For small businesses, internet marketing with banner ads on Google or through engaging customers on social networking sites may have become the safe way to invest advertising dollars. But, a recent survey shows that mobile marketing and advertisements are becoming an increasingly influential platform.

According to a new survey from People Mobile Insights, 74 percent of mobile users say they pay full attention to mobile ads while accessing the internet through their smartphone or tablet. Furthermore, nearly 60 percent of users say the even pay full attention to mobile ads when they're visiting social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook or even Google+.

It's clear that companies who are using mobile and targeted internet advertising to reach key demographics are getting much more undivided attention than on many other mediums. In fact, Oracle just announced that 2012 is the "year of local," using Google's changes in its locally searched business pages as well as search engine updates as a metric.

"Utilizing Google features such as Google Places and Google+ Local is quite important, especially if you want to make more sales in the end," said James Corby, the business development director of Oracle Digital. "And with studies showing that more and more prospective customers are now using the web to conduct their local searches, and the explosion of smartphone usage – I suggest that local business owners should be aware of the services becoming available to their businesses online."

To capitalize on the effectiveness of mobile advertising and the impact of local businesses, companies may want to hire internet advertising agencies to help formulate a small business online marketing campaign that utilizes these burgeoning components.