In April 2022, Nextdoor unveiled its self-service ad platform, Nextdoor Ads, which now generates 50% of its total ad revenue, according to Kiernan. Although the company has not yet finished building out its proprietary stack, around 85% of its business already runs on the new platform.
Second, the company is now welcoming third-party and professional content creators to create profiles on the platform and organic content, according to Tolia. This marks a departure from Nextdoor’s original content strategy, which relied almost exclusively on user-generated content.
But the company, like other social platforms, has shifted its strategy to reflect the fact that users often welcome relevant content from people they do not know.
For Nextdoor, this means introducing content from publishers, such as local news organizations or affinity titles like Eater, according to Tolia. For publishers, whose social distribution has dwindled in recent years, the additional reach could prove a welcome change.
“There are a bunch of people in your community that provide you helpful information—whether or not you know them,” Tolia said.
To illustrate, he pointed to the recent Los Angeles fires, during which accurate information from local news sources and service providers has proven invaluable in helping residents navigate the situation.
Finally, the company hopes to increase its utility to small businesses, which currently make up roughly one-third of Nextdoor’s advertising business. The remaining two-thirds are split equally between enterprise brands and mid-market companies, according to Kiernan.
It hopes to entice small business owners to advertise more by making it easier for them to build local audiences, reducing the friction needed for them to publish content and buy ads.
“Now that we are bringing more professional content into the feed, that has forced us to rethink our pitch to advertisers,” Kiernan said. “As NEXT begins to land, that will open the door for us to do more with small businesses as neighbors.”
