Boston area business owners are expected to spend $2.3 billion advertising online in 2022. This, according to Borrell Associates, a company that tracks advertising expenditures across the country.
Borrell's forecast indicates that almost 50% of Boston's online expenditures will be in the form of paid search. The most recognizable type of this advertising is the paid ads that appear adjacent to the results of almost every search query on Google, Yahoo, and Bing.
Borrell's forecast also indicates that approximately 27% of online expenditures will be in the form of display advertising. This consists of traditional banner ads that appear across millions of websites and apps, including social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram. According to SmallBizGenius.net, the average Boston area consumer is served more than 1700 of these ads per month.
Video advertising in Boston is forecast to account for 22% of all online ad dollars in 2022. Like search and display, millions of websites can support this type of advertising. This includes sites, apps, and platforms like YouTube, Roku Channel, Hulu, Paramount+, and most social media sites.
The remainder of online advertising dollars is expected to be spent on audio advertising, including streaming sites like Pandora and Spotify; or email marketing campaigns.
The Pew Research Center, a public opinion research company, reports that one-in-three consumers say they are online constantly. A 50% increase from 2015. In total, 85% of consumers report that they connect at least one time every day.
A study from Nielsen among Boston adults confirms that the majority spends way more than 10 hours per week consuming online content.
Among Boston's millennials, a generation that now accounts for well over one-third of all local consumer spending, the amount of time spent connected to the internet is far greater than the adult population as a whole.
As all Boston business owners consider their marketing investments for 2022, online advertising should be among the media considered.
Zohaib Hassan Patoli, a member of Forbes Agency Council, recently observed, "Traditional marketing is still effective for getting your message out there to people. But if you want to truly engage with your customers and know what messaging they respond to, nothing is more effective than digital marketing."
