is enabling ‘promoted pins’ in Maps as part of larger advertising push

BY GreenBot Staff

Published 24 May 2016

Businesses that have been trying to pop their head above all the clutter in Maps will soon have new tools to get noticed.

detailed a few specifics Tuesday about “promoted pins,” which will drop a recognizable icon into the middle of your map view.

gogle maps ads

You’ll soon see promoted pins inside of Maps.

You may also see a related coupon that you could presumably redeem right away in the store.  said during a press briefing that it won’t be using your phone’s location history, for now anyway, as part of the ad targeting. And it doesn’t appear that the company is sharing Maps users’ location with advertisers, either.

During I/O, threw out a caveat about “user privacy” during nearly every major product announcement, so the company is aware that people don’t want to feel creeped-out by what their phone knows about them. It’s a delicate balance between privacy usefulness that hopes to strike with this new effort.

The impact on you: Advertising is a natural fit for Maps because of the hundreds of millions of eyes that glance at the application daily. ile the promoted pins connected advertisements may get a lot of use from large chains, small storefronts may want tap into this as a way to get noticed when they first open or want to attract new customers.