Foursquare has launched their first paid advertising option for businesses called “Promoted Updates”. Previously, last week to be exact, Foursquare rolled out the option for merchants who have claimed their listings within Foursquare to broadcast their specials for their day or make an announcement to their best customers who have taken an action of some sort – liked the business, or have a record of frequent check ins on Foursquare.

The caveat to this broadcast tool is that the customer who has taken action with that merchant on Foursquare, must be within the vicinity of the business to receive the update. So, it’s location dependent advertising.

With this new “Promoted Updates”, quite similar to Facebook’s “Promoted Posts”, Foursquare merchants can now broadcast their updates to users on Foursquare. The company has decided to roll out this feature first to several large brands including JC Penney, Best Buy, Gap and Walgreens.

This promoted feature will now allow merchants to broadcast their specials and updates to not only their best customers, but also targeting users who are visiting similar businesses in different areas , or those who have added the business to their Foursquare list.

Foursquare also noted a disclaimer with these ads stating that they are not intrusive as they are confined to the “explore” tab.

Preston Taylor

An advocate for a free and open web and a serial entrepreneur, Preston has an in depth working history online with ecommerce, content creation and affiliate marketing. Most recently, Preston has had both the opportunity and pleasure to serve the Internet Marketing Grind Forums as a moderator.