Retail advertising faces easier comparables in the second half of the year, but will still end the year at a lower growth rate than initially anticipated. While the first report on retail sales from the Commerce Department shows renewed gains for May and June, it is unclear the extent to which retailers will adjust their fourth-quarter plans. Retail might end the year up 4.0 percent rather than the 4.7 percent predicted in January. In evaluating the forecast, keep in mind that the estimates on ad spending represent the total volume of advertising in U.S. daily and Sunday newspapers. Naturally, not all advertising is distributed evenly among all markets.
National advertising is more heavily skewed to larger markets.
Local economies do not always move in tandem with trends nationwide, and the local retail and classified marketplaces can experience wide variation. The numbers are aggregates and do not represent the average percentage change in each category for the average newspaper. One way to gauge local trends is to closely follow economic and marketplace factors like local retail sales and advertising-spending movement in competitive media. Some local economic data can be obtained from state and local government sources. For example, in North Carolina, the Department of Revenue issues quarterly sales and tax reports that break out retail-sales figures for each county in the state and specify changes in retail sales by category statewide.