Boosting business success: How 3 brands attracted more customers with Yelp
When it comes to connecting with the right consumers at the right time, Yelp goes beyond just restaurants. 74+ million people search on Yelp every month for various businesses1, ranging from retail to beauty to home and local services and more. This variety makes Yelp a powerful platform for marketing managers and directors looking to elevate their national brand because it can connect them with the right consumers at the right time.
In this article, we’ll explore how three businesses from different industries leveraged Yelp to achieve their goals and drive success.
1. A mobile auto repair service drives qualified leads
Meet RepairSmith (now known as AutoNation), a mobile car repair service revolutionizing the industry. By bringing mechanics right to customers’ driveways, they offer convenience, upfront pricing, and service guarantees. To set themselves apart from competitors, RepairSmith implemented several of Yelp’s Business Page Upgrades, including Verified License and Business Highlights.
Both the Verified License badge and Business Highlights appear next to RepairSmith’s business name in organic and paid search results, as well as on their Yelp Business Pages. Their Verified License badge signals to potential customers that they hold a valid trade license in automotive repair, instilling confidence in their services. In fact, 82% of users say they’re more likely to choose a business that has a Verified License badge on Yelp versus a business that does not.2 Business Highlights allows RepairSmith to showcase their unique selling points, including various consumer guarantees.
In addition, RepairSmith puts Yelp’s free features to good use by specifying their service offerings and their designated service areas. This enables Yelp users to easily find the information they need, and in turn, RepairSmith is able to connect with the right customers while also reducing irrelevant inquiries.
RepairSmith also gets in front of more potential customers with Yelp Ads. Among other ad control features, RepairSmith blocks certain keywords to ensure they don’t appear in search results for automotive services they don’t provide. This maximizes their advertising investment and drives qualified leads in the cities they serve.
Collectively, all of this has given RepairSmith a noticeable increase in engagement. In fact, automotive businesses who combine Yelp Ads with Page Upgrades increase their page views per location by 843% on average and nearly double their conversion rate from page views to leads.3
2. Multi-location restaurant converts hungry diners
A 10-location restaurant group, specializing in authentic Southern BBQ and fried chicken in Northern California, effectively leveraged Yelp Business Page features to attract and convert hungry consumers.
Yelp’s Slideshow feature allows them to showcase mouth-watering images of their tastiest menu items as the first thing consumers see, ahead of user-generated content.
In addition to using Yelp’s core search ads, this restaurant chain uses Showcase Ads to direct consumers to a specific call to action, like “Order Online,” increasing awareness and driving online orders. Customizing the copy and photos in this ad helps them highlight new menu items and feature specials as well.
A combination of upgrades and different ad formats helped this restaurant reach a hungry audience and increase leads and diners. In fact, engaging business pages using Yelp Ads generate over 7x the number of page views and leads compared to non-advertisers, on average.4
3. Sportswear retail chain boosts in-store traffic
A prominent sportswear brand with several hundred retail locations across the country sought to boost foot traffic to their stores.
In combination with Yelp Ads, a prominent “Directions” CTA button on mobile devices led consumers to their nearest store, while desktop users were directed to location-specific landing pages. Showcase Ads promoted ongoing sales and special promotions at outlet locations, driving in-market consumers to visit those stores.
Furthermore, Competitor Ad Targeting displayed their business page on their competitors’ business pages as well as anytime a user completes a relevant search query near one of those competitor locations. This helps them gain market share against similar businesses and maintain visibility with purchase-ready consumers.
To further enhance their pages, they leveraged Yelp’s Page Upgrade bundles for multi-location businesses and removed competitor ads from their business pages, maintained control over brand images with Slideshow, and added custom Call-to-Action (CTA) buttons.
This brand’s strategic combination of Page Upgrades and Yelp Ads resulted in a large uptick in views and leads. On average, retail businesses that advertise see an impressive 8x as many page views and 10x as many leads compared to free listings alone.5
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2 Based on a survey conducted by Yelp in August 2022. Methodology usedComScore demographics and people who reported having used Yelp in the prior 3 months.
3 Yelp Internal Data, 2020 – based on automotive businesses that advertised on Yelp compared to free listings in September.
4 Yelp Internal Data, 2020 – based on restaurant businesses that advertised on Yelp compared to free listings in September.
5 Yelp Internal Data, 2020 – based on retail businesses that advertised on Yelp compared to free listings in September.