Advertise on Waze
Like most local marketers, you want a bigger digital footprint and more foot traffic to your store. The hard part is sorting through the channels and proving which ones actually move in-store visits. This post looks at advertising on Waze the way it works today: the formats, the competition, and how to track results so you can decide if it earns a place in your plan.
What Is Waze?
Waze is a navigation app owned by Google, with more than 150 million active drivers. It is a community-based traffic and navigation app: drivers share real-time traffic and road conditions, which saves everyone time and fuel on the daily commute. That large, in-car audience is exactly what makes it interesting for storefront advertisers.
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How You Buy Waze Ads Now (It Changed)
Here is the part most older guides get wrong. Waze used to sell its own self-serve ads through "Waze Local," with day-rate Starter and Plus plans. That system shut down on August 31, 2023.
Waze advertising is back, and you now buy it through Google Ads. On November 6, 2025, Google added Waze inventory to Performance Max for store goals in the United States. If you run a Performance Max campaign optimized for store visits or store sales, your business can show on Waze as a "Promoted Places in Navigation" pin. You do not upload new creative. Performance Max uses your existing assets and serves them across Google Maps, Search, Display, YouTube, and now Waze.
So the practical answer in 2026 is simple. To advertise on Waze, set up Performance Max for store goals in Google Ads. There is no separate Waze Local sign-up anymore.
What Waze Ad Formats Look Like
Waze targets drivers who are near your location and making a real-time decision about where to stop. The placements that built the channel still describe what users see on the map.
Branded pins - Like a storefront sign, a pin tells drivers your business is on or near their route.
Promoted search pins - Your locations surface at the top of Waze search, with your brand logo on the listing.
Zero-speed takeover - A full-screen ad, like a digital billboard, that shows only when the car is fully stopped.
Arrow on app open - An arrow that points to your nearby location the moment a driver opens the app.
These formats now serve through Google's ad stack rather than a standalone Waze console.
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Who Waze Advertising Fits
Waze works best for businesses people drive to. Fuel and convenience brands, restaurants and drive-thrus, retail stores, and entertainment venues are the natural fit, because a well-timed pin can pull a nearby driver in right then. The audience is already in motion and close by, which is the whole advantage over search ads that catch people earlier in research.
Tracking is what separates a real test from a guess. Watch the trend line of in-store foot traffic before and after the campaign goes live, and watch how many drivers search for your business or request directions.
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Waze vs the Other Map Apps
Waze competes with Apple Maps, Google Maps, and Bing Maps for navigation. On the ad side, Google Maps location placements and Bing's promoted pins are the closest equivalents. Google Maps pins run through Google Ads, and Bing pins run through Microsoft's ad location extensions. Because Waze and Google Maps inventory now sit inside the same Google Ads campaign, you can reach both audiences from one Performance Max setup instead of stitching together separate buys.
In Conclusion
Start small and test. Run Performance Max for store goals on a handful of your busiest locations, pair it with a specific offer or in-store reason to visit, and measure the lift in foot traffic before you scale. If the in-store delta is real, expand to more locations.
We have run local campaigns for businesses of every size, from coffee shops and furniture stores to multi-location brands. If you want help launching Waze and Google Maps ads and tying them to real in-store results, our paid search team can build and manage the campaign for you.
