Good morning search marketers, have you advertised on Waze?
Since Google purchased Waze in 2013, it has been slowly integrating features from Google Maps to Waze and vice versa. Now, a Google Assistant integration will enable Waze users (only on Android for now) to make calls, play music and initiate Waze commands hands-free. Wazers will also be able to report traffic, avoid tolls, report police, access alternative routing and so on via Assistant.
The social navigation app may have a smaller audience than Google Maps — 100 million versus 1 billion — but Waze users are engaged and loyal. Waze ads for local businesses launched out of beta a little over a year ago and include a number of different map-based ad units that offer both search and display inventory: branded pins, promoted search and "zero speed [screen] takeovers" that display when a car is at a complete stop.
Waze is also doing interesting things with OOH coordination. With McDonald's, it tested a campaign that connected OOH with in-car ads last fall. Waze geofenced roughly 300 billboards in Southern California. Drivers along routes passing McDonald's billboards were shown "zero-speed takeover" ad units with a "drive there" call-to-action that routed drivers to a nearby McDonald's location. Ads could be shown at any point along the driver's route, but were not shown if drivers had gone out of range of McDonald's locations. According to the companies, the initial campaign received more than six million impressions and 8,400 "navigations" to nearby McDonald's locations.
"Google will likely continue to use Waze as a kind of ads sandbox and testing ground before importing them into the flagship product, as the company seeks to drive more revenue from more Google products," Greg Sterling, contributing editor, concluded.
Read on for a Pro Tip on the significance of a search click, Search Shorts and more.
Ginny Marvin
Editor-In-Chief
