Every small business faces hurdles on its way to growth, and the worst ones are the ones you can’t see.
To shine a light on what’s to come this year, we posed the question, “What’s the biggest marketing challenge small businesses will face in 2026?” to a group of small businesses and the marketers who support them.
They raised some interesting conundrums—from attribution to knowing how to use AI. They also surfaced solutions any business can use to turn roadblocks into revenue.
If you’re marketing a small business or want to know what small businesses are worried about, this guide is for you.
Contents
- Measuring success with less data
- Marketing to an exhausted audience
- Creating genuine connection
- Figuring out how to use AI
- Struggling for reach on social media
- Attributing where sales come from
6 small business marketing challenges and solutions
Here’s what six small business marketers say will be their biggest headwinds in the coming year and how to navigate them.
1. Measuring success with less data
SMBs are feeling the financial pinch of increased advertising costs and a turbulent economy. 59% of them say that making the most out of their marketing budget is one of the biggest challenges they’ll face this year.
Unfortunately, it’s only getting harder to track and measure your online ads. “In 2026, small businesses will notice that customers are getting more careful about sharing their personal information online,” said Autumn Moon, senior optimizer 2 for B2B at LocaliQ. “Many people are blocking tracking or limiting the ads they see, which makes it harder to know which marketing efforts are actually bringing in new customers.”
With fewer breadcrumbs to follow, marketers will face more gaps in understanding their marketing funnel. This can be especially difficult for small businesses because they don’t always have access to the same depth of tracking tools that big brands enjoy. “Without this insight, it’s easy to spend money on campaigns that don’t reach the right people,” Autumn added.
How to overcome this challenge
The solution, Autumn said, is to focus on what you can control. “The best way to handle this is to pay attention to the data you collect yourself. Track things like website visits, email signups, and repeat customers to see what’s actually working.”
First-party data—like information you gather on popups and behavior you track on your website—is absolute gold. They give you a very direct picture of what your most dedicated audience does, likes, and wants.
“By relying on your own information instead of trying to follow every click online, you can make smarter decisions, reach the right audience, and get the most out of your marketing budget,” Autumn said.
Not sure where to start? These guides will give you a crash course in gathering and using data to improve marketing results:
- 31 Need-to-Know Marketing Metrics for Every Strategy
- Analytics in Marketing: How to Measure, Analyze, & Manage Results
- 26 Essential PPC Metrics (+How to Improve Every Single One)
- How to Collect & Use Customer Data the Right (& Ethical) Way
🤔 Want even more data around the biggest challenges small businesses are facing? Get exclusive insights in our Small Business Marketing Trends Report.
2. Marketing to an exhausted audience
Online noise is louder than ever. There are more channels presenting more content to more screens. Susie Marino, Senior Content Marketing Specialist at LocaliQ, said that in 2026, growing brands will be challenged with standing out amongst the digital din.
“I think small businesses will be dealing with audience exhaustion this year,” Susie said. “Consumers now see misleading online information as a major problem, and social engagement is flattening or declining as users become wary of low-quality, AI-generated content and overdone ‘viral trends.’”
SMBs agree. They listed difficulty in creating high-quality, engaging content as a main challenge for both their websites and SEO efforts.
How to overcome this challenge
To break through and stand out, Susie said small businesses will need to be very intentional in the messages they decide to promote. “While tactics like social media marketing or paid social ads are always going to be critical pillars of small business marketing strategies, brands need to be more careful than ever about the messages they put out,” she explained.
In the earlier days of TikTok and Reels, jumping on the latest dance trend may have garnered lots of attention, but the power play this year is staying true to your brand. “Instead of rushing to hop on the next time-sensitive viral bandwagon, businesses should focus on an authentic online presence that’s unique to them.”
If you market for a physical therapy office or a law firm, try sitting out the next prank challenge and instead, provide a steady hand in a sea of chaos with clear, timely advice that builds trust.
3. Creating genuine connection
We live in a world that’s quickly prioritizing convenience over connection. While shopping, working, and even playing from home have many advantages, they do place a technology barrier between people.
Julie Tambussi, VP of Marketing & Strategic Growth at Savvy + Co Real Estate, sees that as both a challenge and an opportunity for small and local businesses.
“In 2026, one of the biggest marketing challenges will be standing out in a world where AI has made content creation incredibly easy,” she said. “With so much noise, the advantage will shift to businesses that show up with real authenticity and genuine expertise.”
How to overcome this challenge
Here’s where small and local businesses can flex a muscle the biggest brands don’t have—creating authentic communities. For example, Savvy organizes events where prospective home buyers can meet custom builders and architects to get updates on new projects and inspiration for their own dream home.
Building a brand community, even a digital one, will keep people coming back to your brand, no matter how loud bigger businesses shout.
This doesn’t mean new technologies don’t have a role to play. It’s just that you have to use things like AI in the right way. “The brands that thrive will be the ones who use AI as a tool for brainstorming, not a replacement for personality or connection,” Julie said.
4. Figuring out how to use AI
The evolution of AI in marketing has been nothing short of astounding. A few years ago, it was mostly theoretical (or relegated to the businesses with the deepest pockets). Now, a solopreneur can hop into a dozen free (or nearly free) AI platforms to tackle most of their marketing tasks.
