Busi­ness devel­op­ment man­agers look­ing to expand their port­fo­lio of online adver­tis­ing strate­gies will doubt­less be inter­est­ed to learn that list­ings giant Foursquare has decid­ed to open out its ser­vices to small busi­ness­es around the globe.

The idea is decep­tive­ly sim­ple: Pro­mot­ed list­ings will fea­ture in the app’s “explore” func­tion, in which users can search for local attrac­tions.  For exam­ple, if the search term is “rack of ribs”, Foursquare pop­u­lates a list of local restau­rants pro­vid­ing appro­pri­ate fare. Restau­rants (or hotels or oth­er local ser­vices and attrac­tions) can bid to have their details pop up in the search, mean­ing their pro­file is raised and the guy on the oth­er end does­n’t go hun­gry.  Job done.

Foursquare clear­ly thinks there’s mileage in this tank — the busi­ness spent time test­ing out its poten­tial with SMEs in the New York City area ear­li­er this year. In terms of the mechan­ics of pay­ment, it works on a sim­i­lar basis to oth­er adver­tis­ing list­ings.  SMEs wish­ing to adver­tise their wares are charged on a cost “per action” arrange­ment, which essen­tial­ly means that they only hand over the dol­lars if users tap through to the pro­mot­ed list­ing or check in at the loca­tion adver­tised on the app.

Adver­tis­ing sales man­agers will be watch­ing keen­ly to see if this lat­est approach means Foursquare start jus­ti­fy­ing the hefty $760 mil­lion price tag placed on them in the past.  Whichev­er pole the com­pa­ny swings to, it seems that they won’t escape scruti­ny: A recent pro­file of founder Den­nis Crow­ley ten­ta­tive­ly sug­gest­ed that Foursquare was on to make some­thing in the region of $15 to $20 mil­lion this year. Whilst they remain tight lipped about the prospects of these fig­ures com­ing off, there is still a degree of skep­ti­cism in some quar­ters about whether a ser­vice that’s an order of mag­ni­tude small­er than social media giants Face­book and Twit­ter can real­ly make this lat­est tac­tic pay.

Not sur­pris­ing­ly, Foursquare itself sees it as an oppor­tu­ni­ty.  CRO Steven Rosen­blatt was keen to state that check ins are “the most pow­er­ful loca­tion sig­nal that exists today,” and point­ed out that of the 1.5 mil­lion stores that are reg­is­tered users of Foursquare, 1,000 are already pay­ing to use the pro­mo­tion feature.

Search engine mar­ket­ing spe­cial­ists might be won­der­ing how Foursquare is going to spread the word to their tar­get audi­ence.  The answer of course, is an invest­ment in an old school sales team of ten that has plans for rapid expan­sion over the com­ing months.