Now local businesses can display prices, opening hours, rankings and other details about their activity in Yandex Maps, the mapping tool of the Russian search giant. These features (which have been available only to Android users) will help users identify and compare appropriate cafés, hotels, or any other outlet listed on the maps.
This is not the first offer for local businesses to reach Yandex’s audience. Last year the company introduced geo-targeting options in its SEM offer Yandex.Direct, with ads shown to users who enter a specific location in their search query.
Just weeks before Yandex’s latest announcements MAPS.ME, the mapping tool of Mail.ru Group’s subsidiary My.com, introduced a local advertising platform intended for small and medium-sized business owners.
The platform allows advertisers to attract clients through advertising on maps. An advertising campaign can be set up “in a few clicks.”
“No need for advertisers to confirm their business owner rights, create slogans, make banners or define the marketing terminology. They just have to select the plan and pay a fee for one, three, six, or twelve months,” explains Mail.Ru Group, which considers the payment as being a sufficient confirmation of the fact that the advertiser owns or manages the business.
Then, the MAPS.ME platform will generate an ad automatically, based on the business listings available on the map. The promoted business is highlighted in the list of search results and labeled with a star or an icon on the map. When users click on the icon, detailed information appears on the map. This information is made available in the user’s language among the 30 languages offered by MAPS.ME.
Just like the maps themselves, the MAPS.ME advertising feature works in the offline mode, allowing advertisers to target tourists and other travelers even as they turn off mobile data roaming.
“In 2016, about 35 % of all mobile advertising around the world had a geolocation attribute. Our research shows that around 80 % of users who were looking for a place within seven km from their location ended up visiting that place,” says Eugene Lisovskiy, CEO of MAPS.ME.
MAPS.ME claims that its app has been installed more than 75 million times so far.
Sources: Yandex, Mail.Ru Group
