Yell PPC Campaigns – Are they any good?

Yell are a huge reseller of Google of AdWords and many a small business trusts their digital marketing efforts to the online directory – but, we have to ask, are they any good? In this post, we are going to give you an overview of a Yell created and managed ad campaign that we reviewed this week for a client and provide some insight into how that could be improved.

Google Adwords PPC by Yell

The names will be changed here to protect the innocent but let’s say this was a roofing company in the town of Sutton Coldfield and the goal was to promote the business for roofing services and sub-services like roof repairs, roof replacement etc. There were a set of top level broad keywords and then three specific services so we would expect any sensibly built campaign to mirror the business services to deliver the warmest and most relevant possible leads.

1. 1. The naming of campaigns and ad groups were simply ‘Campaign #1’ and ‘Ad Group #1’. Sensible naming is the cornerstone of a well-structured campaign so no points here
   2. Search Network with Display Select – display select tends to need much more optimisation so again this is a poor targeting choice given the limited budget available
   3. Search Partners – search partners can increase reach but with a limited budget this option can starve Google.co.uk and limit results
   4. Using Search network with Display Select
   5. Enabled Search Partners
   6. Automatic Bidding
   7. Only used call ad extension
   8. Only 1 text ad
   9. Very basic and templated ad text
   10. Ad text could have been used in callout ad extensions
   11. Out of 13 keywords, only 4 had a match type
   12. No negative keywords added
   13. Loads of irrelevant keywords in the search terms list

Where does your money go?

We have recently started to work with a few small businesses that were spending £600 plus per month with Yell and where a small percentage of that (usually £100) was directed to their Google Ad Campaigns and £500 was directed to sponsored listings on their own directory. This approach is in itself flawed as the majority of the budget is directed at improved directory listings and whilst the directory is still highly visible (in the UK at least) the quality of that traffic is often questionable. Certainly, the many businesses we talk to fail to see a strong enough return from these general purpose directories now and sector specific directories like checkatrade.com and TripAdvisor often provide a more detailed and nuanced experience for the discerning web browser.

And with any directory, we need to see the traffic move from the search engine, to the directory, where you are listed amongst many other businesses, and then to your website. It introduces another step where the customer has many other options. Not ideal. And of course, if the traffic is being delivered to a website built by Yell then there may be problems there as well.

Better Options for PPC

The best option is to set up an AdWords PPC account with Google themselves. Not AdWords Express though as that is limited. But a full fat Adwords Account. An agency, like us, will be able to set up and manage your PPC professionally if you don’t have the time, experience or inclination. This will get you far better results.

If you are still considering Yell we have some thoughts on the web and advertising offerings at the links below.

• 9 Reasons not to use Yell websites 
• Why to avoid Yell Advertising