U.S. SAM Survey of National and Regional Marketers Targeting Local Audiences

The 2018 U.S. SAM™ Survey of Advertising and Marketing is BIA’s proprietary survey of local and multi-location/regional and national businesses that target local audiences in their advertising and marketing. SAM offers broad and deep insights into all businesses within the local ad marketplace.

SAM replaces our long-running survey series Local Commerce Monitor™ (LCM) that solely surveyed small and medium businesses (SMBs), or firms with less than 100 employees.

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How to Access SAM
  • Subscriptions to an interactive SAM dashboard is available. Contact us for details.
  • Individual reports available here.
  • BIA ADVantage subscribers have full access to the SAM survey.
Findings from SAM

Local Advertisers Expect to Maintain Last Year’s Overall Ad Spending, with Shifts to Increase Spend on Mobile and Social, According to BIA’s U.S. SAM™ Survey (Read More)

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Additional Survey

Congratulations to Sweepstake Winners:

Catrina Hare
Lucy Cromas
Jean Millsap
Danny Cook
Cathy Garling

Sweepstakes rules: 2019 Local Business Study® Survey Sweepstakes Official Rules

What SAM Delivers

  • Coverage of Large, Medium & Small Businesses

    SAM includes large, medium and small businesses to deliver meaningful insights to companies who target larger advertisers who often also have a higher dollar spend.

  • Large Sample Size

    SAM is our largest advertiser survey to date – 1,500 up from 1000 in 2017. The increased size will offer better representation of the local advertising market and support deeper dives into the data.

  • Comprehensive Analysis

    The low cost of digital is changing what businesses spend on advertising vs. promoting their business. SAM separates advertising usage and spend from promotional items to more accurately track where dollars are going. The survey also offers more details into traditional and digital ad use and spend.

  • Topical questions

    SAM covers important topics such as audience targeting, co-op advertising funds, video and more.

  • Vertical Data

    SAM includes data on key local industries like auto and finance and on the ad trends of franchisees.

  • Trending:

    SAM provides trending for the SMB segment.

Who Uses SAM
  • Local Sales Managers and Account Representatives
  • CMOs
  • Businesses Development Directors
  • Product & Marketing  Managers
  • PR and Communications Managers
  • Sales Training Directors
How Sam is Used
  • Sales presentations
  • Product roadmaps
  • Training programs and tools
  • Market sizing and marketing opportunity strategies
  • Industry marketing
  • New market or product entry strategies
  • PR initiatives
SAM Methodology

SAM is an online conducted annually with research partners. For the study, definitions include:

  • A small business has from 1 to 99 employees
  • A large business has more than 100 employees

SAM draws its sample of business respondents from a mix of nationally scoped MSAs, primarily based on first- and second-tier markets. Findings are weighted to reflect the incidence of businesses by size bracket, according to size bracket data provided by the U.S. Bureau of the Census.