Digital advertising continues to grow and provide many options for advertisers and the average number of media used by small and medium businesses is increasing. Traditional media channels (which includes direct mail, broadcast, radio, outdoors, direct to home, yellow pages, newspapers and magazines) are still a solid part of a small business ad budget, according to BIA/Kelsey’s Local Commerce Monitor™, Wave 20 (LCM) survey of small and medium sized businesses (SMBs). Plus Spenders* and Core* SMBs have similar mix with traditional and digital channels used. Core SMBs allocated nearly 43% of their ad budget to traditional media, while Plus Spenders spent more than 38%. Looking at the largest digital investment, social media accounted for about 15% of ad budget for both Core and Plus Spender SMBs, while other digital came in around 27%. Small businesses spend more on traditional media for advertising and in our survey the majority say they will continue to as well as increase their spend on traditional alongside their digital spend.
*Plus Spenders have an annual advertising spend of at least $25,000. Core SMBs have an annual ad spend of less than $25,000.
