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Coming soon to Google Maps: Advertising
Get ready to see ads on Google Maps.
Google is experimenting with ways for local businesses to reach consumers, including new “promoted pins” on Maps that pop up when you are near an advertiser, say Starbucks, McDonald’s or a gas station.
“We do see this trend that people are interacting with mobile devices and the physical world at an increasing rate, and we think it’s appropriate to have commercial opportunities in these contexts,” Jerry Dischler, Google’s vice president of search ads, said during a press briefing this week. Google did not say when the ads would start showing up.
Google- owned maps app Waze has run ads for some time, but Google has moved more cautiously.
Google’s ad chief Sridhar Ramaswamy pledged that the ads would not undercut the “user experience.”
“On Maps, we are well aware of the pitfalls of doing silly things,” Ramaswamy said.
Google says it’s seeing growing demand from advertisers for the kinds of ads that reach consumers on mobile devices. That inter- est is driven by consumer behavior: We spend a lot of time these days looking up stuff we want to buy or places we want to visit while on our phones.
Google says it now has trillions of searches a year, with more than half coming from mobile devices. About a third of those mobile searches are tied to a specific location.
The new ads that will pop up on Google Maps will not be optional for consumers.
Asked if you will be able to turn them off, Dischler said: “We’re not planning on that currently.”