Back to the Future: It's Time for a Classified Advertising Comeback
Updated 20 May 2024
Summary: With users losing trust in online commerce and social media from scams, security risks, and privacy breaches, local publications can make a strong case for classified ads as a safe, secure, and easy-to-use platform for doing business. But publications need to take steps to deliver on that promise for readers.
Local publications, print and online, may be overlooking a lucrative revenue source, whose time has re-emerged after years of decline: classified advertising. After three decades of search engines and two decades of social media, many people don't know or have forgotten that classified advertising -- want-ads as we called them -- are a simple, secure, and effective way to do business, particularly on a local level. And with scams, security threats, and privacy violations increasing across Internet commerce, classified advertising can make a strong case today to local businesses and consumers.