Chitika launches cidewalk giving small businesses affordable access to local customers via mobile advertising
WESTBOROUGH, Mass. – Small business owners have a lot to gain from local mobile advertising – they know everyone they reach in this way is a potential customer, and they get a much more direct connection to consumers as opposed to a billboard or flyer. However, local mobile advertising has, thus far, really only been open to larger brands with big budgets.
“I’ve been running five separate ad campaigns using cidewalk for several weeks now, and I have really been amazed”
Chitika Inc., a leading online and mobile ad network, has spent the last 11 years perfecting the art and science behind combining big data and geo targeting, and is announcing the public launch of cidewalk – a free to download mobile app giving small businesses and entrepreneurs unprecedented access to mobile advertising technology.
By leveraging Chitika’s RTB platform and its sophisticated targeting and bidding engine, cidewalk puts smaller business owners on the same mobile playing field as big-budgeted, large brands.
Specifically, cidewalk addresses three critical needs of local businesses when they consider doing any kind of advertising:
- Local – they are able to target their campaign to a specific town, knowing that the vast majority of their customers are right in their neighborhood
- Quick – campaigns can be set up in less than 5 minutes using the iOS or Android app so they don’t have to take too much time away from their day-to-day
- Inexpensive – Pricing goes as low as $1 for 1,000 ad views in the specified town, making ROI extremely achievable
This ease and granularity is reflected in the campaign creation process:
- After logging in, you pick the exact town where you want your promotion shown (e.g. Rye, NY)
- Then, you are prompted to input “promotional copy” for what you want your ad to say using a catchy title and additional information. (e.g. Line 1: Half Price Pizza in Rye! – Line 2: 50% off all Slices at Sunrise Pizza from 12-5pm)
- Finally, you choose how you want customers to reach you based on your promotion type – this can be a physical address, website address, phone number, or by email.
A preview of the newly created banner ad is then displayed where you can check to ensure all the information is correct.
Following the entering of payment information, made through our secure, encrypted Stripe service or by integrated PayPal support, you can choose the reach of the campaign – 1,000 views for $1, 3,000 views for $3, or 5,000 views for $5. Users can also choose to make the campaign one-off or recurring. After hitting “submit”, the promotion goes live to users in the selected area within 5 minutes!
The ad itself is shown to mobile users in the specified geographic area when they access more than 10,000 different popular mobile applications, including The Weather Channel, MLB, NFL, Fox News, Angry Birds, Fruit Ninja, Reuters, and many others.
After the promotion is live, the cidewalk user can track its progress right within the cidewalk app, with the kind of campaign control previously reserved only for big-budget advertisers or experienced marketers. Users get access to a real-time updating of views, actions (i.e. clicks), the apps where their ad has been shown, and even a map with pins identifying the exact place their ad was seen by an individual user.
Early users of cidewalk have experienced the benefits of the app and its capabilities firsthand. “I’ve been running five separate ad campaigns using cidewalk for several weeks now, and I have really been amazed,” said Elie Sakhat, the owner of El Basha Restaurant in Westborough, MA. “I have had a bunch of customers come in during that period saying they saw my ad on their phone, which is the most you can hope for…I’ve advertised our daily food specials several times, and also launched one talking about our healthy, vegan options. The funny thing is, I recently purchased some billboard space on the state highway here, and based on what I’m hearing from customers, I believe I’m getting actually more business from cidewalk then I’m getting out of that billboard, which was much more expensive.”
Now a full release version, cidewalk is currently available as a free download via the Apple App Store and Google Play Store.
For more information on cidewalk, please visit cidewalk.com. Screenshots and additional background information can also be accessed via Dropbox. For media interested in a demo account, please contact [email protected]
About cidewalk
Push your message immediately to thousands of local mobile users with cidewalk. Find a lost pet, promote a sale or happy hour, congratulate a friend, advertise your small business — the possibilities are endless! cidewalk caters to individuals and businesses with big dreams and small budgets. As little as $1 gets your message out to the people who really matter: those in your town. cidewalk is brought to you by Chitika, the award-winning ad network with over 11 years of industry experience. Our proprietary targeting and optimization technology leverages the power of programmatic buying to serve precisely the right ad to the right person at the right time.
