Kadecia: Hello. Hello, welcome. I am Kadecia Ber with Sean Shoemaker, and very excited to have everyone joining today to talk about the power of unlocking Yelp ads. So we’re going to talk a little bit about our products and what Yelp has to offer. Some housekeeping for the day, we love to hear from folks, so feel free to drop anything in our Q&A. If we have time at the end and you want to touch base with us, we can take some questions live, or you can also reach out to brands.yelp.com to get in touch. So we’ll give folks just another minute to join, and then we will begin.
I didn’t really mean a minute. I’m a few seconds. So today, we’re going to dive into Yelp’s core offering, Yelp ads, and how you can make the most of them. So we have about 30 minutes of content. We’ll have room for Q&A at the end, and we’ll start with the basics of what Yelp ads include. And we’ll also talk about some additional ad formats and different tools that you can use that really help our clients succeed, their goals. Lastly, we’ll touch on measurement and budget and anything else we want to talk about in our Q&A. So I will introduce myself. I am Kadecia Ber. I am a fifteen-year Yelp veteran. I’ve had the privilege to work with businesses from small businesses to enterprises across the country with Yelp. I currently run Yelp’s Multi-Location solutions team where we work on digital measurement and attribution, and really help our advertisers make the most of everything that they’re buying with Yelp. And Sean, will you introduce yourself?
Sean: Yeah, for sure. So my name’s Sean. I’ve been with Yelp for eight years, so I’ve experience working with many different types of businesses here at Yelp from local all the way up to national reach. And I’ve also worn a bunch of different hats here. So I’ve had my time in a bunch of different roles, but recently I’ve been working in product marketing. So I’m really excited to talk to you about all of our ad products today and what you can do to find success with Yelp.
Kadecia: Yes, and I feel privileged to be doing this with Sean because I know he answers all my questions, so good person to have in the room. So let’s dive in on the first thing we want to talk about are the basics of the Yelp ads. And as much as I want to jump into the ads, I want to make sure that everyone knows how to use Yelp. I assume everyone here is a Yelp user, you have the app downloaded on your phone, you visit frequently. But if you’re not, first, it’s time to download the app. And second, let’s talk about why consumers use Yelp and how they engage with the platform. So one thing I’ve always said about Yelp is that it is not a search engine, it is a decision engine. People come to Yelp when they need to find a business and they’re undecided on where to go, and it is time to figure that out.
So given the nature of how people use Yelp, the majority of our searches are unbranded because people don’t know exactly which business they’re looking for. So we have an example here where you may need a plumber, but you’re not sure where to go. This is very real for me because a couple weeks ago, I had a pipe burst and I needed to find a plumber ASAP. And this is an exact example of why someone might go on Yelp and use it as a search engine to find the business that they’re looking for. Anything to add here, Sean, in your experience with using Yelp?
Sean: Yeah, I would say when you’re doing a search for a plumber, those are unbranded searches, we really consider those people undecided, right? They’re looking to fix a problem, but they don’t know where they’re going to bring their business. So it’s a really, really great opportunity for businesses to get in front of people when they’re trying to decide where to spend their money. And-
Kadecia: Yeah, that’s good stuff.
Sean: Great.
Kadecia: And so there’s lots of different ways to use Yelp. Quick poll of the audience, and you can drop this in the chat, what was the last thing you searched for on Yelp? We would love to know. Sean, what was the last thing you searched for?
Sean: I looked for some vegan treats. I was trying to find some cupcakes or something nearby.
Kadecia: Ooh, that sounds good. I know it can sometimes be tough to find things that are vegan or gluten-free, like I am, but that’s actually a perfect use of Yelp, because as consumers are searching and through some of our filters, you’re able to really identify the businesses that are going to bring that to you. So we know that, just like in both Sean’s and myself’s examples, people are searching for a wide variety of things on Yelp. You might be booking a relaxing spa day or scheduling a car repair, or trying to buy a gift for someone special. And Yelp has solutions just for a wide variety of consumers. So we have over 7 billion annual searches that happened on the platform. Now historically, if you’ve been a Yelp user for a while, you may know that it’s always been a great place to find a restaurant or a bar.
