Foursquare Ads Open to Small Businesses Around the World

For small businesses seeking visibility, advertising is the best way to get the word out on new products and services. However, budgetary constraints often prevent small businesses from establishing their presence through advertising beyond the local space. They make do with print advertising (which is relatively cheaper), SMS advertising, or social media platforms that offer free business pages and profiles, or else make do with advertising only on the local space.

Foursquare is a preferred platform for businesses that want to create profiles and network with peers and customers. Foursquare Ads were created with the objective of helping businesses advertise themselves more effectively. Foursquare ads were envisioned primarily as a platform to connect local businesses with people nearby and that demographic that was most likely to become customers, and thus fits in perfectly with the demands that a physical store or a restaurant will have.

On 14^th October 2013, Foursquare ads were opened up to all small businesses around the world.

How Do Foursquare Ads Work for You?

It’s important for you to know that the facility goes far beyond a “like” on your business page or a “click” on an update, ad or app.  Foursquare now helps you find out if someone who saw your ad has actually walked into your store. That way you can assess the impact of your advertisement and its effectiveness in reaching your target group and eliciting their interest to the point where they walk in to browse the collection at your store or try that new dish on the menu.

How good is it?

Foursquare ads are simple as well as flexible. It is the result of learning from four years of data and relationships with over 1.5 million claimed businesses. To put it briefly, all small business have certain advertising needs which have been considered to benefit the user, and a lot of research and analysis has gone into creating an effective and potent advertising tool.

How to Use it?

Creating a Foursquare ad is super simple.  All that a business owner needs to do is go to foursquare.com/ads and build his ad. This means nothing more than choosing a great photo of his/her space and either placing a special offer or highlighting a great customer tip. Next, he/she needs to set a monthly budget and to push the ad live for people nearby to see.

That’s all there is to it, and you will now get access to information in terms of ad performance, action and check-ins to help you devise better advertising campaigns.

Any merchant can monitor how many people have viewed his/her ad, how many have clicked on it, and how many actually came into the store. The system has been tried and tested on a thousand businesses over the last few months, and the results have been great. You can read some success stories like: Barcade, Bronx Beer Hall, and Sky Room.

How is it Different?

Foursquare Ads are making a difference bringing real customers to your doorstep. It doesn't create just a slew of virtual fans, most of whom probably never end up buying your products.

Pricing

Businesses are charged on a cost "per action" basis for these ads, which means that they only pay if a user taps on a promoted listing or checks in at the advertised location. Businesses can also choose if they want to promote a special offer, a user-generated tip about the location, or just the store listing.

Pricing differs according to the nature of each business. Lower margin businesses such as coffee shops will typically bid between $1 and $3 to attract a customer, whereas, high-end retailers, spas and expensive restaurants may bid up to $7 on an individual Foursquare user.