Borrell Associates has published its online advertising forecast for 2011, and as you might expect, it predicts continued strong growth in local. “The fastest-growing segments of online advertising are the local sector, anything targeted, and everything involving social media,” Borrell explains, pinning the local growth at 18 percent next year, to $16.1 billion.
“The big driver will be targeted display (such as banner ads) advertising, which we expect to grow almost 60% in 2011, reaching $10.9 billion for national and local combined. While national advertisers will increase their use of targeted display by nearly 50%, local advertisers will outperform even that. Use of targeted display by advertisers local to the markets where their ads run will more than double, reaching more than $2.3 billion next year.”
Other areas of growth are video (+60%), mobile, online couponing (+14%) and proximity advertising (+11%). It looks like the battle for local ad dollars is showing no signs of slowing down anytime soon.
