Yelp Competes with Google
Yelp, a business directory and public review forum, announced the release of Showcase Ads and in-store attribution: Yelp Store Visits or YSV. These ads and services are aimed towards multi-location and national brands. These ads will have photos and videos reviewing special promotions and limited time offers. Denny’s and other large brands have tested these ads and are receiving positive results but without specifics.
Yelp Store Visits is a first party tool to better understand the impact of ads on businesses. YSV will report a cost-per-visit metric to help brands calculate accurate return on investments from what they spent. Yelp is not the only company to give first party data to companies and brands. Google My Business, GMB, does similar things as YSV by giving businesses data on consumers searching their brands on Google’s search engine and on their Google Maps. GMB lets companies make sure they have all information needed in their Google Maps description and have a more reliable time on Google’s search engine. Yelp has engaged in competition with Google through their first party data interactions with companies.
Yelp has been continually adding new tools and promotional offerings to grow user and advertisers’ experiences and differentiate themselves from Google. Yelp has a chance to make an impact on the advertisement market with their launch of new Showcase Ads and YSV. While Google is a huge factor in the success in YSV, brands could use Yelp’s different tools in better understanding the impact on ads on their companies. Google, being the most popular search engine, will make it hard for Yelp to find itself unless they include useful and productive tools for businesses and users.
