How the web competes for ad dollars – even at the local level
Newspapers already vie with the Internet for readers and audience – now a new study shows that competition is reaching down to the local level and shifting ad dollars there. A study by researchers The Kelsey Group and ConStat Inc. shows that 70% of U.S. households use the Internet as an information source when shopping locally. Representing an increase of 16% since 2003, that puts the web on a par with newspapers as a local shopping information resource and on track to supersede newspapers soon, say the researchers.
“Traditional local advertising media must find ways to evolve or risk losing dollars to new advertising options available to local and small businesses,” says Neal Polacheck, SVP at The Kelsey Group. “Use of the Internet as a shopping resource is already changing the face of local advertising.”
The study notes that most of the Internet’s growth for shopping research is attributed to major search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and others. Greater penetration of broadband access among shoppers is another factor. “The research shows that the increase in usage of the major search engines has been powered by broadband users exclusively,” notes Tim Trickett, vice president of business development at ConStat.
The findings were based on 500 telephone interviews completed in February, including 250 drawn fro the top 20 metropolitan statistical areas and 250 from the top 21 -100 MSAs.
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