Introduction
Waze Local is one the top navigation app in current times that helps you to focus on drivers near you and your business to attract more footfall towards your door. In this article, we will be looking at your options for Waze advertising or you may call Waze Ads. W a z e Local and the costs to advertise on this platform.
It was 2013, When Google bought the “W a z e” navigational app. For a whopping price of $1.3 billion. It helped Google to bring its best features to Google Maps. Initially, this move helped google identifying accident reports, speed camera warnings, and a bunch of many other features to Google Maps. Before this we were more used to seeing these features from sat navigations.
However, Everything changed when in the 2018 google decided to launch Waze ads Local, This allowed local businesses to pinpoint focus on people with dynamic ads while they are on the road. Well, known brands have been already using Waze advertising (Waze ads ) for years already but with the launch of Waze ads Local which is aimed primarily for the local businesses looking to maximize their drive more traffic to their stores.
What is Waze Local?
Waze is very simpler to google maps and its just another type of navigation app that allows drivers using it to share real-time traffic and available road information to its other users in their local area. Aside from this standard satellite navigation rich experience, Waze ads have created a well established genuine community of its road users approximately more than 100 million active monthly users where the majority of its users are from the USA and Canada.
Waze ads Local is the Waze company’s advertising platform designed for all there small and local businesses, shops, and cafes. Allowing it to make it possible to target live nearby drivers with Waze ads. So you’re doing Waze advertising to all nearby people with the help of Waze’s navigation app. The best part of Waze ads are people only going to see those Waze ads only when they’re driving in the vicinity or direction of your business locations. So every passing by a person becomes your lead unlike other platforms showing ads to people who will never reach your Shop location.
Let’s take an example: A coffee shop can target every driver traveling the roadway and it will provide them with an alternative which is the usual Starbucks stop for people. Now If some users click the ad, Waze will add the cafe location to their journey and help them find the right to your business. Not only these users have the option to call businesses hands-free. Waze ads for sure increase brand awareness over a given span of time for drivers who repeat the same journey. So even if you not getting the ads to click, Those impressions are still going to bring customers to your door at a little later date.
Waze Ad formats?
The Waze ads or Waze advertising supports mainly 4 types of ads format.
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Branded pins:
You make compare it with a store sign, A virtual attractive GID( Graphical Interface Desinge) pins to inform and remind drivers that your business is near or on their route. This means they’re very limited to the section of the map showing on-screen at a given time however this has a plus side too. This means people who will see your Waze ads will only just a turn or two turns away from your business location. So for most cases, users are easily able to drive right to your door without even clicking the ad to get directions for your business.
- Promoted Search:
This Waze ads format will promote your business location to the top of search results and it going to include your brand logo as well.
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Zero speed takeovers
The 0-Speed Takeovers are a new-age digital billboard. It is prompted when drivers are at a complete stop near your location. The Zero-Speed Takeover Waze ads appear as large but attractive canvases across phone displays to grab user attention. Essentially, this helps to take the first click out of the equation, This helps you showcase your best offers. it allows drivers to get directed to your business doorstep with a single click.
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Nearby Arrows
The nearby arrows work in a similar way as Branded Pins but with the exception they are shown as directional signs on the live screen allowing your ads to show, So even if your business is “off-screen” during driving. While using Branded Pins, you’ve got very limited horizontal space for impressions to be shown, but in the case of Nearby Arrows it overcomes this restriction.
If you planning to use Waze for your marketings need or you are a digital marketer or someone looking something new to learn and who needs to stay updated with the current trend. There is a free course offered by google itself teaching all basics fundaments of Waze ads.
Check out our guide for :
WAZE ADS FUNDAMENTALS ASSESSMENT
How much does advertising on Waze Local cost?
Waze Local :
Waze Ads Local offers 2 basic packages with two fix pricing, depending on your need whatever fits you best you can choose yourself. You can start from as small as $2 per/day (you will be charged in USD) and prices for the Waze Ads Local Plus start at just $100 per day.
Waze for Brands
Waze ads(Waze advertising) for Brands offers everything which is been included in Waze Local, plus it also offers innovative partnership opportunities to user promote his/her products and any services which might be drivers navigate with Waze ads local.
