Watchdoor for business: how local ads, free video slots and promotions work

What Watchdoor is for a business

Watchdoor is a neighbourhood app. Residents follow the areas they live in and see local posts, safety alerts, events, marketplace listings, chat and business discovery organised by verified neighbourhood rather than by a national algorithm.

For a business that means one thing: your advert is seen by people who live in a defined place. It is not a buying tool for a national audience, and we will not pretend otherwise in this guide. Below is exactly how the business side works, including the parts that are not finished.

Step 1: create a business account

Onboarding asks for an account type, then your profile, then your business name and category. There are twelve business categories to choose from. There is no payment step, and no card is required to complete onboarding.

Choose the category that matches what customers would search for, because it appears on your profile. You can edit most profile details later, but a business that lists itself in the wrong category reads as careless to a neighbour who knows the area.

Step 2: get verified before you plan a campaign

Campaign submission is gated on verification. A platform admin reviews business profiles, and until the status is verified the app will refuse to create a campaign, including one using a free slot.

This is deliberate. The value of a local feed depends on residents trusting that a business account belongs to a real business, which is also why verification unlocks the free annual video slot rather than being a paid badge.

Step 3: build the profile residents actually judge

Your public profile carries your business name, avatar, description, category, operating hours and reviews. You can set or clear opening hours for each weekday, and customers can leave reviews, which contribute to your star rating and review count.

Profile views are tracked, so you can see whether a campaign or a recommendation is bringing people to the page. Treat the profile as the place the sale is decided: photos of real stock, an honest description, and hours that match when you actually open.

Step 4: submit a campaign

The campaign composer takes a headline of up to 120 characters, body copy of up to 500 characters, and up to three images, with an optional link for the call to action. You submit it for review rather than publishing it instantly.

Write the headline as the offer, not the brand. "Two hours from your fabric to a finished aso ebi, this week" tells a neighbour something; "Excellence in every stitch" tells them nothing.

Campaigns move through four states: in review, live, rejected and paused. Admins can approve, reject or pause a campaign, and a rejection returns the slot to you instead of consuming it.

One detail worth planning around: the slot's runtime starts at approval, not at submission. If a creative is rejected and resubmitted, you have lost review time, not slot time.

What the ad looks like to a resident

Your campaign appears in the local feed as a card carrying your business name and avatar, the headline and body you submitted, up to three images, and a Learn More action. It is labelled as an ad, with a sponsored marker, so residents can tell promotion from a neighbour's post.

That labelling matters commercially as well as ethically. A feed where paid posts are indistinguishable from residents is worth nothing to a business, because nobody believes any of it.

How slots are priced and paid for

Ad slots are in-app purchases handled through Google Play on Android and the App Store on iOS. The price you see is the store price shown at checkout in your currency and region, which is why this page does not quote a figure: store prices change, and any number published here would go stale.

An image slot runs for one month of feed time. A video slot runs for one year, and verified businesses can claim one free video slot per calendar year. If you switch devices or reinstall, the ads hub has a restore action for purchases.

Purchases are tied to the store account that bought them. If a payment fails, the slot balance does not change, and the hub shows your current balance so you can see exactly what you hold.

Promotions and push-ups

Separate from advertising, you can run promotions with discount codes that residents claim inside the app. Claims are recorded, which makes a promotion one of the few local marketing actions you can count precisely.

Push-ups apply to your marketplace listings rather than to posts. A push-up lifts a listing to the top of the feed for 24 hours. If you are on a paid plan, your push-up allowance is metered per billing month, and the app shows what you have left; the allowance differs by plan, so check yours in the app rather than assuming.

What you can measure, and what you cannot

Today the ads hub reports tap-through on your campaigns, and your profile shows views, star rating and review counts. Promotion claims are visible too. Those are the numbers we can stand behind.

What is not available: impression counts are not reported to advertisers, so do not plan against an expected reach figure, and there is no analytics dashboard that breaks a campaign down by day or by audience.

Also not available yet: choosing which neighbourhoods a campaign runs in. A campaign currently reaches the feed broadly rather than a delivery zone you select, and video campaigns can be purchased but not yet submitted, because the in-feed video player has not shipped. We would rather say that here than have you discover it after buying.

Five mistakes businesses make

Submitting before verification, then assuming the app is broken. Verify first.

Writing a slogan instead of an offer. Neighbours respond to price, timeframe and what you actually do.

Using stock imagery when a photo of your real work converts better in a feed of locals.

Not answering. A campaign that produces calls nobody picks up is a paid demonstration that you are unreliable.

Expecting a reach number. This is a local channel; judge it on enquiries, profile visits and repeat customers from the areas you serve.

How to start

Install the app, register a business account, complete your profile and hours, and submit for verification. While that is in review, collect three clear photos of what you sell and write one sentence about who in your area it is for.

Then decide whether you want to test a paid slot at all. A verified profile, some marketplace listings and a claimed promotion can tell you more about whether your area responds than any campaign would.