The conventional wisdom is that Yellow Pages, even more than newspapers, are poor prospects for “self-serve” advertising (aka self post). It wrecks the upsell model.
But Verizon SuperPages deployed self-serve a while back, and now, so has YellowPages.com. Both are betting they’ll reach into the 65 percent of SMEs that don’t advertise in the Yellow Pages but might use Google or some other web-based service. And they hope they’ll get better advertiser data.
YellowPages.com has been using a custom platform developed on top of AdMission’s Marketplace service for roughly three weeks. Even without real promotion, it is seeing results well beyond internal projections.
There are 18 versions of “The Ad Store” to accommodate different YellowPages.com markets, but each generally includes a free plan that enables extended text descriptions that go beyond the standard InfoUSA profile; and four paid packages (Platinum, Gold, Silver and Bronze). These may include extended text descriptions, and varying levels of graphics and priority placement.
AdMission VP of Business Development Leif Welch says that YellowPages.com is setting itself up to get deeper data about advertisers, which will be especially important in winning the search wars. “Businesses are submitting multiple listings with three, four, five profiles each,” he says. “Profiles that march are going to be important as we move from category to keyword search.”
Welch is also betting that self-serve’s “low cost advertiser acquisition plan” brings in incremental business, rather than just killing off upsells from unsuspecting loyal customers. “The whole environment for self-serve has changed tremendously over the past six months.”
But customizing The Ad Store for YellowPages.com wasn’t an especially easy assignment. The partners that make up Yellowpages.com –AT&T, BellSouth and Yellowpages.com — “each had special needs,” he says. “They also had variations in regional pricing, payment pricing and their ad packages varied.” There were also some union issues. And while there are 18 different versions, all of them have to roll up transparently for administrative purposes. “The work flow is the same,” says Welch.