Yell.com

[carsarecool]

Hi All,

We currently spend approx £6k per year advertising on Yell.com.

Looking at reorganising our advertising spend this year and was wondering if anyone has had a discount from them?

We're looking at taking out 3 x sponsored links and another 12 categories, so it's quite a spread, total spend about £8k

The sales rep says they never discount, but they all say that

Can anyone give me hope of a discount?

[escargot]

From a separate business stream, a couple of my sister companies buy data off them and they certainly do discount so it's not a company wide directive.

I'd perhaps threaten to take your £8k elsewhere and see where that gets you?

[hollowpockets]

I'd imagine there must be better people to spend money with than Yell.com. For one i've found their search engines to give out of date or wrong information on a few occasions and I don't know anyone through business or otherwise that use them.

Not that it matters much but also knew someone who worked for them, total cock.

[anonymous-user]

I would take my ££ to Google, Yell.com, what a joke. I had some tt from them call me three weeks ago, claiming they had 6000 hits for a search term that our company would rank for, guess where Google had us? Yep, number 1.(& we haven't paid a penny).

[carsarecool]

Can anybody reccommend anyone who does search engine work to promote our business?

We are in North Herts area, but work all over the south east.

Cheers,

Mart

[DonnyMac]

If you want to stay with Yell you should be able to get at least 10-15% off rate-card.

When an agency books on behalf of the client this is the percentage the 'Publisher' gives to the agency - so if you're booking direct you can negotiate on the agency commission.

[DonnyMac]

carsarecool said:

Can anybody reccommend anyone who does search engine work to promote our business?

We are in North Herts area, but work all over the south east.

Cheers,

Mart

Hi Chap,

We do SEO, but we're not cheap - just shy of £10kpa - there was a thread last week (so a page or two back) where a few companies were listed in the region of £180/mth upward if your budget is tight.

I'll happily take a look at your site and give you a few pointers (if necessary) and give you a few helpful links so you can see what needs changing if you PM me.

Take care,
Don

Here's the link - http://www.pistonheads.co.uk/gassing/topic.asp?h=0... - I'm sure if you PM some of the guys they'll happily introduce you to their suppliers.

ETA - link

Edited by DonnyMac on Thursday 5th March 08:34

[carsarecool]

Thanks for the replies, all very helpful indeed.

I'll look into the google route this week and speak to a few people.

Thanks again.

Mart

[Andrew[MG]]

If you tell Yell that you are going to stop using them and put all the money into Google Adwords (or SEO) then they will be willing to play ball!

I wouldn't give Yell a penny unless I was already tracking successful sales from them at a good cost per action.

[grumbas]

DonnyMac said:

If you want to stay with Yell you should be able to get at least 10-15% off rate-card.

When an agency books on behalf of the client this is the percentage the 'Publisher' gives to the agency - so if you're booking direct you can negotiate on the agency commission.

Sorry to hijack the thread but thanks for that tip.

I'm in the middle of negotiating a six figure (offline) spend with them and getting the stock 'we don't discount' line.

Asking around our industry I've yet to find anyone that did get a discount too. I may just use one of our companies to act as agency for the one I'm actually purchasing for to get the discount!

[Jer_1974]

I was told by my yellow pages rep that they have to set the rate with OFCOM the year before. I spend about 9k a year with them and could not get a discount.

[superlightr]

We used to advertise in Yellow pages for 20 years and Yell.com about 3yrs spent about 9k a year with them. (We also do about £30k in local papers) One of Yell's sales reps was rude, I then looked at sponsord ads on Yahoo and google and cut Yellow out 100%. No impact on us at all. In fact the opposite.

Yellow and Yell I find outdated and didnt actually deliver when we looked into it. Much better to get a high organic search result and sponsered links.

my 2p

[anonymous-user]

superlightr said:

We used to advertise in Yellow pages for 20 years and Yell.com about 3yrs spent about 9k a year with them. (We also do about £30k in local papers) One of Yell's sales reps was rude, I then looked at sponsord ads on Yahoo and google and cut Yellow out 100%. No impact on us at all. In fact the opposite.

Yellow and Yell I find outdated and didnt actually deliver when we looked into it. Much better to get a high organic search result and sponsered links.

my 2p

Couldn't agree more, Yell would have you think your business would fold if you aren't with them. Tosh.

[carsarecool]

On checking our ads, we had three occasions where our company didn't even show up on the search.

We showed this to the rep in person, when he came in to our office, on three separate computers & he had to agree that there was something seriously wrong (no st mate)

Obviously, we've given him a good going over , asked for our money back, or a discount off next years advertising charges if we re-new.

He went away, rang me back and said that the technical dept had looked into it and hadn't found anything wrong.

Nothing wrong!! Not showing up on a specific search in our own geographical area!!!

Cheers, that's set my mind at rest Mr Rep, here, have £8k for some advertising that doesn't work properly!

Looking seriously into SEO now for google etc etc.

Thanks for all the replies, very helpful chaps!

[Martial Arts Man]

Does anyone use Yell.com over Google?

Over the last 4 years, I have seen responses from Yell drop 80%.

Google on the other hand has increased to double my original internet responses.


Yell is a dead duck as far as I'm concerned.

Google/Facebook (if applicable to your business) is where all my spends go now.

[Dick Dastardly]

Martial Arts Man said:

Facebook...is where all my spends go now.

Interesting. Mind telling me what field you are in?

My view on Yell is also that it's a dead duck. I am yet to meet a business that has chopped off its Yell advertising and regretted it.

If you still want some presence on Yell as well as a link to your site then try their Value Weblink. I think it's only about £80-90 a year. I wouldn't consider spending any more than that with them for my business.

[Funk]

This all makes for very interesting reading. Some of you may know why.

There are huge differences between the way that directory-based search engines and the likes of Google, Yahoo et al work and the way that people use them. As such, comparing the two is more difficult than you might think.

Edited by Funk on Saturday 7th March 16:41

[escargot]

Funk said:

This all makes for very interesting reading. Some of you may know why.

You work for Yell?

[Funk]

escargot said:

Funk said:

This all makes for very interesting reading. Some of you may know why.

You work for Yell?

Yes.

[Martial Arts Man]

Funk said:

This all makes for very interesting reading. Some of you may know why.

There are huge differences between the way that directory-based search engines and the likes of Google, Yahoo et al work and the way that people use them. As such, comparing the two is more difficult than you might think.

Edited by Funk on Saturday 7th March 16:41

Comparing them is easy if you are the business owner and always inquire as to the origin of a lead. Or are looking at where the traffic to your website comes. I care not for the differences in how they work, just how well they work for me and how much business they propel my way.

I'm afraid there's no way round the fact that Yell is now a secondary tier advertisement for many.

I just hope you guys can continue to publish the big yellow book for the forseeable future......I still use mine quite regularly, as it happens.