Hyperlocal Ad Marketplace Local Yokel Media Launches

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Digital media vet Dick O’Hare has announced the launch of Local Yokel Media, an ad network that claims to be the “first hyperlocal online ad marketplace specializing in monetizing hyperlocal ad impressions.” The company’s technology allows local and national advertisers to target online audiences via aggregated inventory on hyperlocal news and information sites.

O’Hare wrote a guest post for Street Fight in May outlining the different ways that adding geo-context to marketing campaigns via networks like his can more quickly move potential consumers “from awareness to consideration to purchase based on their need and the right local message.”

“We have seen a seismic shift in traditional local media over the past five years,” O’Hare was quoted as saying in the release. “Hyperlocal content, specifically, community-level content being produced both by individuals and institutions, has proliferated as local coverage by more traditional, offline local media organizations has waned. It is said that 80% of consumer spending happens within 20 miles of home. This presents a compelling ad targeting opportunity for local, regional and national brands looking to target extremely tight geographies. We have found this level of local contextual relevance drives ad performance.”

Scaled hyperlocal networks like AOL’s Patch, Gannett, Post Local, Main St. Connect, Datasphere, and others would seem to be ripe targets for LYM’s potential inventory, though there are certainly also countless niche sites across the county that would appreciate a hyperlocal-specific ad network. According to the release, LYM’s technology “aggregates hyperlocal websites (websites whose content address a specific community), local blogs and websites of community newspapers, organizes them by zip code and makes them easy to target.”

The company says it has already completed testing indicating that its hyperlocal ad targeting delivers better results than traditional online targeting, and it already has 60 local publishers on board. The company’s coverage area at launch includes New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.

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