5 things to know about advertising on Yelp

Photo by Christin Hume

Millions of consumers visit Yelp each month looking to buy from or hire local businesses.¹ Yelp’s advertising platform, Yelp Ads, helps you reach this high-intent audience and attract your ideal customers, all while building trust and brand awareness for your business.

Simply put, Yelp Ads are a digital marketing solution for business owners who want to get more leads and grow their business through Yelp—businesses get 4x more leads with Yelp Ads.² When you advertise on Yelp, your business will be featured in highly visible places on and off Yelp. When users click on your ad, they can learn more about your business by visiting your Yelp Page—or take direct action, such as placing an order or requesting a quote.

Whether you’re considering a Yelp Ads campaign for the first time or your brand is a seasoned expert in local advertising, there are five key things to know about Yelp Ads to help you get the best results:

1. Yelp Ads show up in “Sponsored Results” sections in search and on competitors’ business pages
2. You can customize your ad text and photos, or let Yelp optimize it
3. You can target your ad to reach specific audiences
4. You control your ad budget
5. You can pause, edit, or cancel at any time

1. Yelp Ads show up in “Sponsored Results” sections in search and on competitors’ business pages

When you launch Yelp Ads, your ad will appear in prominent locations on and off Yelp, helping you get maximum exposure. Your business page will be displayed in key areas across the site and mobile app—including above and below search results and on competitors’ business pages—reaching the 76+ million people who search on Yelp each month.¹ Some businesses can also reach users beyond Yelp through Yelp Audiences, which displays ads to their target audience across other websites.

Compared to other digital advertising options on search engines and social media platforms like Facebook ads or Google ads, Yelp Ads maximizes your exposure to a high-intent audience of Yelp users: 82% of them hire or buy from a business they found on Yelp within a week.³ Plus, your ad is delivered to people who use Yelp in a format they already know and love—Yelp Ads resemble a snippet of your existing Yelp Page and can even pull in user-generated content like Yelp reviews.

2. You can customize your ad text and photos, or let Yelp optimize it

Customizing your ad helps you attract relevant customers and highlights your business in a way that’s on brand. There are two ways to customize your ad—or you can choose to optimize it with Yelp’s machine-learning algorithm:

• Choosing the primary photo people will see when looking at your ad or allowing Yelp to continuously test the photos in your gallery and use the one most likely to get your ad clicks

• Writing your own ad copy or allowing Yelp to choose a snippet from your positive Yelp reviews as ad text

The call to action that appears on your ad is based on your ad goal and/or business category. Ads may send people to your business website, direct them to your phone number, or encourage them to get pricing and availability through Yelp’s Request a Quote feature.

Feel free to test different combinations. If you’re not sure what image or text resonates with your local audience, let Yelp’s machine-learning algorithm find the most impactful option. With smart selection, Yelp will continually test the photos in your gallery or your positive reviews and use whichever gets your ad the most clicks.

3. You can target your ad to reach specific audiences

Yelp Ads gives you the option to target your ad by both location and keyword, depending on your business category. This feature gives you more control over who sees your ad and helps you reach people in your local community who are looking for the exact services you provide.

Location-based targeting

Location-based targeting allows you to determine how far away you want your ad to be shown. Depending on your type of business, you can geo-target your ad to be displayed in the radius of your choice around your business location (radius options vary per business category). Some businesses serve larger areas and want to cast a wide net, while others want to focus on local customers very close to their business’s location. This feature caters to both.

Keyword boosting

By default, the Yelp Ads platform shows your ad to people who are searching for the types of services or products you offer. That means you never have to guess which keywords you should target to make your online presence known.

You can also take advantage of keyword boosting to reach more potential customers looking for those search terms. Keyword boosting allows you to boost important keywords, and Yelp will try to show ads with those keywords more often. This helps your business page appear for local searches that are most relevant.

Pro tip: You can also exclude keywords after purchase, but this is only recommended only if there are adjacent keywords for services you don’t offer. For example, if you’re a plumber who wants to focus on emergency services and repairs, you can block “sink installation” while boosting “sink repair.”

4. You control your ad budget

When it comes to pricing, your spending strategy with Yelp Ads is completely up to you. You pay based on a monthly max budget that you set when you sign up. These flexible monthly budgets don’t require a long-term commitment and allow you to adjust your spend at any time based on your business needs. For example, if you’re a landscaper and looking for more calls during the warmer months, you can easily increase your monthly ad budget during the month of April to drive more spring and summer traffic to your page.

If you use other advertising platforms, you may be familiar with the pay-per-click (PPC) or cost-per-click (CPC) format, which only charges you when someone clicks your ad. With Yelp Ads, you simply set a monthly budget, and Yelp maximizes your ad clicks, leads, and projects within that amount. Although your daily spend may vary, you’ll never pay more than your monthly maximum.

That said, your return on investment does depend on how much you put into it, so be sure you set a budget that puts you in a position to make the investment worth it. The Yelp Ads team can also help you with recommendations on how to determine your budget.

5. You can pause, edit, or cancel at any time

Every business has different marketing strategies and goals for paid advertising. Maybe you’re part of a growing brand looking to dial up your ad spend in a new market, or maybe you’re a small business owner who needs to be able to scale back when you’re tight on funds. Yelp Ads gives you cost-effective options and flexibility to suit your business needs as they evolve.

There are no term contracts so you’re never locked into running your Yelp Ads for a specific period of time. You can make changes when you want and as often as you want. You can also take advantage of the one-click restart feature, which automatically saves your previous advertising settings so you can start back up again in one simple step.

Pro tip: Keep an eye on your real-time advertising metrics through the Yelp Ads dashboard, which provides a deep dive into your ad performance and conversion rates and allows you to make adjustments to improve your ad performance.

Pro tip: Keep your Yelp Page up-to-date for best results

Yelp Ads get you more eyes on your Yelp Page, so be ready to make a good impression. Once people click through to your page from your ad—or if they happen to arrive there organically—you want to be sure your information is updated and accurate. Strengthen your profile with high-quality photos with captions, an SEO-driven “From this business” section, and more.

Plus, when you invest in the Upgrade Package, you can make an even greater impression on those visitors. The Upgrade Package boosts your marketing efforts by improving the look of your page, as well as how your business appears in places like search results, helping you stand out from the competition and keep potential customers engaged. When shown two businesses side-by-side in search, 94% of Yelp users said they’d choose the business with Upgrade Package features over the one without.⁴

Now that you know how a Yelp Ads campaign works, here’s what to expect when setting up your Yelp Ads—there are just a few simple steps that take less than five minutes. Or go ahead and log in at biz.yelp.com and click on the Yelp Ads tab.