Local digital advertising is still growing, but the curve is flattening, and operators relying on prior-year baselines to set targets may already be falling behind.
That was the central takeaway from Borrell Associates’ annual benchmarking webinar, where CEO Gordon Borrell, President Jim Brown, and EVP of Market Intelligence Corey Elliott were joined by executives from Townsquare Media, Bonneville International, and Newsday to walk through findings from the firm’s 2026 Annual Benchmarking Report.
The data, drawn from advertising availability tracked across 513 local markets and business growth measured across 347 metropolitan areas, shows local digital advertising growth has decelerated sharply, following a pattern Borrell has tracked since the category crossed $1 billion in 2001. Two prior inflection points—Google’s first $10 billion in ad revenue by 2006 and Facebook’s equivalent milestone around 2013—produced outsized growth spikes that have since normalized. Market saturation, spending diversification, and the reclassification of services such as SEO outside the advertising column entirely are driving the current slowdown.
Among webinar registrants surveyed ahead of the session, half said digital advertising sales had gotten harder in the previous six months. Only 17% believe conditions have improved.
The organizing framework Borrell presented for what comes next is a metric it calls “obtainable digital advertising” — what remains in a local market after stripping out national search and social spending that flows to Google, Meta, and similar platforms regardless of local sales effort. That figure currently sits at roughly $18 billion nationally, exceeding total local television and radio advertising combined. Elliott noted that only about 16% of all locally spent digital advertising stays within local media on average — a share that has grown from 13% in 2019 and appears to be plateauing.
“If you’re still forecasting based on what you did last year, that’s sort of an indication of those who are really in decline,” Elliott said. “Instead, if you take a real focused approach on what’s available in your market, that obtainable number, that makes all the difference in the world.”
Townsquare Media CEO Bill Wilson offered his company’s first-quarter results as a case study in what a disciplined share strategy can produce. Digital advertising was up 7%, with programmatic up more than 20%. Digital now accounts for 59% of total revenue and 63% of total profit across the company’s Interactive and Ignite divisions.
Wilson devoted most of his segment to Ignite’s third-party Media Partnerships division, launched in early 2024, which signs local media companies as partners, managing digital campaign execution, inventory buying, creative, and sales training on their behalf. He projected the division will reach $50 million in annualized revenue within four years at a 20% profit margin.
Bonneville International EVP Scott Sutherland offered a more cautious account.
Digital services are essential to the company’s growth strategy, he said, but execution has required narrowing rather than expanding. “We stumbled at Bonneville when we attempted to sell everything,” Sutherland said, describing how an expanding product menu strained sellers and produced fulfillment problems and poor retention on lower-margin accounts. The company has since contracted its product offerings, moved toward middle- and top-of-funnel products, and concentrated on high-margin work aligned with its sports and news brands.
Lastly, Newsday Director of Local Retail Advertising Jason Neknez described a multi-channel bundling approach combining display advertising with targeted email campaigns on four-week cycles. He stated that transparent reporting, like heat maps showing which creative elements drove engagement, has produced strong renewal rates, he said. His team has also leaned into AI tools for sales operations, completing Google’s AI Essentials certification through Coursera.