But more and more, we have consumers engaging in finding essential services like home services or auto repairs, medical specialists, realtors, financial advisors. You name it, we have people searching those things on Yelp. And we know that those folks are typically undecided, and they’re purchase ready. So as we pointed out with our recent searches, you probably have experience on your own as far as something that you’re looking for, but you didn’t exactly know which business you were going to choose. And so this is true of how people use Yelp. About 86% of our users are undecided on where to go to make their purchase, and about 83% make a purchase from a business that they found on Yelp. So the buying signals are very strong, and that’s one of the reasons that a lot of our advertisers experience a lot of success with conversion when they’re working on the Yelp platform. So now that we have some of the basics and how people use Yelp, let me turn it over to you, Sean, to tell us more about what products we have to reach those folks.
Sean: Great. Thanks, Kadecia. So first off, let’s talk about Yelp ads. So it’s extremely valuable to be reaching these users as they are on Yelp looking for businesses to spend their money with. So the first placement that we’re going to talk about is on the search pages. You’ll see that our ad units here appear above the search results when people are looking for a business. One thing I also like to call out here is the search results and the search pages have slightly different treatments based on what categories people are searching in to align with the content that they’re looking for. So when I’m looking for vegan cupcakes, I want to see pictures of those cupcakes, I want to know they’re covered with tons of frosting, and they look like they’ll give me a big stomach ache. I want it to be really unhealthy. So that’s what I’m looking for, a lot of really great visual content. Kadecia, what do you look for when you’re looking for a plumber?
Kadecia: Well, I am definitely not looking for the photos. With that kind of search, I want to know about the person’s reputation and their rating. I want to know if they’re licensed. I really want to know about what has the experience with the service been. And so that’s definitely more like looking at the page, looking at the reviews of that type of search for me.
Sean: For sure. So a bunch of different signals, and it really differs based on the type of businesses that people are looking for. In addition to having an ad unit on the search page, we also have placements on business pages. So when users are looking for businesses like yours and end up on another relevant business near your locations, your ads can also appear on those pages to try to capture that user back to your page. Another ad unit that we have that, again, aligns with different categories and the type of content people are looking for is themed ads. So this is a carousel that we show above the search results for a select number of categories that can automatically turn on for your ad campaigns. So it’s a great way to, again, provide people the type of content that they’re looking for right when they’re doing a search on Yelp, and try to capture that user for your business.
Another ad unit that I get really excited about here is showcase ads. This is something that’s specific for our multi-loc clients. So our larger chain and national businesses, they’re able to leverage something we call showcase ads. So with this ad unit, you get a number of things that aren’t available for locals so it helps you stand out in those search pages. A great thing here is you get a larger photo placement here, you get placed for some copy to explain why people should choose you, whether it’s a limited time offer or some new service offering, or something like that, and then also a call to action button to really tell people how to interact with your business and drive the action that you’re looking for. Kadecia, I think you’ve worked with a lot of showcase campaigns. What do you like to see here when people are setting these up?
Kadecia: Well, great photos, for one. This ad is very visual. It’s a great place to just highlight your offering. And as we know, consumers really like lifestyle photos. They like to understand what products they’re going to get. And so really taking care to show what you’re offering, even if you’re a service business, that you have a friendly team, right? There’s a face behind the business, that’s what consumers love to see. And then having a really strong call to action. Why should someone take action on your business today? That action should match the photo. So if someone’s going to come in, you’re offering a great dinner special, we want to see that in a picture. And so really connecting those two things is when we’re seeing these ads be really successful and resonate with consumers when they’re searching on the site. In addition to the showcase ads, we also just have a ton of additional tools that really help your business stand out and make sure that the ad units are optimized when you’re working with Yelp.
Sean: Sure. And I would say it’s really important that you’re standing out. We have 6.3 million claimed businesses on Yelp. And that’s a lot.
Kadecia: Yeah.
Sean: We see that that number is also growing quite quickly. Just since 2020, we’ve grown by about a million additional local business pages claimed on Yelp. So that’s a lot you need to be aware of and know that you have to stand out from that competition. Do you have any thoughts on how to stand out and what users like to look for?
