Local Advertisers Expected To Maintain '18's Overall Ad Spending

Most local advertisers nationwide will hold steady on their total ad total spend and media allocations in 2019, according to BIA Advisory Services’ U.S. SAM™ Survey of Advertising and Marketing.

Only entertainment industry advertisers (i.e., amusement parks, sports teams, motion picture theaters and other entertainment venues) indicate they would make a slightly higher investment in advertising this year, while retailers, professional service providers, and home/trade service advertisers anticipate maintaining the same investment in advertising for their large or small businesses this year. Mobile and social advertising are the two areas where advertisers indicate a willingness to increase ad spend in 2019. These findings, and more details about selling traditional and digital media, are found in the newly issued report, Selling Advertising to Local Businesses.

“It’s clear from our data that local advertisers are comfortable maintaining investment in the ad platforms they are convinced generate the best ROI for their business,” said Celine Matthiessen, BIA’s Vice President of Analysis and Insights and SAM study director. “Over the past several years, our research indicates that advertisers are more focused on personalized, targeted communications and they believe mobile and social deliver on important customer engagement KPIs.”

The SAM survey indicates that advertisers want more than basic demographic targeting. They want full insights into consumer behavior on their path to purchase like knowing websites and social pages they have visited and produce searches they have used to purchase products and services.  This shift in advertising priorities puts the obligation on ad sellers to successfully demonstrate how their channel reaches the right customers throughout the buying process in a manner that can be tracked.

The largest area of mobile growth is location-targeted ads. Only 13 percent of businesses in the SAM survey said they were not currently using mobile advertising but intended to do so in 2019. Across all business categories, SAM also found that 35.5 percent of businesses are using mobile location-aware, while almost 24 percent are using mobile search.

“Because businesses like the targeting (behavioral) opportunities that mobile and social offer, these platforms continue to show the largest signs of advertiser growth,” said Matthiessen. “For traditional media, there’s an opportunity around digital that sellers might be overlooking. Our survey indicates that buyers of traditional media are extremely comfortable purchasing a myriad of digital ads from their local salesperson so sellers should be prepared to sell offers across multiple platforms.”

The most popular digital advertising purchased through traditional channels include social and mobile media, email, video, display and SEO.