The proliferation of AI tools is creating a paradox of choice. “I think figuring out how to strategically (and efficiently) implement AI is going to be top of mind for small businesses this year,” said Kaleigh Moore, freelance writer at kaleighmoore.com
The most popular uses for AI, according to SMBs, are for content creation and design. And their main motivators are to save time and generate ideas.
AI tools evolve quickly with new features, versions, and pricing plans popping up all the time. That became really clear when we recently wrote a comparison between the free version of ChatGPT and ChatGPT Plus. What is included in each constantly changes, so it’s hard to keep up with even that one platform, much less the dozens of newer options available.
How to overcome this challenge
The most important message is to do your best to keep up. “AI can help do the heavy lifting in the marketing context where small business owners benefit greatly from cost-cutting,” Kaleigh said.
Try listing your top three marketing challenges, then search for a tool that directly addresses them.
These guides will help you sort through the avalanche of AI hype and show you how real marketers use these tools in their daily work:
- 22 AI Tools for Small Businesses: Our Top Picks for 2026
- The Only AI Marketing Checklist You Need in 2026
- 10 Instantly Helpful Ways to Use AI in Marketing From the Pros
- How 8 Marketing Pros Use AI for Lead Generation
🛑 Are there gaps in your marketing strategy? Get 10 Marketing Gaps That Cost You Customers (& How to Fix Them) to find out
5. Struggling for reach on social media
We were surprised to learn in our Big SMB Website Trends Report that small businesses consider social media their primary source of website traffic. That’s even surpassing search engines.
Unfortunately, it’s getting tougher to get in front of your audience as feeds get crowded and some platforms throttle organic reach in favor of paid ads.
“One of the biggest challenges I see small businesses facing in 2026 is getting consistent leads from social media without burning out or chasing vanity metrics,” said Ann-Marie Burrage, founder of Purple Octopus. “The days of hoping for a viral post to save the month are pretty much over.”
She points to LinkedIn as an example. Over 35 million small businesses (and growing) use the platform to find customers and employees. “With the 360Brew algorithm launched in May 2025, LinkedIn is far more AI-led, meaning posts are read and interpreted for keywords, intent, and relevance, not just likes,” she explained. “The viral post is no longer the unicorn it once was.”
How to overcome this challenge
Ann-Marie believes that small businesses can still find plenty of growth opportunities on social networks. “The good news is this is fixable with a few smart shifts,” Ann-Marie advised. “Think of LinkedIn and other social platforms more like SEO than social, write posts using clear keywords your audience actually searches for, be specific about what you do, and repeat it consistently across your content and profile.”
Ann-Marie heeds her own advice by publishing educational content on well-searched topics to the Purple Octopus social accounts.
Keep those elements consistent in all aspects of your account. “Your headline, About section, and experience should clearly spell out who you help and how, using your clients’ language, not buzzwords,” Ann-Marie said.
And don’t forget that social media is a place for discussing ideas with people, not just talking at them. Get involved in the comment sections of other people and brands in your industry. It’ll not only give you visibility there, but Ann-Marie said it also signals that your brand is relevant to the platforms’ algorithms.
“Do that consistently, and social media becomes a long-term lead engine rather than a place to post and hope,” she said.
6. Attributing where sales come from
Even the biggest brands can be challenged with attributing a lead or sale to a specific marketing campaign. But for small businesses, it can be even harder, and there’s even more at stake.
“As a small business owner, I’m trying to figure out if a Reel that resonated actually drove the one inquiry I got that week, or if that bride found me because a vendor mentioned my name at a tasting,” said Hsing Tseng, a content marketer and founder of The Wedding Dispatch. “Enterprise teams can absorb the uncertainty of a shifting marketing landscape because they have the budget to test ten things knowing seven will fail.”
Without that critical piece of information, small businesses have to take on the role of a gambler instead of a marketing investor. “When you’re a one-person marketing department, every dollar you put toward a boosted post is a dollar you didn’t put toward a bridal expo booth, and you’re making that call on gut instinct because the data was never really there to begin with,” Hsing said.
It’s no wonder that 52% of SMBs say that knowing which marketing channels to invest in is one of their biggest hurdles they’ll face this year. “We talk a lot about how AI is changing content creation, but I think the quieter crisis for small business marketers in 2026 is that it’s hard to know what’s actually working,” Hsing added.
How to overcome this challenge
Tracking the path of incoming leads will always be a challenge. Did they see your branded work truck? Did a fleeting glance at your social post while scrolling Instagram plant a seed?
While no solution is perfect, at least some are straightforward. “I start with a field on my lead generation form asking where people found me,” Hsing explained.
With a couple of extra questions, Hsing can learn a lot about how a new client found her business.
If you have employees, train them to always ask and create an easy way for them to record the answer. Getting to know Google Analytics and Meta dashboards will help a lot, too.
If most of your leads come from calls, emails, and texts, you can use an AI tool to track and categorize them by how they found you.
Tools like Dash by LocaliQ can help track your leads by source.
Overcome your biggest small business marketing challenges
No two businesses are the same, and neither are the challenges they’ll face. But there is overlap, and learning what other marketers are doing to grow this year will go a long way to smoothing out the rough spots in your own journey.
Here are several resources you can use to plan and execute a marketing strategy that works in 2026:
- Free & Creative Marketing Ideas for Small Businesses
- Tried & True Content Marketing Ideas for Small Businesses
- How to Create Your Small Business Marketing Plan
- Marketing 101: Everything You Need to Know to Get Started
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