Kadecia: Yeah. I just think about my own experience when I was picking a plumber, right? There were a few folks nearby that really qualified. So one, I was looking for someone who was located near me in my town, someone who was trustworthy, someone who was licensed and insured. And once I was able to find that information on Yelp, I made a few phone calls and luckily was able to connect with someone. And so not only having great pictures, but making sure your information is up to date really matters. Because we know that when people find you, they’re pretty quick to take action, and we want to make sure it’s very easy for them to get in touch with you through Yelp.
Sean: Yes, that’s exactly right. So I’d say the first product we’d want to talk about here is verified license. So I think that’s really important to call out, Kadecia, that you’re looking for a plumber that’s licensed. It’s really important that when you’re bringing someone into your home to do something that’s a pretty big deal and could go wrong pretty badly, you want to make sure they have a license, that they’re approved to be doing this job in your area. And that’s super important. So this is a feature that allows you to highlight those licenses right in the ad unit, as well as on the business page, and really create a trust signal so that people can see this and know that you meet the criteria to be doing your job in your area. And so it’s a really great tool to help people feel confident when they’re making their decisions of who to choose when they’re trying to hire a local service.
Kadecia: Yeah. Unfortunately, I don’t think the contractor who flipped my house was licensed because I have hot water running into my toilet. So whenever I hire service providers to come in, I make sure they know what they’re doing because I know how it can quickly go wrong.
Sean: Yeah, that’s great. Hopefully that gets sorted out, Kadecia.
Kadecia: I have someone to do the job now, so I think we’ll get there.
Sean: Great. Another great tool to talk about here is business highlights. So we all know that each business has a bunch of unique characteristics that really set them apart from each other. And with business highlights, it’s a really great way to showcase what makes your business stand out from others. And so we have a bunch of different things you can choose from here, and they vary by category in terms of what’s relevant. But the important thing here is it’s a really great way to just further merchandise the ad unit and your Yelp page so that people understand what makes you unique. So our examples here are showing a vegetarian-friendly business that also has Mandarin speakers on site, which can be really impactful. If someone’s looking for a vegetarian place, like if I want to get a veggie meal, which is very interesting to me, that gives me a really good signal that this is going to be a great place for me to visit.
Kadecia: Yeah. When you were searching for those vegan cupcakes, did this come in handy?
Sean: It did. Yeah. So it showed up right on the search results, and it just makes it easier for me to make my decision. Another thing that creates a really great trust signal here is logo. So as multi-location brands, we spend a lot of time building our brand reputation, creating consistent branding, building that awareness with our customers. And so it’s really important that these logos are on Yelp so that you can provide that consistent high-level experience that you’re building everywhere else. Make sure that aligns on Yelp. So when people are doing branded searches trying to search for you directly, we can show that logo right in the search field under the suggested completion there. So here, we see Starbucks. We can see the Starbucks logo right away when we’re searching. This can also then go to your business pages to, again, provide that consistent experience throughout the Yelp ecosystem.
And so why is all of this important? We see that ninety-five percent of Yelp users prefer businesses with upgraded features when shown two business pages side by side in the search results. So businesses that don’t have these upgrade features aren’t getting selected as often. People have a preference for businesses that have merchandise their pages, merchandise their ads, added all the different tools to give reasons to choose those businesses. And when you’re not telling those businesses why they should choose you, you’re running the risk of being passed over. And so with that, let’s talk about optimizing campaigns. So we have a bunch of features in the ad units, but how do we actually run them? Before we get into the nitty-gritty here, I want to talk about our customer success team. So with every ad campaign that we launch here, we have dedicated customer success support. And their role is to really work with you to ensure that we’re meeting the KPIs, we’re setting up these campaigns correctly, and we’re doing everything we can to meet and exceed your expectations.
Kadecia: Our customer success team is amazing. It’s really great white glove service, and I was a part of that organization, so it’s just a great way to make sure everyone achieves their success. Another tool that we offer is competitive targeting. And so that’s something that our customer success team will help our clients optimize. It’s a great way to conquest business from your competition locally. And your ads will be targeted in the areas around your competitor businesses, and also near your business locations. And the goal here is to really focus your ads on the users that would otherwise be choosing your competitors. So it’s a great way, again, to just get in front of the consumer right when they’re in that decision-making process.
