14 Dec 2012 10:43:44 -0500

Alyson Shontell | Dec. 11, 2012

If advertisers are going to show up in our social media feeds, they may as well show us things we’ve expressed interest in.

That’s what ad guy and angel investor Nihal Mehta figured when he founded LocalResponse in June 2011. A year and a half later, his social media ad targeting company is doing very well.

LocalResponse helps advertisers scour more than 30 million social media profiles on the web and in mobile apps. It looks for mentions of brands in real-time and sifts through tweets, Instagram photos, Foursquare check-ins and Facebook status messages to help companies place relevant, timely ads by matching socialID to cookies on desktops, or unique identifiers/ifa on mobile devices.

For example, if a user tweets “just went for a run,” LocalResponse sees the cookie in an ad exchange like AppNexus, bids on that impression, and displays a Nike ad to that same user on another website.

Its revenue is growing too. Local Response’s president Kathy Leake says 2012 revenue has increased 10X from last year.

If we assume LocalResponse generated between $500,000 and $1 million last year (it generated $50,000 in its launch month of May from its Twitter product alone), then the company is generating at least $3-6 million this year.

LocalResponse also says it’s adding three big names to its board: Satya Patel, formerly of Google, Battery Ventures and Twitter, Nat Turner, the InviteMedia co-founder who sold his business to Google for a lot of cash, and Tobias Petts, formerly of Walmart.

LocalResponse now has 30 employees, and it has raised more than $5 million. The company says it expects its social media profile reach to increase 50% next year.

New Report Reveals 79% Of ‘Check-Ins’ Take Place On Foursquare

Mon, 12 Nov 2012 15:38:46 -0500

Written by Alicia Fiorletta

Friday, 09 November 2012

Localization is becoming a hot topic among retailers striving to better connect with mobilized consumers. By harnessing the power of geo-targeting technology and “check-in” tools available on social networking sites, merchants can pinpoint their consumers’ locations in stores, leading to more relevant messages and offers — and potentially increased purchases.

For the Consumer Check-in Report, LocalResponse, a location-based social media engagement solution provider, analyzed the check-in behaviors and preferences of U.S. consumers during the summer of 2012, based off of a sample of data aggregated on the LocalResponse advertising platform, which currently serves up more than 7 billion impressions a month.

In addition, LocalResponse drilled down on the number of check-ins taking place via Foursquare, Instagram, Twitter and Yelp within brick-and-mortar locations of the top 10 U.S. retailers. These merchants include: Best Buy, Costco, CVS Caremark, The Home Depot; Kroger, Lowe’s, Safeway, Target, Walgreens, and Wal-Mart.

Results from the study indicated that overall, Foursquare was the most popular geo-location service for consumers in stores, accounting for 79% of all check-ins among the top 10 retailers. Instagram was the least popular social network for consumers to check in, garnering only 1.4% of the total sample.

Shoppers’ total check-in rates within stores of the top 10 U.S. retailers are as follows:

Wal-Mart (38%)
Target (15%)
Costco (9%)
Best Buy (7%)
Walgreens (6%)
The Home Depot (6%)
CVS Caremark (5%)
Lowe’s (5%)
Safeway (4%)
Kroger (4%)

“A lot of attention has been paid to the way brands differ in social activities, but we wanted to be more specific by measuring foot traffic in physical locations,” Michael Muse, Co-Founder and VP of Product and Operations at LocalResponse, told Retail TouchPoints. “One interesting finding is that there are key times when retailers can expect elevated social broadcast of foot traffic. This information enables them to prioritize their ad spend based on the time of day, offer more timely promotions, or utilize other methods to capture the ebbs and flows of consumers’ social activities.”

Saturday was the most popular day for shoppers to utilize geo-location services, with 25.9% of all check-ins made on that day, according to the report. The next most popular day was Friday, during which 19.7% of check-ins were completed. Furthermore, the LocalResponse research spotlighted 2 p.m. Eastern Time as the retail “check-in primetime” in America, then Friday between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. Eastern Time, and Saturday between 3 p.m. and 4 p.m. Eastern Time.

Shopper gender also impacted the quantity of check-ins being completed in stores: men totaled 54% of check-ins, while women accounted for 46%.

Overall, Muse expects geo-location services to continue to grow. “We believe retailers should take advantage of the data available when consumers volunteer the time, date and location of their visit to a store and share it with their social graph. These behaviors present a valuable opportunity for marketers: By releasing targeted offers and specials based on shoppers’ locations, retailers can create extremely effective and memorable high-touch experiences.”