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Waze: Location Based Advertising

Waze: Location Based Advertising

by | Jun 15, 2021

These unusual times have everyone itching to have an in-person dining experience. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many restaurants have shut down for an extensive period of time due to local rules and regulations.  Now that we can finally return to some sort of normalcy, everyone is having the same idea: “let’s go out to eat!”  This is great, but for restaurant owners, how do you market your business correctly to drive the crowd to your restaurant instead of your competitions’? 

As the Purplegator team, along with an infinite amount of digital marketing experts have emphasized: Put your business online. Social media apps, Google Ads, even just a wonderfully built website drives a positive presence….but you may be missing something that could make a huge difference to your business. This missing piece to your puzzle is Waze.

So…What is Waze?

One thing our target audience has in common is that they are hungry and their phone is always with them. Other than social media apps, a crucial app that your consumer most likely has (as long as they’re on the road) is Waze: a community-driven map app that was acquired by Google (GOOG) in 2013. Waze uses data from app users to provide quicker navigation routes.  What makes Waze so appealing rather than any other navigation app is that users can report speed traps, accidents, traffic jams, and other things that could slow down drivers. These are just a few reasons why Waze is a top-runner in navigation apps. 

From a business marketing perspective, Waze is most powerful because Waze uses advertisements to target those that pass your location and will give them some sort of notification. Whether you are just trying to get your name out there, or boost promotional deals your restaurant has to offer, Waze is the answer! Marketers who use Waze have seen an 8% increase in foot traffic, 13% increase of conversion rate and 7% increase of average order value. Specifically, almost two-thirds (63%) of QSR marketers expect digital out-of-home advertising to deliver more restaurant visits. 

Advertising on Waze as a Small Business

Waze offers two different advertising packages for anyone wanting to put their business on their app: the Starter Pack & Plus Pack. The Starter Pack covers the standard small business necessities, while the Plus Pack has more in-depth abilities for corporate giants. 

  • Starter:
    • 1-10 business locations
    • Pins & Search
    • Geographic Targeting
  • Plus:
    • 1-50 business locations
    • Zero-Speed takeover
    • Geo & time scheduling

4 Main Types of Waze Ad’s

As we just discovered, Waze has the capacity to market for both small and ginormous companies and get their best results from the tactics listed below. The goal is to target an audience that is on-the-go looking for a local, fast & delightful experience. 

  1. Promoted Search: When a user begins searching for his or her final destination, advertisers can target their audience at this very moment within Waze’s search dashboard.
  2. Zero Speed Takeover: As the driver comes to a complete stop,  Waze allows advertisers to show prominent ads that take up a portion of the screen. They can highlight deals and offer users directions, should they be looking to change their route.
  3. Branded Pins: Map pins that are displayed when you’re in the vicinity of an advertised restaurant’s location. You can then click on the pin, and change your route to that restaurant.
  4. Nearby Arrow: This arrow appears immediately when someone opens the app. It shows that your business is near where the user is currently located.

Waze is the right advertising for your business if you are in retail, restaurants, the fitness industry, or any storefront business that consumers can engage with. Promotions are an excellent way to drive traffic for a specific time period, but ads that promote your brand’s message are also effective.  All of these benefits are just steps in the right direction for gaining long-term & loyal customers. 

The more people see your brand, the more likely you are to get their attention & business.  Think of it again as a puzzle, there are many small pieces that go into the big picture. The big picture is that you want more customers and recognition, but to gain that notoriety you have to market precisely.  Narrow down your target audience, figure out what is the best way to engage with them, and create memorable graphic illustrations.  

Nina Rossi is a Marketing Specialist at Purplegator: mobile-first marketing agency in Philadelphia with offices in Des Moines, Buffalo, Dallas, and Honolulu. Nina is a proud Purplegator studying advertising in the Lew Klein College of Media & Communication at Temple University.

Geo-Targeting with Purplegator

Geo-Targeting with Purplegator

by | Mar 9, 2020

Relevance Raises Response!  

And, what could be more relevant than reaching customers and prospects who have visited a specific location such as your store or your competitor’s store? 

We’re Purplegator. And, we believe that the best way to find new customers, or to get existing customers to buy more, is to identify those individuals whose mobile phones have been to a certain location. We call this geoconquesting.

Now, we’re not talking about a zip code or a one-mile radius here. That’s not really what you want, is it? We are talking about getting down to the address level. Think of it as super-geotargeting!

At Purplegator, we can serve ads to those people when they are actually at the location, or we can look back up to six months for mobile devices that were found at that same location.

Some people may say that this kind of targeting is scary to them. But, as a marketer, you should love it!

Here’s how we do it:

We subscribe to numerous third party data sources that gather this type of information. Most of this location data is obtained from app installs on smartphones such as a navigation or weather app that needs to record your location. Or, it may be that flashlight app that you installed. Permission to obtain and sell this data is normally found in the terms and conditions.

Data collected is the device ID of the smartphone, the lat and long of the location they visited, and a time stamp to know when the visit occurred. 

The great advantage of mobile data is that it is the user’s device ID that is being captured and device ID stays locked into a mobile phone forever. This is much more robust than cookie data on a computer that is often deleted by the user.

With device detection, we not only know where a mobile device has been, but we also know the dwelling of the user because the smartphone is found at that address in the nighttime. This enables us to not only target the found device, but also the other devices that are in the household or the user’s office. This is extremely valuable, because it enables us to target household members that likely have similar interests. 

Imagine what this can do for your business. A retailer, for example, could look back to target previous visitors to its own store to attempt to sell them more or to winback their business from competitors. Targeting competing stores would put your advertising in front of consumers who are currently purchasing your products or services, but from another company.

Recruiters love the look back feature too. When hiring truck drivers, recruiters are actively identifying mobile devices found at truck stops or at the offices of competing trucking companies. Hospitals needing nurses can target the night shift at a nearby facility.

Trade shows provide a valuable opportunity for businesses to use the real time targeting to serve ads to attendees to drive traffic to your trade show booth. 

There’s also an opportunity to target logical sequential location preferences. For example, an ice cream store could target visitors to the nearby movie theatre. A restaurant could target mobile devices at a college graduation to drive graduates and their families to celebrate with dinner after the event. A bar might want to target hockey fans with a special offer after the game. 

Geoconquesting is the holy grail of mobile geolocation targeting. At Purplegator, we know where and how to find your best customers and prospects.

After all, Relevance Raises Response.

Watch Our Video on Geo-Targeting: