What is NextDoor?

NextDoor is a social media app that is specifically geared toward neighbors staying connected and sharing information about their neighborhoods. Some of what you see here often are posts:

1. Recommendations for service providers from dog sitting, to pizza, or home improvement contractors.
2. Updates on neighborhood events like block party or community day
3. Notices of incidents such as car break ins or “suspicious” people
4. Complaints of local municipal or utilities
5. As with any social media in 2022 there are the “Karens” and the people who hate them
6. Lost and Found pets or items
7. Buy and Sell posts

One differentiator is that you must be invited to your NextDoor neighborhood to join and you must live in the neighborhood. You will be required to enter and display your address. Neighbors can invite each other with free snail mail postcards, email links and text messages.

Rarer are posts featuring my daily workout or family photos as this platform is about staying informed more than keeping in touch.

While you may see popular posts from around the country, you typically only have posts from your local hyper local neighborhood and the surrounding neighborhoods (if you choose to).

What does NextDoor look like?

NextDoor has a newsfeed similar to Facebook where members post their updates, ask questions, etc. Over time NextDoor has added features that now include:

1. Common interest groups
2. Buy and sell functions
3. Real estate
4. Events
5. Lost & Found
6. Local government information
7. Pets
8. Local Deals
9. Ads and sponsored posts.

Users can view, like, comment, on posts similar to other social media.

Advertising on NextDoor

Ads are still by invite only (although getting that invite is not very exclusive). The interface is very similar to Facebook. There are two main types of ad programs:

1. Hyper local zip code clusters with a cost set per cluster (varies)
2. Metro area with a daily budget

Aside from Geotargeting other targeting includes:

1. Interest targeting
2. Home/Income level
3. Age, Gender
4. Potential for remarketing (NextDoor Pixel)

Placements of ads in NextDoor include in the newsfeed, under finds in the app, & the right-hand-rail on desktop.

Media Kit & Case Studies

Here is some information that you will find useful for starting NextDoor Ads:
Media Kit
Case Studies and Brand Spotlights for All Verticals 
General Overview of NextDoor Ads

Home Services Specific Information:
NextDoor Home Narrative
Where Home Service Brands Hit Home One Sheeter
Case Studies and Brand Spotlights

Healthcare Specific Information:
NextDoor Healthcare Specific Narrative
Where Healthcare Brands Hit Home on NextDoor One Sheeter
Healthcare Specific Case Studies and Brand Spotlights

Creative Best Practices

Here’s a quick guide to the basics of NextDoor ads & a more detailed version of our creative best practices.  Some tips:

• Please follow the NextDoor Ad Policy at all times
• Specs; note image cropping will be available within the UI, don’t worry about getting the specifications exactly
• During our beta phase, real humans will be reviewing and approving ads, please allow 0-4 hours to approve all submitted ads
• Please remember, you will need to add images for newsfeed and finds formats, opt for images that work well in 16:9 and 1:1 ratios

Ad copy/image best practices:

• Creative messaging should meet members in the NextDoor mindset, which centers around the home, family, and community (e.g. using a neighborly tone)
• Layer on local context by including these variables in your ad copy: {{neighborhood}}, {{city}}, this will allow for the correct hood or city to dynamically populate in your ad copy
• All our formats contain text/copy elements prominently in the post, images should contain very little text/copy and feature more lifestyle-type imagery
• Creative approval takes approximately 24 hours after submission.

Additional tips:

• During campaign creation, the system will have the option to create three ad groups (newsfeed, finds, & right-hand-rail). This is to enable further optimization of each placement type after initial creation.
• Bid modifications per placement help make optimizations at the placement level more accessible, simply increase or decrease based on your testing goals
• Forecasting and bid guidance based on your targeting set is coming soon, for now, we recommend starting with just broad location targeting at $10.00 for CPM. After 1-2 weeks of delivery, we can begin to add audience segments in a new ad group to optimize your campaigns. We also strongly recommend CPM bidding vs CPC as we are noticing under-delivery with CPC bid types which we are actively looking into with our engineering team.
• Once you begin to see delivery and develop a baseline for performance, adjust your bid accordingly!

Access, Guides, Support

Log-in: visit https://ads.nextdoor.com/signup and complete the sign-up flow. We secure access via two-factor authentication so you’ll need access to that email for the initial log-in (currently set up under trista@piconsulting.com).

Getting Started Guide
Pixel Implementation Guide

Troubleshooting: If you have any technical issues please reach out to adsupport@nextdoor.com. Our support team is available 7 days a week.