You're thinking about this backwards. Historically, online advertising platforms have not succeeded in tapping the enormous local business market. People tried

You're thinking about this backwards. Historically, online advertising platforms have not succeeded in tapping the enormous local business market. People tried lots of different approaches but not of them worked. Finally, Groupon came along and cracked the code. It turns out that the daily deals model is a form of online advertising which works well for local businesses. BTW Non-local deal sites do exist, see woot.com or appsumo.com . So there's no a priori reason why your idea wouldn't work.