The Yellow Pages Association has put out data from a call tracking study this morning that shows a high return on investment for display advertisers:
- Yellow Pages sales revenue is more than 27:1 for national display advertisers and nearly 13:1 for local display advertisers.
- 60 percent of advertisers experienced an increase in call volumes in the second year of the study.
- Of the advertisers that experienced a growth in call volume the second year, the average increase of leads was 49 percent.
- The median Yellow Pages local display advertisement delivers 444 calls per year at a cost per call of $29.The median national display advertisement delivers 979 calls per year at a cost per call of $15.
Here’s the press release.
I wish I had the quick ability to compare that to online at the moment. Maybe somebody else can do the calculation in my absence.
Screenwerk 
April 3, 2008 at 4:48 am
“I wish I had the quick ability to compare that to online at the moment. Maybe somebody else can do the calculation in my absence.”
Your kidding right?
April 3, 2008 at 7:54 am
Curious about two things –
a) Which categories generate the best ROI for them? Seems like, auto mechanics, plumbers, home repair etc would still rely on print advertising, therefore it’s a win-win for the advertiser and YP company as well. Any category that has more user generated content is likely to drift away from print to online.
b) Is there a geo-bias, ie do the YP companies make more in the midwest than in CA/NY?
April 3, 2008 at 11:36 am
Nagaraju,
I agree with your thinking.
SMB’s and consumers view the YP model as print, and service driven. Cars is the exception. In reality there are only a handful of brands compared to other categories.
In product intense categories like Lawn and Garden, furniture, etc., the print YP has traditionally not offered the kind of granular search that the IYP/diretory vertical search models offer now.
I also see this as the space where horizontal and vertical interact and work together.
My comment yesterday about “YP is too expensive, we don’t do YP” is spoken from the mouths of product driven SMB.
Steve
April 3, 2008 at 11:54 am
Not kidding. Would be interesting to see the analysis.
April 3, 2008 at 2:09 pm
Wouldn’t the analysis you seek be more objective and reliable if someone other than the Yellow Pages Association fielded the study?
April 3, 2008 at 2:24 pm
Not suggesting bias in the YPA study. Just looking for context.
April 3, 2008 at 2:48 pm
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