And then, of course, when they’re making a decision, we want to tell them the easiest way to transact with your business. And so we do this with campaign goals. This is very popular. The thing I love the most about this is it gives you the chance to speak to your customer about how you want them to interact. Should they go out to the website and fill out a form? Should they call? Should they get directions directly to your location, or do they just need to get a quote and get some pricing? So this is something that clients are able to optimize. We can also allow Yelp to optimize, which means that we will look at how consumers are engaging on Yelp and what they’re most likely to do to make sure we’re driving them to your business. So a great tool here, something that we can really drive in and measure as well, so you can see how people are choosing to convert.
And when I talk about measurement, that’s one of my favorite areas. One of the most important things about advertising is understanding where that investment is going. And so we have a number of ways you can measure the success of your campaign. So Yelp offers really full funnel attribution. We really want to understand folks at the high level awareness stage all the way through consideration and conversion. And so we have first party tools that we can use this, like Yelp store visits, using Yelp Pixels. We also have a business owner account where you can measure all the metrics on your performance. And then we work with a number of third party vendors as well, like Upwave and Kantar, Neistar for awareness, and Cuebiq for store visits. It’s where it’s foursquare. And so we could easily turn this into a full webinar on attribution and measurement, but we really encourage you to reach out to us if you want to learn more about how we measure the impact of this advertising and really help you tell that story of the success you’re seeing from Yelp.
So we work with a number of advertisers. We love case studies and sharing the success that our advertisers see. And today. I want to talk to you about Kabuki. And so just to understand Kabuki, if you haven’t been, is a Japanese restaurant, and they started advertising with Yelp to drive store visits. They decided to use a Yelp store visits tool, and they found a 22 time return on ad spend. So literally what that means is we were able to let them know how much foot traffic was going into the restaurant, sitting down and dining, and coming up with that return on ad spend. So you can watch this full story and actually hear from the owners themselves at brands.yelp.com in our success story session if you want to learn more about Kabuki and how they got these amazing results. So many fun stories to share. I would love to hear from you, Sean. What’s one of your favorite success stories?
Sean: For sure. I really love the Christian Brothers story here. So Christian Brothers is an auto repair franchise, and they were very interested in increasing their store visits, trying to get more leads, really drive the business, right? That’s what every business goal is, get more. And with their case study, it highlights a number of different things that really shows the evolution of their relationship with Yelp. Initially, there was a lot of skepticism among their franchisers about working with Yelp, but there were a few franchisers that were advertising with Yelp. And Ryan, the sales rep on that account, was working with the corporate team to understand how those campaigns were performing. So they activated something called call tracking. And through that, they were able to understand that they were getting a four times return on ad spend just for those franchisers that had activated their Yelp ads just for their locations.
And so that gave them some confidence there to then expand the Yelp ad campaign across all of their locations, and they were able to measure a nine times return on ad spend with their Yelp ads campaign, which is really, really phenomenal. And something they really talk about in this video that you’ll see on the website there is that it was really great working with Ryan, and they really felt like he was part of the team. He was really supportive and really consultative trying to find the right solutions for them. But ultimately what keeps them working with Yelp is that they have measurable results and they can see that it’s working.
Kadecia: That’s great.
Sean: So we have a lot of stuff here. How much does it cost, Kadecia.
Kadecia: Oh, it really just depends. So the budget will be unique based on your needs, how many locations you have, the brand. But one thing to know is that everything is priced on a cost per click basis with our ads, and many features are included and can be bundled with our enhanced profiles. And so we actually have a handy tool on brands.yelp.com to help you pick the right budget based on what’s happening in your industry. So you’re able to select a category, see what others are spending on a per location basis to really be able to engage your needs. But you’re not alone in making a good choice. We’re always very happy here to help. Just reach out to us. And you can request a call at brands.yelp.com or email us directly at brands@yelp.com.
So just to give you a quick look at some popular categories to help you understand some rough starting points, we see an average of about $99 per location for restaurants on our site, and about $408 per location for home services. But again, check out the tool on our website to see what’s happening in your industry, or email us for more information at brands@yelp.com. But now we’ve told you everything we wanted to tell you. We want to turn it over to you and see if there’s anything on your mind. So if you have any questions, let us know. And I think we can do a quick check on any Q&A here and get some questions answered.
