CHANTILLY, Va.—Most local advertisers around the country will hold steady on their ad spending and media allocations this year, a new BIA reveals.

The forecast, part of the newly released U.S. SAM Survey of Advertising and Marketing, projects that amusement parks, sports teams, movie theaters and other entertainment venues are the only advertisers that will spend slightly more this year. Retailers, service professionals and home/trade service advertisers are expected to maintain their ad spend.

When it comes to platforms, advertisers have expressed a willingness to bump up their ad spend on mobile and social.

“Over the past several years, our research indicates that advertisers are more focused on personalized, targeted communications, and they believe mobile and social deliver on important customer engagement KPIs,” said Celine Matthiessen, BIA's VP of Analysis and Insights and SAM study director.

The survey also revealed an important shift in the priorities of advertisers. It found advertisers are interested in more than basic demographic targeting; they want insight into the behavior of consumers as they make their path to a purchase.

Advertisers want to know the websites and social pages consumers have visited and their searches that have led to their buying products and services, the SAM survey said.

As a result, ad sellers have an obligation to show how their channel reaches the right customers throughout the buying process in a trackable manner, it said.

The area of location-targeted ads is the category of mobile with the greatest growth. According to the findings, just 13 percent of businesses surveyed said they were not spending money on mobile advertising, but planned to do so this year.

Across all business categories, 35.5 percent of businesses use mobile location-aware, while 24 percent use mobile search, the SAM survey revealed.

“Because businesses like the targeting (behavioral) opportunities that mobile and social offer, these platforms continue to show the largest signs of advertiser growth,” said Matthiessen.

The survey also found buyers of traditional media are “extremely comfortable” buying digital ads from their local sales person, “so sellers should be prepared to sell offers across multiple platforms,” she said.

Social and mobile media, email, video, display and SEO are the most popular digital ads purchased via traditional channels, the survey said.

NEW YORK—For the first time, digital ad spending is expected to surpass traditional ad spending in the United States, according to the latest forecast from eMarketer.

Nearly all forms of traditional ad spending will be in decline in 2019, including TV, which is expected to drop by 2.2 percent. That drop will bring TV’s ad spending revenue to $70.83 billion. One contributing factor is believed to be the lack of a major event like an election or the Olympics. The 2020 presidential election should propel TV ad spending back into the positive, but it is once again likely to again in following years.

Total digital ad spending in the U.S. for 2019 is projected to be $129.34 billion, which would represent a 19 percent growth and 54.2 percent of the estimated total U.S. ad spending. The most prominent form of digital ad spending will continue to be mobile, accounting for more than two-thirds of digital ad spending at $87.06 billion for 2019.

Also a first in eMarketer’s report, Google and Facebook’s combined share of revenue for digital ad spending will drop by less than a percentage total, but their revenue will still grow for the year. Amazon’s growth is the big contributor to that, as its U.S. ad business will grow more than 50 percent this year and its share of the U.S. digital ad market is estimated to grow to 8.8 percent.

As digital ads surge, practically all traditional forms of advertising are dropping (save for out-of-home). Overall, traditional ad spending will be down to a total of 45.8 percent from 51.4 percent in 2018, with the decline of directors (19 percent) and print sources (17.8 percent) the hardest hit. Down the road, eMarketer predicts that by 2023 digital will represent more than two-thirds of total media spending.