The Evolution of Local Inventory Solutions with Michael Carini, Last Mile Retail

00:00 Introduction to Last Mile Retail
06:04 Evolution of the Business Model
11:35 Market Changes and Competition
17:03 Understanding Good Local SEO
23:03 Microsite Strategy and Implementation
29:47 The Role of AI in Marketing Strategies
37:30 Navigating Paid Campaigns and Google Optimization
45:55 Enhancing Customer Journey and Content Strategy

- Last Mile Retail started by addressing the challenge of local inventory visibility online.
- The company has evolved to serve enterprise clients with a comprehensive local marketing platform.
- AI is being used for content drafting and categorization, but human oversight remains crucial.
- User engagement is significantly improved with rich content and local inventory data.
- Local SEO is becoming increasingly important for businesses to remain competitive.
- Understanding customer journeys is essential for effective local marketing strategies.
- The integration of local inventory data can enhance visibility across multiple platforms.
- AI search platforms are emerging as valuable tools for local marketing.
- Businesses need to focus on unique, high-quality content rather than generic outputs.
- The future of local marketing will require adaptability to new technologies and consumer behaviors.

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Transcript

Greg (00:01.582)
So I wanted to say two things before we move on to the next section. One is back to your innovator's dilemma point, David, which I think is entirely valid. One of the aspects of the innovator's dilemma for Google is how much do they invest in Gemini as a consumer-facing tool? They've got five versions of Gemini now, and they're all sort of slightly different. I did the same local query against all of them. And it came out with, it was a different,

different output. was really interesting. Some of them had maps, some of them had links, others did not. But Gemini could become its own competitor to Google search. And that's what my survey data has shown also, is that there's a simpler sort of cleaner UI over there. If the data on the back end is the same, why not use, you know, Gemini? So that's one aspect of it. And then just speaking as a focus group of

Mike Blumenthal (00:59.374)
Although with five versions of it, reminds me of chat. Google chat, right? It's like, why do we have five versions? And I looked at it the other day and I'm thinking, my God, how do I pick one?

Greg (01:03.318)
Yeah, so that, so...

Greg (01:10.656)
Right. And so that's a problem for consumers is that you don't, you I mean, it has a default setting and maybe that's what people will use. But just as a focus group of one, in my own case, the way that I use Google has radically changed. So I use ChatGPT as a kind of primary tool. I'm using it all day long. Google is something I'm using interstitially to get specific kinds of information, something I know exists or to navigate to a particular site.

I'm not using it in the way that I did before. And it's a backup tool for me now. It's not the primary thing I go to. I use ChatGPT and Perplexity and to some degree, Claude and even Gemini now. And Google is kind of a backup, kind of cleanup tool. Somebody sent me an article on Apple News. I need the URL. I'll strip it and put it into Google and click on the publication link, get that. That kind of use case.

So my own behavior has radically changed organically, not ideologically. I'm not using these because I hate Google. I'm using them because they're effective, because they're more successful. No, no.

Mike Blumenthal (02:16.664)
Okay, maybe a little bit.

David Mihm (02:20.766)
Well, no, but you bring up, Greg, you bring up a really good point in terms of corporate strategy for Google. I absolutely think they should be doubling and tripling down on Gemini as a discrete brand that people should be using instead. Like compare Gemini to chat GPT. Don't compare Google to chat GPT. think Google's like looking ahead five years, like I guess I would predict or maybe even longer, but some horizon, some time horizon. I think Google will be in the position in search today that Facebook is in social media, like Facebook, the website.

Facebook the app, right? Where Meta has a ton of social data and everything else based on Instagram and WhatsApp. Those are still absolutely crushing it. But Facebook is basically a right-wing echo chamber for people over 65. So it's like...

Greg (02:50.168)
Yep.

Greg (03:02.796)
Well, it still has a lot of usage, there's a sense in which it's kind more abundant, really, I think.

David Mihm (03:09.756)
Right. So I feel like that same, like that would actually be a smart intentional strategy on Google's part. If it's sort of put Google into maintenance mode and put all of its chips on Gemini. I think it's very clear that that's where the market is moving. So.

Greg (03:16.394)
legacy business. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Mike Blumenthal (03:23.534)
And I, that there's, mean, that's essentially what I've been saying here, David, mean, from a different standing, but I think that that's exactly what's happening is that search as a destination, Google search as a destination will, will decline dramatically for various reasons. All of these.

David Mihm (03:37.726)
Sure.

