• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, April 7, 2022

Nextdoor on Thursday announced the expansion of its self-serve ad campaign management platform — Nextdoor Ads — designed to help small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) advertise on the platform.

The guided experience for creating and managing ad campaigns across the network is slated to launch in the U.S. in the coming weeks.

Kiran Prasad, head of product at Nextdoor, believes small businesses need a simple solution to reach the 69 million neighbors who frequent the platform.

Nearly one in three U.S. households are on Nextdoor, and these neighbors are motivated to support local businesses, according to the platform.

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, 88% of neighbors frequented a local business at least once weekly. Now, 72% of U.S. adults make it more of a priority to support them.

Nextdoor neighbors also like to share. About 88% support them weekly, while 44% are willing to spend more with local businesses.

Recommendations are also important to platform users. Neighbors have shared more than 55 million local business recommendations on the platform.

The launch of Nextdoor Ads supports the company’s broader product strategy of “building an active and valued community where neighbors, businesses, and public services can trust and depend on each other to exchange valuable information, goods, and services.”

SMB can launch a campaign in a few clicks. Users with a free Nextdoor business account can log in to select a goal, build the ad, choose a target audience, set a daily budget and ad duration, and publish.

SMBs also can track campaign performance from the ads dashboard. 

The ads are available for Home & Garden, Real Estate, Professional Services, Food and Beverage, Retail, Medical and Dental, Personal Care and Beauty, Health and Wellness, Pet Care Services, and Family Care Services.