Getting the most out of your Yelp Ads program

So you’ve just taken the next step to grow your business with Yelp…now what?

Welcome to Yelp! We’re excited to feature your business when consumers search for a business like yours. Whether you’re a Yelp for Business Owners guru or seeing your account for the first time, it’s important to understand the tools that come with your advertising program. To make sure you’re getting the most out of your Yelp Ads program, here are a few tips and tricks to bring you closer to success.

Identify your business goals

After setting up your Yelp Ads program, don’t leave your Yelp for Business Owners Account yet! Ask yourself exactly what your business goals are. Your goals are your guide and by knowing what you want to achieve, it will be much easier to manage your Yelp Business Page. Pick one trackable goal, like selling more entrees. We’ll use this as our business goal as an example to show you how Yelp’s activity feed, Enhanced Profile upgrades, and other customizable features can help brand your Yelp Business Page.

Complete your profile

Missing business hours? Inaccurate phone number? Misspelled business name? These minor details are major to customers looking for information about your business.

We know that businesses with complete profiles see two times more customer leads*. Beyond your business information, don’t forget to fill out the “From Your Business” section. That’s where you really get creative freedom to let Yelpers know what makes your business so great or even recommend other businesses, too!

Customize your ad

You have even more control over your ad campaign with two features: Custom Ad Text and Distance Targeting.

Yelp Ads makes it easy to show your business when people are searching for products or services related to you in your local area. Using Custom Ad Text allows you to show what’s unique about your business when customers are searching through their options.

Let’s look at custom ad text through the example of selling more entrees.

If we’re trying to showcase our entrees, we recommend highlighting a review that talks about how great they are! Experiment with different reviews or even a custom message with an offer for entrees to see what works best for your program. Don’t forget to pick a photo that best represents your business to show up in your ad, too!

To help get more customers clicking on your ad, click on the “Yelp Ads” tab, finding the image of your ad, and clicking on to “Customize Ad,” as showcased above.

Now that we’ve customized the look of the ad, let’s take a few moments to choose where to show the ad.

Whether we want to show our ad to tourists miles away to try our food or the everyday local who has never walked in, this feature allows you to decide!

Set up your Call to Action button

Free appetizer with purchase of two entrees? Yes, please! That sounds like a great way to sell more entrees, doesn’t it?

If you’ve purchased the Enhanced Profile with your advertising program, it includes a Call to Action button. Yelp’s Call to Action button enables a business to write enticing, free form text and use an action button to help convert Yelp users into paying customers. Remember how you found one business goal to focus on first? This is a great tool to track the success of that business goal.

The Call to Action feature links consumers directly to an order form, coupon, or page on your website. Yelp Business Pages with a Call to Action button deliver an average increase of 33% more user views and 38% more customer leads.*

Consumers can view and use this feature on both desktop and mobile devices, and you can have separate offers for desktop and mobile running at the same time. Don’t have a website? No worries! You won’t be able to set up a desktop Call to Action, but you will still be able to set up the mobile Call to Action.

Create your photo slideshow

Your Enhanced Profile also gives you the ability to choose which photos show up on your page with our Photo Slideshow feature. To get to this feature, you’ll go into your Yelp for Business Owners Account and click on the “Photos and Videos” tab. If you want to rearrange your photos, you’ll click the red button that says, “Sort photos and videos”.

It’s important to upload photos of your business because it can lead to more revenue. Going back to our goal, a photo slideshow sounds like a great place to show off some delicious entrees. That way, we increase the likelihood of a customer using our Call to Action offer, too!

When you’re uploading photos to your business page, consider a variety of the types of photos you’re uploading. We recommend that business pages have 10 or more photos to best showcase all aspects of your business to ultimately increase customer leads.

Give it time

You’ve planted the seed that is your business. In order for it to grow and be fruitful, remember that it can take several months to see consistently successful results. The longer you let the program work for you, the more success you’ll have.

Also take into account the trends that happen in your business while your campaign is running. While offering a free appetizer with purchase of two entrees sounds enticing, taking a look at how many customers using that offer over a few months will give a better picture on whether or not it affects the number of entrees you’re selling. Understanding your business’ Yelp metrics will help you accurately determine if the campaign is successful or needs to be adjusted.

Help is here

If you have questions on what more you can do to get the most out of your Yelp ads program, take advantage of your Account Management team. They can be reached at 855-380-9357 or amsupport@yelp.com. Whatever step you may be on in your campaign, Yelp is here to help you be successful!

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*Yelp Internal Data, 2017