But it's not, Greg's point, to Greg's, yeah, so it will decline. I'm not disputing that comment either. But to Greg's point, like he is still going to Google for certain types of searches. And I guess that's what I'm saying. I think we as consumers are going to be more likely to sort of pick and choose where we go for certain types of searches. And it's really not that much cognitive friction once we've established a behavior pattern to do that, right? It's the same reason people are Googling Facebook to get into their Facebook account. So.

Greg (04:07.042)
Well, and local is one of the areas of, to your point about knowledge graphs, Mike, local is an area of great, it's the competitive differentiator for Google at this point. And so far, nobody has really been able to match what Google has in local, and they may not be. So that may be an area where local SEOs still need to really primarily focus on Google because it has the best version of that kind of going forward. We'll see, we'll see. Okay, so let's move on to your...

question about, well not your question, your discussion about the DMA and regulation in general.

David Mihm (04:41.896)
Well, yeah, think, you know, trying to take a longer view here of like what, you know, not getting wrapped up in the moment of every news release and every, you know, corporate, PR event, product launch product product rollout. but just how are going to remember this year? And I think, you know, I think that this will be the year. You know, Mike and I were fortunate enough to go to Brussels, in March and, and, meet with the European commission and hear.

Greg (04:53.71)
Product, product rollout. Yeah. Yeah.

David Mihm (05:09.812)
kind of how they're organizing their investigation of the Digital Markets Act. Obviously, I think it was March 4th or something was the deadline of 2024 that all of the six gatekeepers needed to be in compliance with the act. As soon as Mike and I landed back in the States, the commission announced a formal investigation into Google in flights and hotels and shopping for whatever reason, local sort of a different beast in the EU.

Than it is here and as sort of separately, but I think these are very real investigations You know the the Commission hosted a series of follow-up workshops in September We saw Google do some sort of their classic performative PR event and product rollout Where they sort of went back to a ten blue links mode in three countries? for hotel search obviously everybody complained both hotel suppliers as well as consumers X

Greg (06:04.47)
Which is their intention?

David Mihm (06:06.674)
Totally, it's malicious compliance, right? Whoever came up with that term, it's totally malicious compliance.

Greg (06:11.298)
Well, they're trying to...

Mike Blumenthal (06:11.364)
They did the same thing with limiting maps access in the EU.

Greg (06:15.094)
Right. They're trying to generate user complaints so that they can point to them and say, look, these users are having a bad experience. We're here to serve the user. And don't you want to serve the user as well? Not these evil aggregators, middlemen, you know?

David Mihm (06:20.254)
That's right. Yep.

David Mihm (06:28.276)
That's right. but I guess, again, thinking about like, what are we going to remember about 2024? think that these investigations are going to have real teeth in the spring. Once the sort of dust settles on the re reorg of all the new commissioners that came about as a result of the EU elections. And I think we're going to, I mean, I think these investigations are going to keep going. I don't see, I mean, there's going to be drawn out legal battles. Obviously the Google shopping case was also decided at the European version of the Supreme Court.

This year finally after a decade or something of that But that's gonna give all these regulators a very strong leg to stand on As they as they force Google to end its monopolistic behavior or at least curb it dramatically In an era when they're under increasing competition, I guess my my comment would be you know We've seen the dramatic response to Google of having a real competitor in chat GPT, you know over the last 12 to 18 months

It wouldn't have been nice if this kind of regulation actually came about in 2012 and 2014 and 2015 when Google was clearly already a monopoly and has basically been stagnant as a company in terms of its innovation of the SERP for the last decade. And I think that this is the reason I'm bringing up the DMA and to the context of what we're going to remember. I actually think this is a huge tipping point year for the interface of search moving forward and the fragmentation of search.

moving forward. And I think that that is probably going to be the big story that we remember this year. And I think it's, the DMA is going to play a very important role in that. It's a billion user market for Google. They can't just walk away from it. You know, there's a potential, apparently, incoming President Trump has nominated a similarly anti big tech person to lead the FTC after Lena Conn is sort of forced out. So I think that there's a decent chance that this kind of activity continues here.

on this side of the Atlantic as well. And I think that that's really going to put more, even more pressure on Google to change its search interface. And I think that that's, I personally am excited about it just as somebody who's in the space as a consumer. I think it's going to lead to a lot of questions from clients, which means, you know, a lot of business for us, hopefully moving forward. And I'm just, you know, it's a very exciting time to be in search. And I think I'm more optimistic for

Greg (08:37.166)
Yeah.

David Mihm (08:53.396)
the challenges over the next five years and I've been in a long time, know, really since the advent of the 10 pack, I would say. So I'm pretty excited to see kind of the outcome of both the regulatory side of things as well as the competitive side of things and what changes it's going to force in the Google service.

