by Laurie Sullivan @lauriesullivan, December 21, 2017

The Interactive Advertising Bureau quietly mentioned plans to launch new initiatives that will analyze the ad spend of small and medium-sized businesses, in remarks made during the webinar on Wednesday announcing that digital ad spend surpassed $40 billion during the first half of 2017.

In 2018, the IAB will focus on better understanding the amount of growth attributable to Google and Facebook, as well as the ad share the duo generates from local small and medium-sized businesses. “Building a structure of understanding the dollar flows will be important,” said Chris Kuist, senior vice president of research and impact at the IAB.

When asked whether the IAB has plans to focus on local SMBs and whether it will launch new initiatives, Kuist said, “this subject will be talked about and fit into a larger framework at [the Annual Leadership Meeting] in February.”

The IAB — with help from Gordon Borrell, CEO and founder of Borrell Associates, which focuses on local ad spend from SMBs — estimates that local ad spend from about 9,000 companies, which generate less than $50 million, will be invested in local advertising.

Kuist said about 75% or more buy digital advertising, which puts the market at about 6.8 million local advertisers. These SMBs are self-helpers. About 80% say they buy advertising from self-service platforms like Google AdWords, Bing Ads, Facebook, and Twitter. About 15% buy programmatically, and 45% say they buy search engine marketing.

MediaPost.com: Search Marketing Daily

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