Nextdoor has finally launched their long awaited Neighborhood Ad Center (NAC) platform which makes it easier than ever to reach their highly engaged audience. The ads are currently in early access and therefore not widely available but be on the lookout soon for a larger announcement. In the meantime, you can get in touch with us if you would like to begin running ads today.
What's New With Neighborhood Ads?
Previously, if you weren't a local business with a physical location you had very few options unless you had a massive budget and could actually get ahold of their advertising team (which no one ever could). Now they've combined many of the best features from Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter's ad platforms for a simple and straightforward way for any brand to reach local audiences. The best part is that any advertiser with any budget can start running ads as of today.
Nextdoor Ad Formats
The ads should look very familiar if you've been on Facebook or LinkedIn recently. The "Newsfeed" ads is the primary format and, as the name suggests, they show up in the main newsfeed section after a user logs into Nextdoor. "For Sale & Free" ads are an abbreviated version of the Newsfeed ads that show up in their garage sale style classifieds section.
Nextdoor Neighborhood Ad Center Creative Specs
As of today, both ad formats are required. There is a bid modifier you can set but since that can only be set as plus or minus 50% there is no way to completely opt out of an ad format. They're working on building in ways to select which ad formats you want to use but those won't be available until next year.
UPDATE: Nextdoor now creates two ads sets per campaign - one for each placement. This allows you to pause either placement at any time.
Nextdoor also has plans in early 2021 to roll out brand new ad formats so be on the lookout for additional options coming within the system.
Nextdoor Ads Targeting
This is where, in the future, Nextdoor ads will really stand out. They have address level information for every user on their platform and are promising some great polygon and hyperlocal targeting options in the future. For now, the targeting looks a lot like what you would find with Facebook
Location targeting can be set at the state, city, DMA or postal code level. And, yes, you can bulk upload postal codes for much easier campaign builds.
Audience targeting consists of gender, age groups, device, household income and the percentage of residents in the neighborhood who are homeowners. All fairly standard options that we would come to expect.
Lastly, interest targeting is where you can narrow in on users who have specific hobbies or lifestyle traits. And, there are some nice ones that are great to see such as frequent restaurant goers, college students, small business owners and parental status options.
Here is a full list of the currently available interest targeting options:
BBQ & Grilling
Books
Caring for Aging Parents
College Students
Cooking
Deal Seekers
Declared Parents
Early Adopter to New Technology
Emergency Preparedness (CERT/NERT)
Fishing
Follows High School
Foodies
Frequent Restaurant Goers
Gamers
Gardening & Landscape
Grandparenting
Highly Likely to Refinance - Conventional Loan
Hiking & Trails
Home Improvement & DIY
Lifestyles - Parents and Family
Marital Status - Single
New Renters
Occupation - Tradesman, Machine Operator, Laborer
Occupation - Blue Collar
Occupation - Medical
Occupation - Retired
Parenting School-Aged Kids
Parents of Infants, Toddlers
Pet Owners - Cat
Pet Owners - Dog
Pet Owners
Property Type - Apartment or Condo
Recent Movers - 6 Months
Retirees
Running
Sailing & Boating
Senior Exercise
Small Business Decision Makers and Owners
Small Business Owner
Small Business Professionals
Smart Home - Home Security
Telecommuters, Small/Home Office - High Spenders
Tennis
Volunteering
Walking
Wine Tasting
Some of these are a bit redundant and there are no further details about how they're qualifying users for each category but it's a great start. They'll be rolling out new options over the next year or so and we'll be sure to update this list as they do.
Nextdoor Audience and Performance Estimates
As of today, you're not able to project audience size, reach or see estimated CTR, CPM or other metrics like you can do within Facebook or Google. Again, this is on Nextdoor's roadmap for the coming months but is a large gap within the platform for now.
However, you're not totally out of luck. Nextdoor's team can provide audience reach numbers if given the targeting parameters. Based on our initial tests the audiences have all come back lower than expected so don't be surprised if you can't get as targeted as you would like.
Nextdoor Conversion Tracking
Conversion tracking is another area where it shows that Nextdoor Neighborhood Ads are certainly in beta. The Nextdoor team must manually send you a tracking pixel to be placed on your website. It's the same type of simple event code that you would get from any of the other advertiser. But, it's unfortunate that this can't be managed (yet) within the platform.
Once they provide the code and it's implemented on the website then you're off to the races and able to track conversions without issue.
Nextdoor Retargeting and Customer List Targeting
Retargeting and customer list uploads are still not yet available. Again, this is on their roadmap but be available until 2021.
We're assuming that retargeting will get launched around the same time they integrate conversion tracking setup within their platform. At that time, they'll likely introduce a universal pixel that can track conversions, retarget, and make the entire process much easier.
Nextdoor Ad Costs
Since Nextdoor Neighborhood Ads are basically invite-only with very little competition your costs will be extremely low. This will only last until they open up the platform to everyone so now is a great time to start a test.
There are two bidding types within Nextdoor Neighborhood Ad Center - cost per click (CPC) or cost per thousand impressions (CPM). They're selected based on the campaign objective you set within the platform.
If your goal is to drive awareness and reach as many users as possible then your bidding method will be automatically set to CPM. As of the early access period, the average CPM is $4.00 to $5.00 USD.
If your goal is to drive clicks or conversions then your bidding method will be automatically set to CPC. As of the early access period, the average CPC is $1.00 to $2.00 USD.
With no minimum budget required, you can theoretically spend as little per day as you would like. However, be careful of how low you set your daily budget. If, for example, you set your budget as $1.00 per day and you have a click goal then you're very unlikely to get much traction as one click may exhaust your daily budget within the first few minutes of running.
Inversely, if you're looking to spend as much as possible to reach as many users as possible there will be a ceiling you reach fairly quickly depending on your targeting. So, you can't necessarily spend as much as you want and keep reaching users. A primary reason is that they frequency cap at four times per user per day as of right now. If you're only reaching 1,500 individuals with a CPM of $5 then you may only be able to spend around $900 per month. Certainly far less than Facebook but the audience is also much smaller and in a different mindset so we always recommend testing before scaling up too quickly.
UPDATE: Nextdoor now allows you to set your weekly frequency cap per user in increments of 10 (10-100) or you can leave this blank and they'll use the default settings.
Why Advertise on Nextdoor?
Nextdoor is quickly becoming the place where neighbors go to ask for recommendations. Whether they're looking for a plumber for a quick bathroom job, a reliable Internet provider in their new home or information about a new restaurant opening down the street - the app (and website) are quickly becoming the virtual water coolers for everything going on in the neighborhood.
The primary difference between Nextdoor and Facebook is that Nextdoor users are required to select the neighborhood they live in (and an address) during the sign up process. They then primarily see posts by others in their neighborhood for a far more personalized experience. By their own estimations, they reach 25% U.S. households by having over 265,000 neighborhoods built within their platform. With an 80% increase in member engagement month over month in late 2020, they're seeing far more activity than ever before and are primed to become a trusted alternative social platform for many users who are moving away from the big guys.
Get Your Nextdoor Ads Started Today
If you would like to advertise your brand, company or products on Nextdoor then get in touch with our team. As an early access agency provider we can get your ads started right away.
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