Local Online Ad Spend To Grow 17.5% In 2011

Updated Aug. 24 to include quotes about targeted advertising.

Online ad spending by local businesses will leap ahead 17.5 percent next year, according to the 2011 market-by-market forecast released today by Borrell Associates. Local businesses will outpace national online advertisers in their spending growth, and targeted display ads from both national and local advertisers will drive much of the growth.

"We're expecting total online ad spending to grow almost 14% ... in 2011," Borrell wrote in a memo that saw "continued strong growth" in online and mobile advertising, vs. "moderate" growth in overall ad spending. "The fastest-growing segments of online advertising are the local sector, anything targeted, and everything involving social media.".

• Overall ad spending will grow less than 5 percent above 2010 levels, Borrell predicts, bringing U.S. ad spending totals to $238.6 billion.

• Online and mobile ad spending by both national and local marketers will grow almost 14 percent, from $45.6 billion in 2010 to $51.9 billion in 2011.

• Online and mobile ad spending by local marketers is expected to grow 17.5%, from $13.7 billion this year to $16.1 billion in 2011.

Leading the growth parade is targeted display advertising, where Borrell expects a 60 percent increase to $10.9 billion overall. National advertisers will increase their targeting spend by 50 percent, Borrell said, while local advertisers will more their double their in-market targeting to $2.3 billion next year.

"The growth in targeted display is basically a response that run-of-site banner advertising isn't working," said CEO Gordon Borrell. "I spoke with a client today that was losing an advertiser that got a 0.1% clickthrough rate on a dull ad for high-priced kitchenware on the home page of a local news site.

"Now what if that ad appeared on a cooking or recipe section? Or if it just appeared for females age 30-55 who had higher incomes? Exposures would be lower, and thus the advertiser might pay less, but the clickthroughs would undoubtedly be higher."

What about targeting by local advertisers? Is that another hyperlocal trend, or is it behaviorial targeting?

"Everyone seems to forget that the average newspaper or TV site gets something like 40% of its traffic from outside the market," Borrell said. "That means the local hardware store NEEDS geotargeting to be effective.

Meanwhile, run-of-site display spending will drop nearly 14 percent from this year's level – from $9.5 billion to $8.2 billion for both local and national. Local run-of-site ads are forecast to decrease only 3 percent next year.

 Other digital advertising trends to expect:

• Paid search: National spending will drop 11 percent, due to lower pricing and churn, but local advertisers will increase their paid search by 10 percent.

• Email advertising will see moderately strong growth in 2011, up 9 percent to $16.0 billion for national and local advertisers, with national spending driving most of this.

• Streaming video advertising is expected to continue its dramatic growth, increasing more than 60 percent to $5.6 billion next year. Less-expensive video tools put this ad format within the budgets of even small advertisers. Because of this, two out of every five streaming video ad dollars will come from local advertisers next year.

• Online promotions will top $24 billion next year, Borrell predicts, up 10 percent from this year's totals. Much of this increase will be due to the rising use of online couponing, forecast to grow almost 14 percent, to $9.1 billion, in 2011.

• Geo-location is also a new and growing opportunity. Mobile devices that can tell users when a particular merchant is in their immediate vicinity continue to sell briskly, and advertisers are expressing interest in this form of advertising. Borrell sees an 11 percent increase in "proximity advertising" next year.

• Mobile: With smartphone ownership at 25% of cell phones, mobile ads will capture 20% of digital dollars next year – but only 8% of the local business spending.

Borrell forecasts can vary widely by local markets, and summary numbers for 211 U.S. media markets are available for free download at borrellassociates.com. The full research is available for purchase, and breaks down each market's projections into 19 different marketing categories, from major ad categories like display ads, email and search, to non-ad categories like online coupons, contests and public relations.