Waze Local launches in Malaysia, aims to help local SMBs drive mobility marketing

Waza has launched Waze Local in Malaysia, allowing local businesses to integrate their advertisements into the app and navigation experience.The app, launched earlier this year and previously only covering North America and Europe, aims to help small and medium-sized businesses (SMB) drive in-store traffic and increase awareness of their store locations. Targeted advertisements on the Waze map inform drivers about nearby businesses and offers.Waze Local uses a cost per 1,000 impressions (CPM) model of advertising with a daily rate as low as US$2. Businesses will be able to engage geographic targeting and select peak traffic hours for their ads. It looks to enable businesses to track the number of potential customers who have engaged with their advertisements, in a bid to prove relevant and quantifiable marketing metrics. According to a statement, this is in response to the challenges these businesses face when competing with more established brands such as with increasing location awareness and driving in-store traffic.Advertisements will appear on the Waze app in three different formats. This includes “Promoted Search”, in which a business will be given priority rankings in drivers’ search results; the “Branded Pin” function which raises driver awareness of nearby stores, and the “Zero-speed Takeover” function which helps to drive in-store navigations to businesses by showing Waze users an advertisement when they are at a complete stop for more than 3 seconds.According to a statement, Malaysia currently has the highest number of Waze users in Asia, and is home to approximately 5.9 million monthly active users. The launch also follows Waze's partnership with the Selangor State Government to tackle potholes, by encouraging drivers to report potholes in the state via the Waze app.A+M has reached out to Waze for more details.