Waze Advertising Guide

Waze advertising offers a remarkable new way to reach nearby customers, through user location data. According to their website, Waze is the world’s largest community based traffic and navigation app. Keep reading our Waze advertising guide to discover the platform and how to successfully advertise on it.

If you rely on customers visiting your brick-and-mortar store, Waze is one way to put your brand on the map (literally) and welcome engaged customers through your front doors. In this article we’re unpacking a few interesting facts about Waze, how to reach audiences on the platform, and a few types of Waze adverts you can run on the application.

A bit about Waze

What can Waze ads do for your brand? According to our Waze advertising guide findings, you can expect three outcomes from advertising on Waze: build awareness (increase awareness around your business or promotions), reach more customers (transform nearby commuters into future brand fanatics), and increase store visits (help people find your business location). Here are a few Waze statistics every business should take note of:

Started in 2006 as a community project called FreeMap Israel

Google bought Waze for $1.15 billion in 2013

As of March 2021 Waze had 140 million active monthly users

Users spend an average of 438 minutes per month onWaze

Waze estimated annual revenue is over $37.7 million

How to reach audiences on Waze

Compared to Meta’s targeting criteria when running paid social ads, Waze falls rather short in the audience refinement field. This is likely because the target audience will be any Waze users using the app in your business location. Below are three fields our Waze advertising guide reveals that need to be filled in carefully to ensure you’re getting your Waze advertising in front of the best audiences:

Locations

When setting up your Waze ads account, you input the business’ location along with other important details. Advertising campaigns can then be set up to serve commuters who enter a predefined radius around a business. If you want to speak to a community who aren’t near to your location, you can define specific suburbs where you’d like your Waze ads to appear.

Budget

An important part of getting Waze advertising just right is assigning a suitable budget to ad campaigns. After locations have been established, Waze will request that you specify a daily budget. It conveniently works out a maximum amount you’ll spend for the entire campaign, so you don’t have to turn to your phone’s calculator app. At this stage you’ll also establish a start and end date for your campaign. <br> <br> <br>

Opening Hours

The savvy digital marketer knows that people aren’t on their phones every minute of the day. And if you’re a store looking to get people through the doors, it won’t help advertising on Waze during your closed hours. So, you’ve got an option to only have your Waze ads running during standard operating hours.

Types of Waze Advertising

Google, Waze’s parent company, reveals that the community navigation app can drive customers (pun intended) to your business using four distinct ad formats:

Waze Arrows
Waze Pins
Waze Takeovers
Waze Search ads

“Nearby Arrows are well positioned signposts displayed right after opening the app, letting people know your business is nearby.”

Your branded ‘Arrow’ will appear on a Waze user’s map once they open the app (considering your business is within proximity). They can expand your Waze Arrow by tapping to reveal information about you, including customized images and text, along with an information button to view opening hours, website URLs, telephone numbers, products and services offered, and more.

“Pins act like digital billboards, reminding nearby drivers of your business and marking it on the Waze map.”

Your branded pin appears on a driver’s Waze map when they enter your vicinity. They can tap to expand your branded pin on Waze, revealing useful information about your company. Once your pin is expanded, Waze users can see customised images and text, including an ‘info’ button that reveals your opening hours, website URL, phone numbers, services offered and more.

“Takeovers offer an immersive experience while still keeping the user in the context of their drive.”

These immersive brand encounters work like this: while users drive around town, a Waze Takeover banner with your information will display when they come to a stop for several seconds (at traffic lights, when stopping for fuel, etc.) and disappears once they start moving again.

“With your business name and logo at the top of the search results, drivers can quickly find and identify your business location.”

Waze search advertising works like this: drivers using Waze will start typing a search query, looking for nearby restaurants, pubs, and other businesses. Once they tap ‘search’ Waze presents a list of relevant and promoted results. If you’re running search ads, your business can appear at the top of that search results list.

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