Borrell: Local Sites To Earn $13.1 Billion In 2008

Local online advertising should deliver an eleven-figure payday to site publishers, according to a forecast from Borrell Associates.

The woes of the retail world have yet to bring a downside to online ads in local markets. A new research report arrived with even more optimism than it contained at the end of 2007.

Borrell Associates expects local online ad revenue to raise a bit above its December 2007 prediction. A combination of ads sold by ad companies with some sales by local media sites will add up big this year.

With all of this new money flowing throughout local presences, the most venerable of ad space sellers have fared the best in the interactive age. Borrell said yellow pages companies, despite the relentless assault by myriad competitors, look like the big winners.

“Unfortunately for (the competition), Yellow Pages publishers have already staked out the turf and have been the most successful of all media companies at developing their interactive revenues and protecting their core customer base,” Borrell said in its executive summary.

However, the optimism receive a little tempering, as Borrell sees a slowdown in growth for those local online ads. After another 18 months of double-digit growth for local ads, Borrell expects this to settle to a single-digit rate by 2012.