Let’s say I own a restaurant, and I want to run a Google ad campaign where I buy keywords to show my ad to users within a 10 mile radius of my physical location… uhm, nice try.

Urban Mapping posted some insight last week that does an excellent job describing the issues surrounding local advertising — mainly how it fails miserably.

Sure, Google and Yahoo can attempt to deliver your message to a specific geographic region, but if you want targeting any more focused than the general metropolitan area, I’m afraid you’re out of luck.

The portals don’t really give clear data on how exactly all this “we’ll only show your ad to certain users in the country” thing really works. And speaking from experience, if you are local small business owner — good luck getting your keyword buy to only show your online ad to the local residents around your establishment. Most likely, you’ll waste most of your daily budget advertising to people that would never even consider visiting your business based on logistical distance issues, if nothing else. Ultimately, there is nowhere to go for effective online advertising if you’re a small business.

This is where eNeighbors will change everything.

eNeighbors is building the first “bottom up” hyper-local, social network based on where you live. This social network will then provide neighborhood-centric targeting for advertisers to spend their ad dollars more effectively. Instead of Val-Pack coupons, or the typical 1.5% return on direct mail flyers, these small business owners can leverage an online channel to message their service offerings while being confident that the people actually receiving this message live nearby.

Can you imagine the response rate on such a marketing tactic?! I make no predictions in terms of numbers or percentages (yet), but it’s going to be unbelievable! It will literally change the advertising landscape.

Get started by getting your neighborhood online today!