Location based marketing

Hungry…? Try Foodspotting.

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Find great food around you.

A quick glance through Facebook photos within your network and food pictures are bound to show up on almost every profile. Sharing of food images is not new, but when you overlay a social layer coupled with a recommendation engine… you get Foodspotting!!

Foodspotting is a location-based crowd-sourced food recommendation app that sorts the best dishes in your vicinity based on actual photos shared by visitors to those locations. All that one has to do is snap a photo of a share-worthy dish at a restaurant with the application, tag and share it on Foodspotting or via Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, etc. So, if you’re famished and would like to grab a bite that has earned its stripes, merits consideration, and is also nearby, simply open the app and browse actual photos. Food spotting is different from other restaurant apps in that it is probably one of the only mobile apps out there that’s focussed on food discovery (not restaurants) and recommendations unlike Yelp, Urbanspoon, and Zagat .

Being able to find directions to a restaurant and read its reviews is helpful, but it’s not fun when you have to sift through them all to know what’s most recommended. The truth is that ‘people really eat with their eyes’ and that’s what makes browsing the Foodspotting interface a pleasurable experience. On opening the app, picture after picture stokes up your appetite while reminding you that some mouth-watering Veal Saltimbocca is just minutes away from you. If you so desire, you can switch to map view and spot all the dishes tagged around you or you can search for a specific item you might have in mind. If a recommendation that matches your search is tagged it should show up (I say ‘should’ because I tried searching for ‘Beefsteaks’ and the closest place featured was somewhere in LA… a little too far to make it worth the effort…right?).

The UI is simple and intuitive. It has what the company terms a “Pandora-like interface” which lets browsers tag dishes as ‘want it’, ‘loved it’, and ‘tried it’. Or, if you choose to not see a particular dish in your listing you can even ‘hide it’.  Categories listed as ‘Specials’, ‘Best’, ‘Nearby’, and ‘Latest’ feature the tagged dishes to select from and it seems like the company consciously chose to avoid cuisine based categorization which can sometimes make the navigation feel clunky.

So far the app has over 1 million downloads and is going strong. I’d give it a thumbs up and am choosing to ignore the ‘Beefsteaks’ incident for now.

Mobile search – Promising results

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Mobile SEO search

Following up on my previous post on Google’s ‘Mobile Playbook‘, I’d like to share some interesting mobile search stats regarding mobile-search behavior taken from an xAd report. The Q4 ’11 report showcases mobile-local usage trends and consumer behavior between locally targeted search and display across their network. Besides reporting a 60% increase in mobile-local search traffic alone (not counting display traffic) between Q3 to Q4 ’11– much of which can be attributed to the shopping season – some other standout highlights were:

Driving call to action: 1.3 million calls were placed to local businesses and 73000 drives or walk-ins to local storefronts in Q4 (*Drives and walk-ins are a measurement of the number of times users accessed maps and driving directions as part of their ad interaction)

High CTR and secondary actions rate: Click-through rate (CTR) for targeted local search is a staggering 7% as against only 0.6 % for targeted mobile display with a “secondary action” rate of 37% and 5% respectively. Secondary actions are additional post-click activities (click-to-call, search on a map, show prices, driving directions, etc) and this is your conversion pipe which makes mobile website optimization all the more critical since we know that Google is indexing local mobile sites differently.

Click-to-call v/s finding directions: Following the initial click, 52% of search-ad users make calls to local businesses as compared to 30% for display. The leading secondary action for display is accessing maps and/or directions which stood at 50%, versus 42% for search ads. A key observation as revealed by the data is that search-ad users aren’t really seeking info /reviews (< 5% secondary action) as compared to 20% for display-ad users. This reinforces the fact the search-ad users are seeking specificity. Another key factor in mobile search is the reduced time gap between intent to action as queries have a high degree of localization as compared to desktop searches

Time of Day: Locally targeted display steadily ascends through the day and peaks after work hours at 6:00 pm until after 10:00 pm with the most activity on Thursdays. Local mobile search tends to taper off after lunch; peaks on Fridays and tapers off by Sunday.

 Access platforms: While mobile browser access is still primary and larger than in-app searches, iOS and Android users prefer in-app access and as conversions from feature phones to smart devices continue to happen so could this trend.

The above suggests that when optimizing for mobile, a cross-platform approach as well as leveraging usage spikes through the day ensures that all audiences are reached and increases the opportunity for ads to be seen and acted upon. Besides, best practices in mobile SEO strategies when optimizing for platform and device should be given attention; after all mobile search volumes and CTR’s growing and there is an advantage in being early to the party.