A national coalition of small businesses yesterday announced a two-day lobbying visit to Capitol Hill scheduled for May 12 and 13, 2026, bringing entrepreneurs and digital creators to Washington at a moment when Congress is considering newprivacy legislation and state-level digital advertising taxes that advocates say could reshape costs for small operators across the country.

Internet for Growth, a coalition representing small businesses, entrepreneurs, and creators, is organizing the event - its fourth annual fly-in - under the banner of National Small Business Month. The group is bringing participants from across the United States to meet with a bipartisan roster of lawmakers, including Sens. Chris Coons, Cory Booker, Tammy Baldwin, and Lindsey Graham, as well as Reps. Sarah McBride and Jim Clyburn, among others.

The announcement, issued May 6, 2026, arrives alongside a new national polling report, "Main Street's Digital Mandate: What Voters Expect from Policymakers," which Internet for Growth commissioned through Echelon Insights. The survey of 1,030 likely voters, conducted September 5-7, 2025, carries a margin of error of plus or minus 3.4 percentage points.

Why the timing matters

The fly-in lands as Congress advances active discussions around a national privacy framework. The stakes are concrete. PPC Land reported in late April that Internet for Growth had already weighed in on the SECURE Data Act, a House Republican bill introduced on April 21, 2026, as H.R. 8413, that would replace all existing U.S. state privacy laws with a single federal standard. The coalition expressed conditional support for the bill but raised direct concerns about how its opt-out provisions for targeted advertising could shrink the addressable audience for every small business running digital campaigns - including those spending well below the bill's controller thresholds.

That context makes the May fly-in a continuation rather than a standalone event. Brendan Thomas, Executive Director of Internet for Growth, leads the delegation alongside Ben Wolfgram, co-founder of BenShot, a Wisconsin-based small business; Mike Samet, CEO of Digital Ignite; and Chris Clark, founder and managing partner of Digital Ignite. Interview opportunities with participants are available throughout both days at the U.S. Capitol Complex.

The polling data in detail

The numbers in the "Main Street's Digital Mandate" report are striking in their consistency across partisan lines. According to the report, 94% of surveyed voters say digital tools are important for small business survival. That figure is not partisan: the data shows opposition to new digital advertising regulations running at 78% among Democrats, 75% among Republicans, and 82% among Independents.

The survey found that 90% of respondents say nearly every business depends on digital tools to succeed. Separately, 83% say increased regulation of digital tools would harm small businesses, while 77% say the same harm would extend to consumers. These are not small majorities - they represent near-consensus positions in a political environment where consensus is rare on almost anything.

Discovery patterns in the data offer specific technical context for why these tools matter at a granular level. According to the report, 39% of voters say they most often find small businesses on social media, 18% through search engines, and just 11% through traditional television. Gen Z skews heavily toward social media for business discovery, while older voters split more evenly between social and search. The implication is direct: for a local business, losing access to cost-effective social media advertising or search advertising does not leave an equivalent substitute.

Payment infrastructure is also part of the picture. The report found that 84% of voters say digital tools make it easier for small businesses to accept payments, and 78% say those tools help businesses reach new customers.

Personalized advertising and the consumer connection

One of the more detailed findings concerns how consumers themselves use personalized advertising. According to the report, 91% of voters say personalized ads help them find local businesses - a figure that pushes back against a common framing of targeted advertising as primarily benefiting large platforms rather than small advertisers or consumers.

At the same time, 85% of voters say they understand that because digital advertising supports many free online services and content providers, policies restricting it could lead to fewer free options or higher costs for consumers. That number connects the digital advertising ecosystem to household economics in a way that has traditionally been underemphasized in policy debates. The report frames it bluntly: restrictions on ad targeting are not an abstract regulatory adjustment but a change that shows up in what consumers can access and what they pay.

Seventy-eight percent of survey respondents say they would promote a new business online first rather than through traditional channels - a further indication of how deeply digital tools have become the default infrastructure for both business promotion and consumer discovery.

The hidden costs argument

The report dedicates significant attention to what it calls the hidden costs of regulation. According to the data, 87% of voters believe added costs from regulation would be passed on to consumers. That figure sits alongside 89% who say they would be concerned if small businesses had to cut back or close because of higher advertising costs.

The concern about structural fragmentation is also measurable. About two-thirds of respondents oppose proposals to break up digital advertising platforms into separate companies, on the grounds that it would make operations more complicated and drive up costs for small businesses. Meanwhile, 89% say digital tools and advertising services work best when they work together as part of a single integrated system.

The state-versus-federal dimension carries particular weight. According to the report, 57% of voters favor one consistent federal rulebook over state-by-state regulation. That preference has direct operational meaning for small businesses running national campaigns. PPC Land has covered how Washington State began charging sales tax on advertising services from October 1, 2025, implementing a 6.5% state sales tax plus applicable local rates that can reach up to 4.1 percentage points on advertising services. For businesses advertising across multiple states, the compliance burden multiplies with each jurisdiction that adopts different rules.

Political consequences

The poll's findings on electoral behavior are worth noting separately. According to the report, 53% of voters say they would be less likely to vote for candidates who support new digital regulations, compared to just 9% who would be more likely. Among Independents specifically, 59% say they would be less likely to back candidates supporting more regulation of digital advertising.

Trump voters and Harris voters show nearly identical levels of opposition to additional digital advertising regulation, which the report frames as underscoring a broad consensus that exists almost regardless of presidential preference. The political risk for lawmakers who push new rules is distributed evenly across the electorate.