This start at $15,000 per month, Waze advertising for Brands is one of the most suitable for any enterprise-level advertisers who have a large regional or even as large as a national wide footprint. Waze for Brands advertisers not only get benefits to Waze local they also have benefits to everything have Waze ads to offer :
Get complete details from the following table :
Find the perfect solution for your business
Starter |
Plus |
Brands |
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Daily budget (USD) |
Up to $170 | $100-$500 | $500+ | |
Most suitable for (# of locations) |
1-10 | 10-100 | 100+ | |
Ad Units |
Promoted Search |  |
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| Branded Pins | |
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| Zero-Speed Takeover | |
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| Arrows | |
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Targeting |
Geographic & Time | |
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| Advanced | |
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CTA(Call to Action) |
Drive There | |
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| Save, Call, Download | |
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| Advanced | |
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Initial Account Setup |
Live Support |
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Account Management |
Self-Service | |
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| Managed | |
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Ongoing Support |
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| Phone | |
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| In-Person | |
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Billing |
Credit Card | |
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| Invoice | |
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Pricing Model |
CPM | |||
Do Waze Ads Work? Our Guide
So the first thing to note here, if your business comes under this category: Gas station, Restaurants, Coffee shops, Bank, Auto dealer, or Grocery store…. etc. You get the idea right? Then only it’s worth your time and money. In fact if you have a business that falls in the above category then this is one of the best ads platforms you should be investing in. If your business doesn’t fall in the above categories then Waze ads won’t be much of use for you.
Waze (now owned by Google) is been one of the fastest-growing apps, reaching over 29 million active users in the US alone. Active users in Waze are really engaging since on average they spend over 10 hours in the app every single month. This app has picked up a ton of attraction because of its two main features:
- It tells its users where to watch out for the police (and it also warns drivers about intersections having red light cameras)
- It will be providing you with the one of the absolute fastest route available to get from point A – Point B (Sometimes that route can be through an abandoned mine shaft..lol or even one of your neighbor’s backyard )
A less known feature with Waze app users about how prominent is the app with the advertising. Unlike other its competitors, for example, Google Maps or Apple Maps or Bing app, If you launch your Waze app and begin driving, Ads will start popping up on your screen as you keep drive. The majority of the ads are on Waze being offered from big brands like McDonald’s, Dunkin’, Starbucks, Donuts, and Dominions, but in recent years more and more small business owners are coming out of their shadows and investing in this platform and it’s surely helping them big times.
Do they work?
Now the Only considering you’re in the right industry as mentioned above, Waze ads show some promising ROI. The platform “Search Engine Land” highlighted in an interview with Dave Gruhin, a Kia dealer from Ohio. He told them in an interview that Waze local ads alone accounted for a whopping 57% increase in his service leads for the business. That helped him grab on average of 120 additional repair orders/month, – which comes up to approx. $125,000 in repair revenue.
Don’t think just car dealers having these kinds of success. Businesses ranging from coffee shops to gas station stores have also got success. Here are few a testimonials:
“We had 100+ active interactions due to the Waze app in a month with a 15% rate, which is great. Waze ads were one of the easiest to set up and roll out whenever we want .” -Dyana Lovold, Marketing Director, Curry Up Now
“So during this Quarter, We saw an additional of four hundred customers because of Waze advertising of our restaurant. What we like most about using Waze is the new increased visibility for my business.” -Claire Pace, Marketing Director,101 Steak
“On average we start to see at least 40 navigations per month and the best part about was that it directly converted into sales.” -Mai Shi, Marketing Manager, Kung Fu Tea
WAZE ADS COMPETITORS
Since the Waze App is used for Map navigation and route direction purposes, its competitors are having larger numbers of active users such as Google(Waze also owned by Google), and Bing, Apple Maps. But, if narrow down based on features offered by Waze ads. You will find only two options who have kind of similar advertising to Waze, and those options are the Google Maps(Since google own Waze they copied all main attraction to its own platform ) promoted pins and Bing similar kind of promoted pins. If you want to Google Maps pins set up you will need to set up a Google Adwords ( Now known as the google ads ) and for the Bing promoted pins through ads location extension. But you will notice with Google and Bing promoted pins don’t appear within Waze app, so this could be part of a good collaborative effort between them to drive as much as traffic to your doorstep. One thing to note here, Unlike Waze App, Google map, or bing map, still don’t have community-based updates for optimal traffic information or in-demand options like carpooling, which is one of the standing points for Waze.
Time to start advertising on Waze Local?
Today’s time there is no can denying that digital technology and digital marketing have been a major change or should we say way to success for where its small and local businesses or big brands. Online shopping has been hurting the high streets but still in a recent study over 74% of Millennials say they still prefer shopping in stores rather than online, which means more all you need to help people you are out there and attract them to your door. With this you need to bridge the online and offline demand and the gap between them.
Waze ads Local provides you a channel that has real potential for you to close this newer gap that came with technology and Digital medium. W A Z E provides smaller and local businesses with the biggest online presence. Note here it is going to work for certain business types only most effectively. It’s not for every business and doesn’t even think that it is going to solve all of your digital challenges that any local businesses face today’s time.
However, it’s going to provide you something which no other advertising platform providing right now. It allows local businesses to target a very specific type of audience. Now combine this with a solid local SEO strategy and Waze Apps will offer you a crucial paid advertising channel that makes things possible for local businesses.
