Adliance Top-of-Search Portals.

Local Advertising is a Myth.

• 96% of internet ad clicks are from people greater than 5 miles from your business
• 24 of 25 ad clicks are from people greater than 5 miles from your business
• Advertisements display up to 25 miles away from your business 75% of the time.  25% of the time those ads display greater than 25 miles away.
• A circle with a 25 mile radius has an area of 1963 square miles
• Online advertisements display, without any restriction, within an area of 1963 square miles or more
• A person clicking on an advertisement will be in the neighborhood of the business only 4% of the time. 
• Businesses that advertise online are misled into thinking that their advertisements will be seen in a small local area as seen on a map.

Why Local Advertising is a Myth. 

• A Personal Computer (PC) connects to the Internet through a an ISP (Internet Service Provider). 
• An ISP assigns each PC an Internet Protocol (IP) address
• A centralized ISP router directs web traffic to/from the IP address
• The IP address can be assigned a physical location geographically on a map (Geo-Map)
• The Geo-Map location associated with the IP address is the location of the ISP's router, not the physical location of the computer
• ISP routers are centrally located in industrial complexes and serve thousands of regional customers
• A Geo-Mapped IP address rarely represents the actual physical location of a PC
• A Geo-Mapped IP address rarely represents the actual city where a PC is located
• Geo-Mapping is so weak that it can only place a PC somewhere within a 50-mile circle and no better only 75% of the time.  The remaining 25% of the time the PC is beyond this circle.

Reality Check

Myth: People click my ads.
Truth: Programmed computers do too.

Myth: My ads display in the zip code I gave to my advertising company
Truth: They do display in that zip code AND 25-50 miles away from that zip code

Myth: My ads display in the area on the map I built at my advertising company's website.
Truth: They do display in that map area AND 25-50 miles away from that map area

Myth: My ads display when someone searches the city name & keywords I prescribed.
Truth: They do display as prescribed AND in every other city of the same name in every other state.

Myth: My ads display when someone searches the keywords I prescribed.
Truth: They do display as prescribed AND under every synonym of the keyword.

Myth: I can set my ad budget to spend to what I want per month and effectively advertise.
Truth: Only the highest budgets get premium ad placement consistently.  Small budgets get poor quality clicks on secondary networks and/or display low on the page making your keywords prone to fraud clicks.

Fraud & Budget Loss

The online advertising industry ignores these issues.  To fix them would cost billions in lost revenue.  Is it fraud or oversight?  You decide.

• Synonymic Loss - Occurs when the advertising site changes your keywords into words or phrases of similar meaning, but of no value to your ad campaign.  Ad sites do this expand their revenue.  If you advertise the keyword "water damage", expect ad sites to show your ad when someone types "water spots", "bad water taste", "flood damage in India", "waterproof table coaster". 
• Distribution Loss - Occurs when your ads display on Google/Yahoo partner websites where the content is mainly recycled advertisements that deceivingly appear as legitimate content. Business.com and thousands of others are great examples of Distribution Loss racketeering.  
• Geo-Nexus Loss - Occurs when your ads display outside an area you reasonably intend or prescribe. If an advertising site allows you to select your city by map or zip code, they allow you to assume that your ads would be displayed only in that near area. It is simply not possible to narrow ad distribution online in an area less than 25 miles. See Over-Targeting issue #1 above.
• Repeat Click Loss - Occurs when your ad displays multiple times on the same computer and gets clicked on multiple times. It’s often performed by competitors performing multiple clicks to cost you money.  The ad sites know how to stop this loss instantly, but doesn't.