What small businesses are asking for

According to the media advisory issued May 6, small business participants at the fly-in will focus on several specific positions. They are urging Congress to advance a clear national privacy framework that replaces what they describe as a costly patchwork of state laws. They are raising concerns about state-level digital advertising taxes and regulations that, in their framing, risk increasing costs, reducing effectiveness, and limiting access to essential tools.

The broader argument is that when digital tools become more expensive or harder to use, the impact is not confined to the businesses themselves. According to the advisory, participants will emphasize that the impact extends to consumers through higher prices, fewer jobs, and reduced economic opportunity in communities across the country.

Nearly half of U.S. families, according to the advisory, are struggling to afford basic necessities. Small businesses face parallel cost pressures. For many operators, digital tools remain the most affordable path to reaching customers at any meaningful scale.

The survey research that underpins the fly-in was conducted in September 2025. The SECURE Data Act, the legislation most directly shaping the current conversation, was introduced in April 2026. The fly-in itself falls on May 12-13, 2026. That sequence matters: the coalition's position in Congress is backed by data gathered months earlier, before the specific bill that now defines the legislative moment.

Industry context

PPC Land has tracked the accumulation of regulatory pressure on digital advertising for some time. The bipartisan AMERICA Act, reintroduced in March 2025 by Sen. Mike Lee, targets companies that operate simultaneously across multiple layers of the digital advertising supply chain. The legislation would prohibit large firms from owning a digital advertising exchange while also operating as either a buy-side or sell-side brokerage. For small businesses that rely on integrated platform tools - search advertising, social campaigns, and analytics within a single dashboard - structural separation of that kind would require adaptation and potentially higher costs.

At the same time, digital advertising revenue in the U.S. reached $294.6 billion in 2025, growing 13.9% year-over-year. That scale belongs to the platforms, but the demand side is made up of millions of small advertisers. The two are not separable: rules that constrain the platforms inevitably change the conditions under which smaller buyers operate.

For marketing professionals, the Internet for Growth position represents the demand side of the advertising market - specifically, its smallest and most cost-sensitive segment. Large brands have compliance resources. Agencies serving mid-market clients have legal support. Independent businesses running campaigns of modest scale have neither. That asymmetry is the structural argument behind the coalition's push for a single federal standard.

Discovery fragmentation and what it costs

The survey data on how consumers find small businesses carries specific implications for where regulatory risk concentrates. With 39% of voters finding small businesses through social media and 18% through search, any rule that raises the cost or reduces the effectiveness of those two channels disproportionately affects discovery. Traditional television, by contrast, reaches just 11% as a primary discovery channel - and traditional television advertising is both more expensive and structurally inaccessible to most small businesses.

That gap means the digital channels that regulators most often scrutinize are precisely the ones that small businesses rely on most. Restricting personalized advertising does not shift spending to traditional media - it more likely means reduced advertising activity overall, or spending that delivers fewer results at higher cost per acquisition. For a small business with a limited budget, that is not an abstract concern. It is a constraint on whether digital advertising remains viable as a growth channel.

The coalition's argument, as presented in the polling report, is that voters across the political spectrum already understand this connection. According to the report, 87% of voters say rules for "Big Tech" could also affect small businesses - a recognition that regulations framed as targeting large platforms tend to have downstream effects on smaller participants who depend on the same infrastructure.

Timeline

  • September 5-7, 2025: Echelon Insights conducts national survey of 1,030 likely voters on behalf of Internet for Growth (margin of error +/-3.4 percentage points)
  • October 1, 2025: Washington State begins charging sales tax on advertising services at 6.5% state rate plus applicable local rates
  • March 13, 2025: Sen. Mike Lee reintroduces the AMERICA Act, targeting structural separation of large digital advertising platforms
  • April 21, 2026: SECURE Data Act (H.R. 8413) introduced in the House, proposing to replace all U.S. state privacy laws with a single federal framework
  • April 22, 2026: Internet for Growth issues statement of conditional support for the SECURE Data Act, raising concerns about digital advertising access - covered by PPC Land
  • May 6, 2026: Internet for Growth issues media advisory announcing the Capitol Hill fly-in and releasing "Main Street's Digital Mandate" polling report
  • May 12-13, 2026: Internet for Growth Small Business Fly-In at the U.S. Capitol Complex, Washington, D.C.

Summary

Who: Internet for Growth, a national coalition of small businesses, entrepreneurs, creators, and digital professionals. Key participants include Executive Director Brendan Thomas, Ben Wolfgram of BenShot, and Mike Samet and Chris Clark of Digital Ignite.

What: A two-day fly-in to Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., where participants will meet with bipartisan congressional offices to advocate on digital advertising policy, privacy legislation, and the risks of state-level advertising taxes. The event is supported by a national voter poll conducted by Echelon Insights showing broad, cross-partisan opposition to new digital advertising regulation.

When: May 12-13, 2026, during National Small Business Month. The accompanying polling report was based on a survey conducted September 5-7, 2025.

Where: U.S. Capitol Complex, Washington, D.C.

Why: Congress is actively considering a national privacy framework and is also contending with state-level digital advertising tax proposals. Small businesses in the coalition argue that higher regulatory costs or restrictions on targeted advertising would directly reduce their ability to reach customers, compete online, and maintain affordable pricing for consumers. The polling data shows that 94% of American voters view digital tools as important for small business survival, and 78% oppose new taxes and regulations on digital advertising.

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