Nationwide Partners With Internet Ad Firm

by Alan Wolf

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — Nationwide Marketing Group, the $11 billion buying organization for independent dealers, has forged a partnership with ReachLocal, a national Internet advertising firm for local businesses, to help members generate more in-store traffic from online searches.

"ReachLocal understands what it takes to be successful online," said Nationwide executive VP Les Kirk. "Our members will now have access to search advertising campaigns and marketing consultants to educate and guide them through the complexity of search marketing."

The agreement provides Nationwide dealers with turnkey search-engine advertising solutions so they can effectively reach the growing number of consumers who use search engines to research their purchases, the buying group said.

Nationwide cited studies projecting that U.S. consumers will conduct some 26 billion local searches in 2010, and that businesses will respond by spending $3 billion to $6 billion in local search advertising. According to Jupiter Research, nearly half of all retail sales will be influenced by the Internet by 2010, the group noted.