Skip to main content

Waze officially launches its ad program for small businesses

With the launch of Waze Local, Google-owned navigation app Waze is offering small businesses a way to market themselves to consumers  on the road.

Waze has allowed larger brands to buy ads for years, and it’s been beta testing Waze Local since 2016.

“It’s been a gradual strategy,” said Matt Phillips, who leads the Waze Local team. “We wanted to get it right.”

He added that the key is understanding the needs of small businesses — like the fact that most of them are more interested in driving traffic to their physical stores than their websites.

As Phillips explained it, Waze Local’s “core ad format” is the branded pin, which will appear on users’ screens as they drive near a store’s location. For some advertisers, such as coffee shops, a branded pin might persuade drivers to make a quick detour before they continue their commute. For others, the pin might not lead to an immediate action, but it still helps build awareness.

In addition, Waze Local offers advertisers the opportunity to promote their listings in Waze search results, and to run what the company calls a zero-speed takeover — a big banner ad across the top of the screen, which only appears when the driver has come to a complete stop. And advertisers can see real-time data on how their campaigns are performing.

Waze will charge for ads on a CPM basis, and Phillips said businesses running the most basic campaigns could pay as little as $2 per day.

If you’re worried about the app getting overrun with ads, it’s worth remembering that Waze was already offering these formats to larger advertisers. So you may just see more ads now, and more of them are likely come from local businesses. (Phillips also said Waze will never show more than three branded pins at one time.)

During the beta test, Waze Local ended up driving an average 20 percent increase in navigations to the businesses buying ads. One of the early advertisers was Kung Fu Tea, which saw more than 5,500 drivers navigating via Waze Local to 16 Kung Fu Tea locations over a three-month period.

When asked if Google might eventually connect Waze Local to its other ad products, Phillips acknowledged that Waze does share some anonymized data with Google around things like traffic, but he said, “Our focus is to build this platform for small and medium businesses … We’re happy with the roadmap as is.”



from Mobile – TechCrunch https://ift.tt/2Gg37Sz

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Mother's Day 2020 gift ideas: 18 gadgets and gizmos for tech-savvy Aussie mums

Raising a family is not an easy job, and the women who care for us each and every day deserve to be told how special they are each and every day. While we tend to forget to do that, Mother’s Day reminds us we need to celebrate the women in our lives, whether they’re our own mothers or our wives and partners helping us raise the young ones. Mother’s Day 2020 is fast approaching (with under two weeks to go), and there’s a pretty good chance you won’t be able to take her out to her favourite restaurant this year, or even get to a store to shop for something she might like. So we have to get creative, and TechRadar’s Australian team has put together this little list of great tech gift ideas that you can buy online and have delivered in time for May 10. But you will need to get a wriggle on as delivery supply chains are under strain with more people shopping online. Whether she’s a whiz in the kitchen, loves to cosy up with a book or entertain at home, we’ve got a gadget or gizmo that’s s

Amazon Australia has specials on Bose products all this week

December may have just begun, but the world's largest online marketplace is already feeling the Christmas spirit.  To kick off the month’s festivities, Amazon Australia is celebrating  ‘7 Days of Deals’ with Bose's superb audio hardware discounted each day. To begin with, the very popular (and rightly so) Bose QuietComfort 35 II and the more expensive Bose Noise Cancelling Headphones 700 are available for less. To sweeten the deal, Amazon will throw in an Echo speaker as a bonus as well. When you purchase the superb Bose Headphones 700, you will receive a free Amazon Echo Show 5, or if you’d prefer the Bose QuietComfort 35 II, you’ll receive a complimentary Echo Dot. The offer is valid until December 8, or while stocks last. You can buy the same bundles, for the same price if you make the purchase via the Echo Dot or the Echo Show 5 product pages on Amazon. Just make sure you select the bundled headphone in the 'add other items' section on the right. Best noi

Valentine's Day flowers: the best online flower delivery services

February 14 will be here before you know it, and if you, like many others, are searching for that perfect gift, then placing an online order for Valentine's Day flowers is always an easy and romantic option. You can order a beautiful floral arrangement in minutes from a variety of online retailers, including; 1-800-Flowers, Amazon, ProFlowers, Teleflora, and many more. To help you sort through all the Valentine's Day offers, we've rounded up the best online flower delivery services in both the USA and the UK and listed their current promotions. We've also included delivery charges and made sure to mention if you can allocate specific days for delivery. There's a fantastic range of bouquets and gifts available from our selection of florists below, and online delivery from a specialist means you don't have to worry about the usual hassle of buying from a store and getting them home safely. We'll be updating this page as we get closer to the big day so you