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EnglishWhat Reports and Insights Does Borrell Associates Publish?
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Borrell Associates publishes research on U.S. local advertising and marketing spending, including a flagship annual report, industry papers, a weekly chart feature, and a podcast. Its content is aimed at media companies, agencies, and marketers who need to understand what businesses spend on advertising in specific local markets. Most detailed data sits behind a subscription, though report summaries and some recurring features are visible on the site.
The flagship annual report
Borrell's most comprehensive publication is its annual report on local digital advertising. The 2026 edition is titled The Digital Boom Ends, The Battle for Market Share Begins. According to the site, it contains:
- 42 charts and tables
- A 65-page analysis
- Two appendices: growth in business locations for 370 MSAs, and "obtainable" digital revenue across 511 U.S. Digital Marketing Regions
The report tracks the growth of local digital advertising and measures how well local media companies are capturing digital revenue. If you only read one Borrell publication, this is the one the company positions as its centerpiece.
Recurring insights and features
Beyond the annual report, Borrell maintains several ongoing content streams:
| Feature | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Reports & Insights | Standalone research reports on local ad spending |
| Industry Papers & Research | Topical papers on local marketing trends |
| Chart of the Week | A recurring data snapshot |
| Corey's Local Marketing Minute | Short-form commentary |
| Local Marketing Trends Podcast | Interviews and discussion, e.g. an episode on how local marketing built the Cheerwine brand |
These are useful for tracking shifts between major reports rather than waiting a year for the next one.
The data products behind the reports
Borrell's published insights draw on two subscription data products:
- Compass — tracks and forecasts ad spending for more than 20 million U.S. businesses. It is customizable by geography (down to county level), across 100 types of businesses, and dozens of media and marketing expenditure categories.
- Local Scope — profiles the customers of a local business using cellphone activity data, giving demographic profiles of who actually visits or buys.
Compass answers "how much is being spent here?"; Local Scope answers "who are the customers here?" The reports and papers generally synthesize findings from these datasets.
How to access the content
- Free to view: report descriptions, the podcast, Chart of the Week, and research alerts sign-up.
- Subscription required: full reports, market-level data, and the Compass and Local Scope products. The site lists a Subscription Plans page and separate log-ins for Compass and Website access.
If you want to be notified when new research is released, Borrell offers a research alerts sign-up. For anyone deciding whether the content is worth following: the free features and report summaries give a reasonable sense of the methodology and coverage, while the subscription is what unlocks the market-level detail down to county geography.