I see a question. Will you also provide a bit more about the analytics that we get as part of the ad campaign? Sure. So one of the things we want to be able to do is really measure every aspect of this campaign we can, from the number of impressions that delivered, the clicks, the click-through rates. Even when we’re looking at some of those different portions, how many people visited your site? How many people mapped the direction? How many store visits did you get? When we start working with our first party and our third party attribution tools, we’re able to really provide that custom reporting to narrow in on what you want to focus on. If you set up Pixels with us, we’ll provide you Pixel reporting so you’re able to track through those conversions.
Sometimes we’ll work with one of our partners, LiveRamp, and we’re able to actually track transactions and really get down to the nitty gritty of your cost per acquisition. And so we tend to want to be really thorough and detailed with our analytics, and we partner with each advertiser, and actually set up a specific analytic and measurement model that’s going to work best for your measurement needs. Anything to add there, Sean? I feel like I just took that one.
Sean: No, I think that’s great. I’d say we have a lot of different clients, and they have a lot of different goals with what they need to measure and what outcomes they need to perform on. So we’re pretty well versed in trying to understand how to best align and measure and set up your campaign successfully to drive what you want to drive. So if you have really granular questions about what type of analytics you can get and whatnot, I think that’s a great thing to reach out to us, and we can give you a lot more detail about how that would work for your business.
Kadecia: Great. Here’s a fun one. Someone asked, why would I use Yelp versus Google Search? Both are lower down on the funnel. I’ll jump in. Sean, unless you want to jump in, Sean.
Sean: You can go.
Kadecia: Yeah. It’s a really great question. When I think of the advertising landscape, one thing is Google’s huge, so it is always smart to spread your money. But actually, people use Google for a lot of things, even in looking for a plumber. In some cases, I’ve done this before, where I’ve gone on Google because I just wanted a video on how to tighten my sink, right? And so you do see kind of high searches on Yelp. Google obviously offers some local search too. One of the things that iPad clients tell me who advertise on both is that they actually see the conversion rates with Yelp a lot higher. And so since our consumers tend to be really at that decision-making point, we’re able to see high conversion. We’re able to see a quick conversion. Of course, I’m sure Google offers some of that too, but just from anecdotal experience. That’s one reason why a lot of our advertisers really like to make Yelp a part of that budget, because they know they’re getting a consumer who’s really serious and ready to buy at that point.
Sean: I would add to that, that it’s really important in the digital ecosystem to be spending your dollars on multiple platforms and really understanding what works for your business. So throwing everything at Google, I think could be a little short-sighted, especially if you’re able to find something that could be more efficient. So I think it’s worth testing out how things could work with Yelp. Even if you think it could be a similar conversion, it’s good to prove that with data.
Kadecia: Great. And I think maybe we have time for one more question. Someone asked if we could speak a little bit more about the conquesting strategy for restaurant businesses, not franchise or chain stores. I think one of the great things about Yelp’s ads in our basic cost per click ads is that conquesting strategy is built in. So let’s say, for instance, you are a burger place. I’m in the middle of Ohio. You advertise with Yelp. We know that when people are looking at similar restaurants around you, if those restaurants don’t advertise on Yelp, that’s a very good opportunity for you to get in front of them because we know they’re hungry. And so essentially, the way we think about conquesting in general is that if someone is searching at a very similar restaurant, right in that same geographic location, that’s a great opportunity for competitor conquesting, and we want to serve ads. Those types of ads are clicked on at a very high rate, sometimes even higher than search ads, because again, that consumer is very down funnel, they know the area they’re going to, they’re just making a decision.
And so we actually build a conquesting strategy into how we serve our ads, generally speaking. And then sometimes for larger brands, they may be more particular about who they want to go after conquesting. They understand who their main competitors are, so we can customize a conquesting strategy there as well. Great. Well, I’ve enjoyed this time. Sean, I hope you’ve enjoyed it.
Sean: Yeah, this has been great. I always love talking about ads.
Kadecia: And most importantly, thank you everyone who joined us today, who took the time to learn a little bit more, ask questions. Like I said, feel free to reach out to is brands@yelp.com. We would love to hear from you, and hopefully we can see you on Yelp.
Sean: Great. Thanks everyone.
Kadecia: Bye-bye.
