Air travel in August 2020 was down 43% compared to 2019. As a result, more and more consumers are driving as their primary source of travel (93% according to Google). With schools and offices beginning to open again and holiday travel around the corner... How are you reaching your potential customers during their travels?
Chances are, if you’ve found your way to this post, you’re familiar with Waze. If not, Waze is a crowdsourced navigation app that seeks to provide a better driving experience for all. It allows users to relay information on everything from traffic patterns to the locations of accidents, police officers, and even potholes. With more than 130 million active daily users, averaging 10+ hours of monthly in-app usage, Waze has quickly become the newest way to reach your target audience during their commute and importantly on the way to points of purchase.
Waze Local allows you to connect with potential customers through three ad types: Branded Pins, Zero-Speed Takeover, and Promoted Search. Waze requires a minimum monthly budget of $60 per month in order to take advantage of them.
- Branded Pins. Your location is made known to drivers as they pass by with a branded pin on the map. It is a digital store sign that clearly marks your location. Branded Pins are great for informing or reminding drivers you’re nearby or on their route. Pins can include important information like your address, store hours and phone number. With this ad type You don’t get a call-to-action or banner, so it’s more for awareness.
How much does it cost? Right now, it’s $2 per thousand impressions (CPM)
- Zero-Speed Takeover. This ad type Displays info about business and relevant offers to Wazers who are at a full stop. It takes over the top portion of the screen and gives more options to promote your business with a call-to-action, promotion, etc.
How much does it cost? Zero-Speed Takeovers come at a slightly higher cost – about $100 per month frequency capped at 2 ads per day per use. The goal is to drive customers to your location – you’ll be able to track people who clicked on “Drive There.” An important note: since people may click on “Drive There” by accident, there is a second screen you have to click on again to confirm the trip. The second click is tracked as the action.
- Promoted Search. Promoted search is exactly what it sounds like—appear at the top of search results when Wazers search for a business like yours. This ad unit features your logo and basic business information. If you have multiple locations, or your business is new to the area, promoted search can help customers find you quickly and easily.
How much does it cost? Nothing...sorta. As long as you have Branded Pins running, the pinned locations are currently shown in Promoted Search as added value. This will likely change in the near future so take advantage while you can!
So, does it work?
What sort of performance can you expect from participating in Waze advertising? Well like anything else in advertising it largely depends on how you advertise and what you use to motivate your customers with. Maybe this is the time to let folks know you adhere to safe and strict COVID-protocols or perhaps you have drive-through service windows. Offers are great motivators for consumers, and Waze has seen evidence that up to 26% of users are motivated to purchase by an item like a coupon. Thus far, from what we have seen, some impressive and extremely cost-effective lift can be achieved using Waze.
Let’s take for example, quick-service-restaurants (QSRs) that used Waze to promote their businesses. In studies, it was found that customers are 66% more likely to visit a QSR if they received a location-based advertisement and almost 25% would reroute on their way if they received an ad for a competitor's location. That’s a powerful competitive advantage to reroute 1 in 4 drivers to your QSR!
What can Fluency do for you?
At Fluency we’ve built one of the first scalable solutions for launching Waze advertising. Want to launch Waze across multiple locations? 50 locations? 500 locations? No problem. In a matter of seconds we can have all 3 ad formats up and running in Waze for any single-point, multi-location or portfolio of businesses. Reach out today to learn more about how Fluency can automate Waze advertising for you.
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