Nextdoor Begins to Build Paid & Free Ad Platform

Craigslist, Yelp, and Facebook Marketplace have enabled small businesses to promote their latest offerings, communicate with customers, and sell their products online from a hyper-local standpoint for years. To assist small business owners further as States cautiously reopen, Nextdoor is entering the paid and free ad content space. The online platform and app allow local neighbors to share trusted information with one another - babysitters in the area, best local coffee shop, garage sales, etc. The development of a paid and non-paid ad platform for local businesses allows for local vendors to communicate their new business hours, delivery options, and lunch specials, for example. While many SMBs can benefit, the new ad platform could prove to be a viable option for apartment communities to promote their listings locally.

Onsite leasing teams have been posting floor plan specific listings to Craigslist for years. Zumper and other ILS vendors utilize Facebook Marketplace to broaden their reach, increase impressions, and generate more leads for the properties who advertise on their platform. Nextdoor's announcement is a welcome addition to hyper-local advertising options for apartment communities and multifamily marketers. Nextdoor's new "Business Post" feature allows leasing teams to post twice per month, for free, which will reach all Nextdoor users within a 2-mile radius of your community. Alongside Business Posts comes Nextdoor's "Dashboard," an analytic marketing platform that allows marketers to review the amount of views and actions on each of your posts. Dashboard will be available to all businesses nationwide before the end of the month.

Nextdoor's announcement is a welcome addition to the local listing and online classifieds options out there- many of which have failed to evolve in recent years. Nextdoor has created a trustworthy, neighborly reputation for itself that creates good brand association for the apartment communities who select to test out the new feature. While very new and sure to evolve further, Business Posts is a free feature worth testing and keeping a close eye on for hyper-local advertising options.

Facebook to Allow Users to Block Political Ads

In an announcement made yesterday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said users will be able to opt out of seeing political or social issue ads from candidates on Facebook and Instagram. The roll out will begin as early as today with additional users gaining access to the new opt out option in the days and weeks to come. Click the image below to read the full announcement from Facebook.

Bye-Bye Clickbait. Google Updates Policy To Remove Clickbait Ads

In a welcome update to its advertising policy, Google has announced a significant change to Google Ads. Their recent announcement will prevent sensationalist or clickbait headlines, text, and imagery that pressure internet users to click on online advertisements. The update aims to provide a more transparent user experience for online searches and to remove misinformation often conveyed by advertisers in their ads. Below is a snapshot of the official announcement from Google on what will no longer be acceptable according to its updated policy:

The impact on multifamily should be minimal at most. Unless your multifamily marketing agency is writing text ads with clickbait-like verbiage, your campaigns should not be impacted. That being said, it's important to ensure such language is not present in your ads by taking a closer look at the policy and confirming with your marketing agency.