A new study by the National Retail Federation’s Shop.org and Forrester Research shows that ad spending on social media by retailers is more stable and increasing in some case when compared to other forms of online media.

Even among retailers that are reducing their online spending, 56% said they would spend less on paid search versus 24% that said they would cut their social media marketing budget.

Granted, most social media marketing budgets are still fairly small, but it’s interesting to note the shift in spending online.

Have a question or a sales idea you would like to share? E-mail info@localbroadcastsales.com.

According to media forecaster Magna Global, mobile advertising will increase 36% this year from $169 million to $229 million. Their recent study predicts accelerate growth for mobile advertising next near to $409 million as the iPhone and Blackberry add more applications.

Have a question or a sales idea you would like to share? E-mail info@localbroadcastsales.com.

Using unique IP addresses to track your website’s unique visitors will not give you an accurate reflection of your website traffic for two key reasons: (more…)

Let me first start by stating, I think the losing the information gathering function of a newspaper is a blow to any community. Although, new models will eventually rise from the ashes of newspaper.

However, it’s a killer sales opportunity for broadcasters to convenience more of their clients to move their advertising budgets out of print and out it on-air an online.

If you have a client who still needs something convincing about the effectiveness of newspapers, check out these facts and stats form recent article on CNN.com: (more…)

Google TV has added two new reporting features to its service:

1. Graph by Hourly. Advertisers can now see correlation between their TV ads and traffic increases to their website on an hourly basis.

2. Audience data reporting. Advertisers can monitor how well their TV ads reached specific demographics.

In this tight economy, I would imagine more and more advertisers are seeking new ways to determine the effectiveness of their TV ads. Google TV is definitely going to be one of those tools.

If you are unfamiliar with Google TV, check out this video demo.

Have a question or a sales idea you would like to share? E-mail info@localbroadcastsales.com.

Most broadcast websites measure success in terms of monthly unique visitors and pages views. A post on the local media blog LostRemote.com asks, “Do Page Views Hurt Local Sites?”

I would argue they do.

(more…)

My colleague Stephanie Miller, the director of digital media at WBZ-TV in Boston, recently passed along some interesting research from eMarketer about how small business plan to spend their advertising dollars online for 2009. (more…)