Respected local-media consultancy BIA/Kelsey forecasts a good five years for digital advertising in the local marketplace, growing 12.8% a year compounded between 2015 and 2020. Ads on mobile and social media will be the big accelerators, says BIA/Kelsey. In the same period, non-digital media (direct mail, newspapers, etc.) won’t grow at all — or to put a positive spin on it, won’t shrink. And speaking of spin, one of the big revenue opportunities for local media will be “continued strong political advertising in even-numbered years.”
Here’s the story in a picture, showing the handsome growth of local digital ad revenue from $17.3 billion to $71.6 billion in revenue or, as a piece of the total local advertising pie, from 28% to 41.6% by 2020.
