• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, March 15, 2023

Uber's advertising division Wednesday launched a self-serve ad platform its on cartop advertising model, giving drivers a way to earn 15% more revenue and spotlight local businesses.

While the company has offered out-of-home (OOH) media since 2020, the self-service model aims to give small and medium-sized businesses a more affordable way to run ads.

The cities with initial rollouts of Uber’s cartop ads include 3,500 cartops across Boston, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Atlanta, and Dallas.

The model is geared toward small businesses in localized markets including real estate, insurance, independent restaurants and other small businesses.

Advertisers can geotarget a specific zip code, hours of day and days of the week to promote the business and provide a discount or percentage off a purchase.  

Local markets are key to self-service advertising platform, and have proven to be profitable for companies such as Google and Microsoft.

U.S. advertiser spending on out-of-home advertising is forecast to grow by 6% to $9.77 billion this year and top $10 billion in 2024, but the numbers from Insider Intelligence do not specifically pinpoint self-service platforms.

As part of a co-branded campaign, UberEats and a national QSR partner targeted basketball fans and category buyers in seven major metropolitan areas.

The data shows that those exposed to the cartop ads were 74.6% more likely to take action within the UberEats app and 27.66% more likely to visit a brick-and-mortar location.

Uber’s revenue run-rate from advertising in Q4 2022 exceeded $500 million, the company reported in February.

The cartop equipment, which is professionally installed, is offered by invitation-only to highly rated drivers who are on the road for more than 20 hours a week, whether driving on the Uber platform or for personal reasons such as picking their kids up from school. 

The self-service platform was announced one day after Uber and Lyft gained a major victor in a California court.

The ruling allows the companies to keep their independent-contractor model in the state.

A state appeals court said Tuesday that workers should continue to be treated as independent contractors under a California ballot measure known as Proposition 22, which passed in November 2020. It allows Uber, Lyft and other similar companies to treat drivers as independent contractors.