This is what $1,000's in YellowPages online advertising in 2009 gets you.
- $1,000's in Advertising Costs
- 21 Website Visitors
- and ZERO new customers
Lesson? Don't Advertise in YellowPages
Everyone knows the YellowPages aren't what they used to be, but I don't think everyone realizes how truly bad it is.
The data above, provided by Google Analytics Website Tracking, is from a client of mine who has been running YellowPages online ads for quite a few years. He doesn't do much YellowPage print anymore, but he kept the YellowPages online because he thought
"they might send over a few customers here and there,
so I haven't decided to cancel them."
Plus, the YellowPages sales reps send him insanely high data about how many 1,000's of people see his online YellowPages ad on YellowPages.com, but the data above proves that those 1,000's of people aren't clicking through to his website.
Lesson? Track Your Marketing
By spending about 15 minutes of my time, I was able to realize that not only was YellowPages online ads not producing him much web traffic, but it was producing him absolutely zero customers! Not one person that visited his site from YellowPages.com actually contacted him through the sites contact page.
note: he also gauged how many calls he got directly from the ad (i.e. non-website visitors), which was also disappointing at best.
Needless to say, he won't be renewing his YellowPages ads this year.
Hint: Your Answer Should Be YES
Everyone knows the YellowPages aren't what they used to be, but I don't think everyone realizes how truly bad it is.
The data above, provided by Google Analytics Website Tracking, is from a client of mine who has been running YellowPages online ads for quite a few years. He doesn't do much YellowPage print anymore, but he kept the YellowPages online because he thought
"they might send over a few customers here and there,
so I haven't decided to cancel them."
Plus, the YellowPages sales reps send him insanely high data about how many 1,000's of people see his online YellowPages ad on YellowPages.com, but the data above proves that those 1,000's of people aren't clicking through to his website.
Lesson? Track Your Marketing
By spending about 15 minutes of my time, I was able to realize that not only was YellowPages online ads not producing him much web traffic, but it was producing him absolutely zero customers! Not one person that visited his site from YellowPages.com actually contacted him through the sites contact page.
note: he also gauged how many calls he got directly from the ad (i.e. non-website visitors), which was also disappointing at best.
Needless to say, he won't be renewing his YellowPages ads this year.
Hint: Your Answer Should Be YES
- Are you tracking your website traffic with Google Analytics?
- Do you truly know how much revenue each marketing campaign you run brings in, whether it's a print ad, Google marketing, email marketing, etc?
- Do you know how to fully analyze your website tracking data to make sure you're not throwing money away on useless advertising? I'm not talking about reading website traffic reports...I'm talking about understanding them.
- If you're a business owner, are you advertising in YellowPages or have you in the past?
- As a consumer (which everyone is), when was the last time you used the YellowPages?
- If you are a YellowPage sales rep, enlighten us on how you possibly sell your ad space ; )