Greg (09:11.768)
So one footnote that we need to drop, because we didn't mention it earlier, is the Google antitrust decision, where they were found to be an illegal monopoly. And now the court is considering various remedies, include sort of, right, right, exactly. we need to sort of, honorable mention to that. And then one other thing that's sort of tied into AI.

David Mihm (09:23.366)
including divestiture of Chrome, which would also be a big story. Yeah.

Greg (09:34.902)
that is impactful potentially about the user experience in search is the idea of agents, of autonomous agents that will do things on your behalf. And Google has that, and ChatGPT has that, and Anthropic Cloud has that. So rather than searching discrete, this sort of goes back to the kind of the faceted search idea in a way. Instead of searching for discrete information,

and piecing that all together yourself, there's a sort of sequence of actions that are taken sort of behind the scenes by an agent acting on your behalf and then an outcome, right? Which could include a purchase or not as the case may be. I think we're gonna see some of that integrated into search, if not in 2025, then over time. And that may have some really interesting impacts on both user behavior and sort of SEO.

and SEO adjacent activity.

Mike Blumenthal (10:29.422)
So one of the things I'm seeing in Apple right now is the making available system level APIs, for example, to see natural language processing APIs to allow any app to answer a Siri question, app events, which allows any app to surface types of data. And I'm wondering if that type of response giving

system level access. I just saw the other day that the first Apple Pay alternative was released in Norway. So they're giving system level access to their tools. And I'm wondering if this is the way that mobile platforms deal with the coming regulatory control, trying to prevent features from being more more brought into the mothership.

Right? In other words, one of the problems that Apple has is they could dominate all behaviors on their phone or Google has the high end driving search. can dominate behaviors and act as a monopolist. How do the monopolists continue to innovate and respond to this access question? I guess that's the.

David Mihm (11:28.552)
Mm-hmm.

David Mihm (11:47.272)
Well, I can't imagine that that access for the Norwegian version of Apple Pay, I can't imagine that was a voluntary decision to get that app access that had to be forced by the DMA specifically. Yeah.

Mike Blumenthal (11:53.986)
No, it wasn't. It was forced by the DMA, but it also sets a model for how to do this, right?

Greg (11:54.379)
No.

Greg (11:57.847)
Right.

Greg (12:04.918)
Well, and that raises a larger question which we don't have time to discuss today, which is how do these companies actually comply? I I think there are certain cases where that's easier and certain cases where that's much harder. I think in the case of, go ahead, David.

David Mihm (12:19.698)
Yeah. Well, I was going to say in the case of Google shopping, again, with the decision from the European Supreme Court, High Court of Justice, I think is the actual name of it. The opinion was essentially that any boxes on the SERP were self-preferencing. And so that I think would have just a huge implication for any kind of knowledge graph related result that Google is trying to surface. That is Google's own

Greg (12:30.221)
Right.

David Mihm (12:49.704)
property, Google's own first party information, and that it can't receive preferential treatment over third party information. I think if that's the standard that the European Commission continues to abide by, that's going to be very, very difficult for Google to react to and maintain this ironclad grip on users staying on Google.

Mike Blumenthal (13:11.268)
Although we did see them maintain that ironclad grip around local when we went to that meeting, this, you local is not being discussed. It's included as part of search. It is a box. Yeah.

David Mihm (13:19.41)
Right. Right. It is a box. That's right.

Greg (13:19.458)
But that's a box, but that's a box, that's a box. Yeah. All right. So any final words on any of these topics or anything else we didn't get a chance to discuss?

Mike Blumenthal (13:32.804)
I'm looking forward to next year.

David Mihm (13:32.808)
No, just appreciate. Yeah, me too. Exactly. I think, I think that was my, I'm, I'm bullish on the prospects for search, not search knowledge generally and search, research and, just, it's just a really exciting time to be in our industry, in a way that I don't think it's been in quite some time. So I'm, very optimistic about it. appreciate being on with you guys. appreciate all of our listeners.

Obviously, we at Near Media made a big change at the start of December and put most of our newsletter content and analysis content behind a paywall and would encourage all of you guys to sign up for that. Obviously, this podcast is going to remain free, but that's definitely if you want to hear more from us and hear more of our insights about where things are headed. We hope you'll consider subscribing to our all access plan.

Mike Blumenthal (14:24.6)
And if you have multiple team members, we have a five pack special. Remind me the details.

Greg (14:24.685)
All right.

David Mihm (14:29.94)
Just email dm at nearmedia.co and we'll get you set up.

Greg (14:35.904)
Okay, all right, on that note, thanks everybody. Have a great holiday and this may not be the last podcast of the year depending on when it's published, but I'll say we'll see you next year.

David Mihm (14:43.604)
you