MerchantCircle conducted a survey of nearly 5,000 local business owners across the nation for their quarterly Merchant Confidence Index which found local ads on Facebook to be growing in popularity with local merchants.

The survey reports 22 percent of local merchants have used Facebook ads, and two thirds of those merchants would use the ads again because it was easy and they had control of their campaigns.
A survey by ShareThis found that of the 31 percent of website referral traffic can be attributed to sharing, and Facebook accounts for 38 percent of that sharing.

Merchants would also prefer a familiar brand like Facebook to present consumers with daily group deals due to its large audience size and well targeted ad placement, and 77 percent of merchants who tried group deals were pleased with customer acquisition, the favorable deal structure, and profitability.

But while Facebook Ads reports a 94 percent awareness rate among local merchants, 35 percent of merchants did not want to continue their advertising on Facebook because the ads did not attract customers, or they were too expensive.

Traditional, offline marketing tactics are no longer producing results as most consumers get their information online. And with most small businesses being able to dedicate minimal budgets and time to marketing, social media advertisements seem to provide a solution to small business marketing woes.

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