Mapping App Waze Launches Ad Program for Small Companies

By Tanuja Thombre - Last Updated on September 1, 2020

Waze, a community-driven navigation app owned by Google is introducing Waze Local. This feature would focus on map-based ads for small businesses. Although these types of ads were already available for enterprise customers, the company is now extending its efforts on launching tools and services for small and medium-sized businesses.

During an internal study that was conducted with 1,400 US advertisers during the beta testing phase, Waze said that advertisers saw “20.4 percent more monthly navigations when they started advertising with Waze Local.”

Waze Local is designed to be quite straightforward to buy and set up, and it features three ad units known as Branded Pin, Promoted Search, and Zero – Speed Takeover. There are two main offerings that feature different pricing for different segments known as “Starter” and “Plus”. The Starter pack is for businesses with less than 10 locations in which businesses can pay $2 per day or more, and Plus is for businesses with up to 50 locations which is priced at $100 minimum per day. Live support is also available for Plus. Additionally, there is an enterprise offering for companies with more than 50 locations.

The main format of Waze is Branded Pins; these pins show up on the map to indicate a particular business. At any given point, only three show on your map so that it doesn’t look cluttered. The icons appear for places you are near. If you tap on any of these pins, you will be able to retrieve details about the business like operating hours or a phone number.

“If you want to reach local drivers, you really have two options: The radio — ads on the radio — and billboards on the side of the road,” Matt Phillips, head of local SMB for Waze, told Digital Trends. “Both of which provide very little, if any, information back to the business owner. They don’t know how many people listen or saw the ad, they are expensive. If you are a small business owner and you want to change the billboard in the afternoon to promote iced coffee, it can be extremely expensive. With Waze, we track and collect information back to the advertiser using our Waze Local dashboard. They can then optimize their campaigns quickly and easily.”

Tanuja Thombre | A Soft Skills and Behavior Trainer by passion and profession, with 8 years of experience into Mortgage Banking sector. Currently I am working as a Training Consultant and I cater to the training needs across various industries. This also allows me to interact with, train and learn various aspects of human modes. Adorned with certifications from various institutes like Dale Carnegie & Steven Covey. I have a natural instinct for writing; every once a while, a Blog, a short article and in the future I plan to author a Book. When it comes to writing, I believe there is seldom anything as appealing as Simplicity.

Tanuja Thombre | A Soft Skills and Behavior Trainer by passion and profession, with 8 years of experience into Mortgage Banking sector. Currently I am working as a...

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