Best practices for advertising on Nextdoor

With typical CTRs as low as 0.2%, there’s plenty of room for businesses to implement innovative advertising best practices, maximize their CTRs, and hone a competitive edge in the evolving landscape of digital advertising.

Enter Nextdoor, the neighborhood hub where a whopping one-third of American homes are tuning in. Want to be the talk of the town on Nextdoor? It's all about making genuine connections that turn neighbors into your customers. Dive into our treasure trove of Nextdoor advertising tips and tricks to make your business stand out.

How to improve your advertising with Nextdoor

In a world of ever-changing algorithms, it can be difficult to keep up with the latest techniques for marketing approaches. Nextdoor, however, is highly transparent about the best practices that help ads resonate with users.

A higher CTR means more users on your page, which can foster more conversions and help you achieve your marketing goals. Consider optimizing these different facets of your ads to produce powerful posts that neighbors can latch onto.

Image

A picture is worth a thousand words, and the right picture might even be worth a thousand new customers. When deciding what images to include with your Nextdoor ads, keep in mind these essential insights:

Ads with real imagery garner a 13% higher CTR
When overlaying an image with text, those who keep text to one-quarter of the picture’s size or less gain 10% on their CTR
Logos can have a negative impact of 14% on CTR

Content

Ads should express your brand’s message and display your offerings. We found that neighbors using the platform prefer ads that clearly show what your business can do for them and why they should choose you over your competitors.

They’re also partial to location-specific messaging that highlights offers available nearby.

Text

As mentioned, it’s best to avoid overlaying picture ads with excessive amounts of text. Instead, keep the copy in a blurb separate from the imagery.

Additionally, when writing that accompanying content, use these pointers to guide you:

Overall character count doesn’t have a significant impact on CTR, so write as little or as much as you need to get your point across
Excessive capitalization can make people FEEL LIKE YOU’RE YELLING AT THEM—so, apply all caps very, very sparingly
Emoji-laden posts are perceived negatively and result in an 8% lower CTR than their emoji-free counterparts
Local substitution (i.e. namedropping a neighbor's specific location) boosts CTR by 15%

Key elements of advertising best practices

Advertisers employ best practices to appeal to their targeted users. Over 90% of Nextdoor users, for example, are the primary decision-makers when it comes to making purchases for their households. To reach them effectively, consider incorporating these best practices into your ads.

Personalizing the location

Whether it’s neighbors in San Diego, Seattle, or Sioux Falls, people prefer the personalized touch that comes with seeing their city or neighborhood’s name in an ad. So, for a quick CTR boon, simply use local substitutions to swap in their specific locale. To do so, include or in your ad’s body copy to tap into location services.

Using real people

94% of neighbors trust Nextdoor recommendations because they come from real people—often, people they know. To tap into this sense of trust and maximize CTR, advertisers should also use ads with real people performing relatable tasks.

Leading with utility

Within your ads, make sure to explicitly explain the value you provide your neighbors. Rather than focusing on the intricacies of your brand or image, tell users what you can do for them. If you’re offering up freebies or discounts, mention that in the very first sentence to pique their curiosity and encourage them to click through.

For realtors, this could mean leading with information on available houses or financing options, rather than highlighting team members or company accolades.

Image best practices

An ad without an image is like a business without a Nextdoor page; that is, neither is living up to its full potential. To optimize your pictures on Nextdoor advertisements, follow these guidelines:

Use real images, preferably of real people engaging in everyday activities
Keep text to one-quarter of the image’s size, or eliminate it entirely
Omit your logo (unless you feel it’s absolutely necessary)

Copy best practices

Body copy presents an important opportunity to explain what your business does and the value it can provide to potential customers. To make the most of it, keep these best practices in mind:

Speak about your offerings, rather than your brand as a whole
Use local substitutions to resonate more closely with neighbors
Write the amount that suits your specific ad and campaign—length generally doesn’t affect CTR

Text best practices

The amount of text you use, where you put it, and its aesthetic properties can all have a significant bearing on the success of your ads. Follow these principles when typing and formatting text for Nextdoor:

Words and images don’t mix, so keep text sequestered to a small corner of any photo ads or, better yet, separate it entirely
Avoid all caps as it can evoke negative emotions
Emoji use should be a determinant of your brand. However, too many emojis may cause some people to see you as unprofessional.

Common advertising pitfalls to avoid

Modern digital advertising relies on channel-specific approaches. This means that if you don’t customize ads and messaging for the platform they’re on, you run the risk of presenting users with irrelevant information in an unappealing manner.

A motorsports rental business, for instance, can boast about the uniqueness of its staff, brand, and experiences on its blog. On a Nextdoor ad, however, they might want to focus on something more concrete—like the performance of their vehicles or the quality of their equipment.

To produce the best possible ads for the platforms you utilize, research their best practices and implement them into your campaigns.

Future trends in advertising

The world of advertising is always evolving, and new trends are constantly on the rise. As of late, marketers have been focusing much of their efforts on:

Artificial Intelligence-driven campaigns
Producing unique omnichannel experiences that meet users wherever they are
Creating short-form videos that quickly capture the attention of social media scrollers
Sponsoring micro-influencers to push products to niche consumers

In order to foster a connected base of consumers, boost your CTR, and maintain your business’s competitive edge, keep up-to-date on these and other advertising trends as they develop.

Activate Nextdoor Ads manager (NAM) to improve your advertising efforts

The pathway to advertising success on Nextdoor—and indeed any digital platform—lies in the strategic fusion of platform-specific best practices with genuine, resonant content. It's about mastering the art of visual storytelling with authentic images while speaking directly to the heart of the community with locally personalized messages. It's about choosing utility over vanity, ensuring your ads provide clear, immediate value to the neighbors you're reaching out to.

With Nextdoor’s Ads Manager as your co-pilot, offering rich insights and diverse ad formats, your click-through rates don't just have the potential to climb—they're set to soar. Sign up, stay informed on emerging trends, and watch as your business becomes a beloved local staple in the Nextdoor community.

Sources:

SEM Rush. Click-Through Rate (CTR): Definition, Formula, and Tips. https://www.semrush.com/
Investopedia. Click-Through Rate (CTR): Definition, Formula, and Analysis. https://www.investopedia.com/
Nextdoor. Reach new customers with Nextdoor Ads. https://business.nextdoor.com/
Forbes. 5 Marketing Trends To Watch This Year. https://www.forbes.com/