4 Reasons Online Advertising Will Make Or Break Local Businesses

Online advertising is growing and growing, and will only continue to grow as more people get online and businesses can’t reach consumers through traditional means.

At Cohlab, we work hard to help small, local businesses succeed in their online advertising strategies because we know this is make or break for many local businesses, and will only increase in importance. Contact us anytime to chat about how we can help boost your business!

1. More People Are Online Than Ever

In 2016, the number of Americans online increased to 87%. That’s up from only 52% in 2000, an increase of 35%!

The number of people online, and searching and shopping online will only continue to increase, especially as younger generations continue to mature. The target market for your business will be online from here on out, and while the methods of reaching them may change, the channel will remain online.

2. Ads Are More Effective

New techniques, like retargeting (targeting online consumers based on past online actions i.e. visiting your website or searching for a keyword) allow you to get way better ROI than in the past. In fact, users who are retargeted are 70% more likely to convert into customers than those who are advertised to randomly. As well, the average click-through rate for display ads is .07%, but with retargeting it’s 10x higher at .7%!

3. Searches Are Becoming More Local

Google continuously works to help local businesses more prominent in search results, as they can typically fill searchers needs better. In light of this, when searchers are looking for something local i.e. “car repair near me”, the 3-pack of map results shows up in the top spot 93% of the time! So it’s very important to target those local searches with your ads, especially if you’re not naturally showing up in those local searches.

As well, getting your name in front of a searcher is important because 50% of searchers who conduct a local search on their smart phone visit a store within a day.

4. Searches Are Becoming More Effective

With recent updates like Penguin and Possum, searches are only becoming more and more effective at displaying the most relevant results to searchers. This means you either need to have the best and most pertinent content, or you need the best online advertising campaigns possible in order to keep your business running. If you don’t have the manpower or time to keep your website fresh and top notch, online advertising is going to help keep those online dollars rolling in.

Let us know when you’re ready to chat about online advertising, and how it can work for your business!