As petrol prices continue to rise and people choose to stay closer to home for longer periods of time, the hospitality industry has noticed a decrease in the time between bookings made and last-minute decisions to travel. The result of this is that hospitality businesses like hotels or restaurants are needing to cater to the demand of last-minute walk-ins and are trying to find new and innovative ways to attract customers while they are in the area or on the road. Back in the day, this was done with billboard signage, but now there is another way: Map Ads.

What are Map Ads?

Map Ads are adverts that help brands and businesses be more recognisable as people drive through their areas. These adverts appear directly on apps which are open while the user is driving or can be accessed on desktops within the given location. Here they work off a geofence which is a tag limiting your promotions to devices being used within a limited kilometre radius of your business. This means that anyone looking for a business like yours as they are driving through your area or in a home nearby, your brand will come up on their Map Ad feed. It's as simple as that. 

How are Map Ads useful?

This really comes down to the incredibly high rate of users on these apps. Consider a map app like Waze which has over 140 million active users per month or Google Maps which has over 154 million monthly users. Wouldn’t you want to be in front of all those eyes? When you advertise on these platforms to drivers in your area, you become automatically relevant to users who are already searching for a hospitality service just like yours, like a place to stay or eat. Map Ads like Google Maps have a couple of different advertising options like ‘local search ads’ which appear within the app on mobile, tablet or desktop versions, as well as Google.com, extended map results. Google will soon be releasing ‘promoted pins’ where your pin will stand out in a different colour so it draws more attention. Waze adverts appear on the Waze map and pop up in real-time as the user is driving. Their formats are ‘pin ads’, ‘search ads’, ‘takeover ads’ and ‘arrow ads’. Both options can be selected according to your pay per click budget and you can then test the market to see if there is a good ROI. These ads can also be tracked in order to see how many unique drivers have seen your ad and whether this has translated into actual business. 

The bottom line

Map ads are a great way to get your business noticed. By targeting drivers and customers in your area, you will find yourself in a strong position to get noticed, make sales or increase bookings at your hospitality business. Not only are these apps incredibly user friendly but they also offer the advertiser a great way to get noticed and are fast becoming a cost-effective alternative to billboard and street signage. 

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