Is it worth it using Yelp for the free $300?

by sconer
4 replies
  • PPC/SEM
  • |
Yelp is offering $300 free for their ads.

I have been on Yelp for over 3 years and have received very few customers from it. I have good reviews there, but from customer that found me thru other sources. I have a small local electrical contracting business.

I am wondering if it's even worth it to set up this campaign using the free $300? If there are any fine print things that I am not aware of or won't understand how they will effect it?
#$300 #free #worth #yelp
  • Profile picture of the author dburk
    Hi sconer,

    Unless Yelp has changed recently, they want you to signup for a year at a time. The $300 offer will only be applied to the 1st month, so it more like a 10% discount. You cannot pause your ads, or target it in anyway except by choosing the category. You can negotiate shorter periods but at such higher cost that it doesn't make sense to signup for anything less than a year.

    I looked at their prices for a client that was getting repeated calls from a sales rep. Turns out the cost is about 50 times greater than traffic we get from Google search on AdWords. So we turned them down, choosing instead to expand into Facebook advertising.

    They also have some somewhat deceptive labels for their stats on their platform. They call a page view of your listing a "Lead", and a click through to your website a "conversion". That's probably because many categories get very little traffic, but I also felt the way the sales rep used the "leads" and "conversion" data to compare their platform to other channels would likely give less knowledgeable business owners an exaggerated impression of what to expect from their listing.

    Perhaps for a restaurant it might be useful, as people often review the service they get at restaurants, but for most other types of business it is a complete waste of money.

    Their business model is based on the old printed yellow pages phone book. they want you to signup for a year at a time. They have also cutoff date each month to get your ads listed, for the following month. All which are totally unnecessary in the digital age. You ads could easily be turned on and off with a mouse click if they were on a modern web platform.
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    • Profile picture of the author sconer
      Thanks for the info.

      I looked into it and didn't find any yearly commitment. They say this:

      Can I stop any time?
      Yes. There's no commitment or obligation. Just come back to the Yelp for Business Owners site and stop your ads. You will be billed at the beginning of the next month for any clicks you bought before you cancelled.
      Knowing that, would it be worth it to setup a campaign for a month to use the free $300?
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      • Originally Posted by sconer View Post

        Thanks for the info.

        I looked into it and didn't find any yearly commitment. They say this:



        Knowing that, would it be worth it to setup a campaign for a month to use the free $300?
        If it genuinely is free, there's never any harm in having your location popup higher than others on the list or having a star or symbol by yours on the yelp map. That said, make sure you keep your reviews/rating high. Having a low rating combined with yelp ads actually has a bad effect (but yelp still pressures low rating biz owners into buying these ads despite the harm it causes).
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  • Profile picture of the author Dutko2385
    Yelp was giving companies $300 for free to use on ads for a month. My car shipping business actually did it and it went pretty terrible. The average cost per click for my industry was $7.00 which is more than double the cost per click doing PPC on Google, Yahoo or Bing.

    I mean, you can take the free $300 and use it, but PLEASE be sure you cancel before the time is up or you'll be charged. It is a free $300 to help you gain a few more customers, so take it for sure, but paying for Yelp ads after the fact is pointless and expensive.
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