Startups Stack Exchange Archive

Why don’t local businesses buy online advertising?

As I understand it, local businesses - shops, restaurants, plumbers, builders, mechanics and so forth - on average spend a much smaller fraction of revenue buying online advertising than big companies do.

Why is that? I’ve heard it’s because they don’t see clear results and aren’t willing to trust that it is quietly helping. Is there a reason that applies more strongly to local businesses than to big companies? Or is there some other reason I’m missing?

Answer 13378

Online advertisement for local business absolutely requires advertisement engine capable of showing ads only for the customers that are close enough to be serviced. This is especially true for the business where the client must come to place, you cannot just drive 100+ km to him yourself.

The acceptable area can easily be as small as a single town, and the usual IP-address based filtering for the area so small may not be reliable and complex to setup. Or at least that is many believe.


All content is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.