Survey: Local search advertising projected to grow

February 17, 2004

Source: eMarketer.com

The Kelsey Group and BizRate.com find 25.1% of commercial searches conducted online in the US are for local merchants. In fact, 44% of online buyers are conducting more local commercial searches this year compared to last. Prior to the survey conducted with BizRate, Kelsey estimated 10% of all searches were local commercial searches.

Kelsey and BizRate.com surveyed over 5,000 people who have made an online purchase in the past year and found 71% of online buyers use search engines at least seven times per week. One-quarter of respondents are “heavy” users who search 30 or more times per week.

The survey also determined over one-half of online buyers prefer search to the yellow pages and other offline sources like newspapers and magazines. In its Search Engine Marketing report, eMarketer points to Universal McCann numbers indicating that local ad spending totaled $94.27 billion in the US by the end of last year, and will grow to $99.97 billion by the end of this year.

eMarketer believes that in the coming years, search ad spending will be pushed along by local advertising efforts, since local advertisers have yet to fully tap into the online resource. Of course, engines have to be more amenable to small and medium-size businesses’ needs.

The issues surrounding local search will be addressed at The Kelsey Group’s upcoming March 2004 conference Drilling Down on Local Search: Drivers & Barriers to SME Adoption, during which the full results of its survey with BizRate.com will be released.

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