Foursquare To Launch Paid Search Ads In June

Following in the footsteps os Tumblr who announced that it will be incorporating ads into its service, Foursquare has become the latest social media site to begin monetizing its site, this time through paid search ads. What this means is that merchants will be able to promote check-in deals on the platform when users search for local specials, employing the same algorithms currently used on the app’s ‘Explore’ tab, ClickZ report.

Foursquare is reportedly collaborating with past brand partners to create the paid  ads platform. Over the past two years, the company has worked with brands such as Pepsi, Dunkin’ Donuts and Walgreens, the latter brand social media manager Adam Kmiec confirming that he had spoken to Foursquare about its plans.

Before this change was confirmed, Foursquare’s mobile app searches have produced organic results as well as seeing merchant specials and syndicated deals from Groupon and Living social in the ‘Explore’ section. It is expected that the new paid search ads will appear on Foursquare’s search and ‘Explore’ functions sometime around June.

The mobile app has built up a sizable audience and has plans to increase its 15 million strong user base, becoming a global marketing platform worldwide. Although this isn’t the first time that Foursquare has looked at paid services as the site was selling custom  badges to brands on its platform starting at $75,000, while its mobile distribution deal with the daily deal services was revealed last August.