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Waa-Waa… I want my own ad ecosystem chart, too!

If you’re in the digital display advertising world, you’ve no doubt referenced that awesome (and awesomely complex) LUMA partners chart of the display ad ecosystem.  And you may not be aware, but Marc Theerman over at AdMeld did an equally awesome one for mobile display advertising, “paying homage” to the Luma Partners chart.

Well to rip off a good idea even further, I hacked one together for the local and location based advertising ecosystem… (damn I hope I don’t have to pay them royalties!).

Accurate? Yeah its ok, although some folks on the chart do many different things in different categories, so sometimes I just picked the bucket that I thought fit them best.

Complete? No way! It’s a big ecosystem, and a small chart. Many different players aren’t represented here… this is just a sampling… I tried to take some of the names that I know best and put them in the big major categories.

Missing something important? Well maybe. My background is generally around all things ‘location based’, so I scoured reliable sources like Borrell, BIA Kelsey and Greg Sterling’s incredible blog for much of the rest…  and think I have most of the big stuff covered. But absolutely, please shoot me a note if I screwed something up big time or you have other suggestions: ben@locationawhere.com .

For those out there that can’t tell their Orange Soda from their Hot Potatos, hopefully this at least gives you a place to start!

Stat: There is a huge discrepancy between time spent on local content and advertising spent for local online advertising. If the ratio comes in line with other mediums, it’s a $30 billion market
So what? It’s potentially a $30 billion market… maybe something to pay attention to.

Stat: Last year 1.4 million companies bought search advertising versus only 44,000 that purchased online display.
So what? Well the opportunity seems to be finding a way to make it easier for those 1.4 million local companies to buy display online.
 
Stat: 80% of consumer dollars are spent within a 50-mile radius near their home, and 96% of consumer purchases  happen in retail store environments; e-commerce is still quite small in the grand scheme of things.
So what? The opportunity to use new technologoy to help connect consumers with stores and items in the stores around them is significant.

Stat: Quick service restaurants spend $3.04B per year and only 2% goes to Internet, and according to MerchantCircle research, 60% of SMBs never heard of Facebook…..
So what? There is still a long way to go with many retail oriented segments, they’re still not online, let alone on mobile, social networking or location aware advertising.

Stat: On Yelp, 3 million of 16 million local businesses have reviews.
So What? Well if you’re one running one of those 3 million businesses, you should keep an eye on what is being said. Online reputations management systems are popping up to help make this a more quick and painless process.

Stat: currently local digital advertising is getting placed via:
Self service: 49% (presumably Google AdWords primarily)
Yellow page sales team: 24%
TV and Radio sales: 9% (SMBs preferred method)
Newpaper sales team: 8%
Ad Agencies: 8%

So what? Well as you may have expected, folks that have always sold local advertising to the local SMB market, are now also selling someone else’s digital advertising to those same customers.  But many local business are buying digtital media themselves, likely out of necessity, even though they’d prefer using their TV and radio sales contacts. Looks like there may be an opportunity to provide high quality sales service selling  digital advertising to the local SMB maket.