One of the conversations I keep having with people in the local space is about margin pressure that comes from always having to buy traffic from Google and Yahoo! Lots of folks are looking around for different, qualified sources of traffic. Yodle is one that has gone a fair distance down this path already.
I had a chance to catch up with CEO Court Cunningham yesterday and we talked about an array of things on and off the record. He told me that the company has segmented its prospects more finely and is now “pursuing 200 segments and sub-segments instead of 100.” Yodle also has 50 sites in its “network,” rather than depending (as many do) so heavily on G & Y for traffic.
Here are some other bits that Cunningham disclosed:
- The company’s churn is lower than the “industry” average
- He observed that the bigger spending clients have lower churn
- The company is focused on SMBs with fewer than 10 employees
- Average spend is around $1K per month
- The company’s franchise product supports 30+ franchises and 700-800 individual accounts
- Yodle uses CPM, PPC and PPCall to drive leads to advertisers. The margins by channel vary
- The company recently launched Yodle Local:
Cunningham said that this was not intended to be a branded destination; rather it’s about SEO.
Screenwerk 
April 5, 2009 at 5:33 pm
Their margins must be enormous because I am spending as much as I did before I worked with them and my sales have ceased. I can only assume that they are spending little to nothing on their “clients.” Dealing with Yodle is like dealing with bad car salesmen. They even do the tag team bit where they call up with more than one rep on the line. It would be an amusing process were it not so costly. My guess is they will continue to succeed, preying on customers who don’t know the difference.