When it comes to digital media, which group is pushing the envelope more -- politics or business? What's your vote? According to this afternoon's panel at the sprawling ad:tech New York conference, politics (campaigns, political parties, advocacy groups) are making more…
In the six years that BIA/Kelsey has tracked social media as an advertising/marketing medium for SMBs, it's developed from an experiment (blogs, email, and reviews) to a tsunami. Last year, social media achieved a "double first" -- It was the top media used…
Two well-known players in SMB marketing services today announced a partnership to integrate their platforms to provide end-to-end customer acquisition/retention services for SMBs. The new partners are WordStream, a major SEM and search services provider (and Google Premier SMB Partner), and…
BIA/Kelsey's Local Commerce Monitor (Wave 18) shows just how popular customer loyalty programs are to SMBs. Currently, 29 percent offer them, with the number skewing higher (43 percent) for retail businesses. But despite the introduction of several loyalty platforms and…
What's the $55 billion elephant in the room? That would be the gross spend on co-op advertising annually in the US. For those unfamiliar, co-op dollars are typically funds earmarked by national brands for "market development" -- local advertising or…
Retail SMBs are more poised than their counterparts in other verticals to adopt sophisticated digital advertising and marketing. This is clearly shown by BIA/Kelsey's Local Commerce Monitor (Wave 18) survey of small businesses. Retail SMBs are already highly oriented to…
If you follow BIA/Kelsey's Local Commerce Monitor, you know that email consistently ranks high for SMB marketing. This spans across business verticals, size, and other firmographics. But there's still a gap: most SMBs' email marketing tactics are fairly basic. They…
Omnichannel advertising is NOT the same thing as a bunch of point solutions across different media. Yet, it's often mistaken as such. True omnichannel advertising consists of highly coordinated campaigns across multiple media and platforms, and is designed to deliver…
What is "programmatic" advertising? It depends on whom you ask. In an interview with BIA/Kelsey Managing Director Rick Ducey, John McIntyre, Founder & CEO, Sightly said: "Programmatic buying, in its most simple form, is the automated real-time bidding and purchasing…
SMBs in the entertainment vertical love video advertising. We're talking movie theaters, event venues, catering, on-demand performers*, etc.. As is conducive to their craft, they're big fans of online video, particularly website and YouTube videos. They're also big on cable…
GoDaddy's IPO is a success by just about any standard. Yesterday's IPO price of $20 per share was eagerly welcomed by the market, which proceeded to bid up the price 31% in the first day of trading. [NASDAQ GDDY] For…
After putting the final touches on the Do-It-Yourself (DIY) report from our latest Local Commerce Monitor™ survey of SMBs, I sat down* to write this blog post. This report is a view of SMBs that told us they prefer a…
If you're a regular reader of this blog, you'll notice that several of our recent research reports are covering SMBs of specific size brackets. We started with a report on SMBs with a single employee, then covered SMBs with 2-9…
Franchises are a distinctive and vibrant SMB segment. By almost every metric, franchises act differently from the overall SMB population. Franchises tend to "live large" -- they do things in a big way, starting with ad spending. At an average…
As a group, SMBs with 2-9 employees have a distinctive profile that in many respects lies between the profiles of VSBs (Very Small Businesses - those with only one employee) and medium-size and larger-size SMBs. In some ways, SMBs in…
One big trend we are seeing in our Local Commerce Monitor (LCM) findings is that low-spending SMBs are taking advantage of the lower price levels of digital and social media and reducing their overall ad spend. This has big implications…
"Google Domains" is now open for business. The search giant's decision to wade into the world of domains registration is a logical extension of its growing suite of business apps and services, many of which are focused on SMBs. Another…
"Google Domains" is now open for business. The search giant's decision to wade into the world of domains registration is a logical extension of its growing suite of business apps and services, many of which are focused on SMBs. Another…
As we prepare for our annual September conference (watch out, New Orleans) we are starting to release the data from our Wave 18 Local Commerce Monitor (LCM) survey, just "in from the field" a few weeks ago. The data we…
The Wall Street Journal published an insightful article yesterday about the use and value of paid Facebook ads for SMBs: "Facebook Ads Become Costlier Choice for Small Businesses." This is a hot topic indeed, given the explosive growth of social media…