Yellow Pages (not Recommended)
As someone that gets little joy out of marketing, and therefore had less then stellar success, I was happy to receive an offer for help from Yellow Pages when one of their sales reps called. I already knew about [Google's PPC advertising] but I felt I did not have the bandwidth or knowledge to manage that properly. So I figured it would be a good idea to outsource to someone with experience and accepted Yellow Pages offer.
After signing the required contracts we were off and things seemed to be good. I figured Yellow Pages was a large reputable company so I had no concerns with their guarded language. I knew that marketing is no exact science. I should have insisted on some level of a performance clause or early exit option but foolishly did not think that necessary. I learned.
I was promised monthly meetings to review and a dashboard so I could monitor the performance. I assumed that would be enough because I was looking for a hands off solution managed by someone who knew what they were doing.
I worked through what my ideal client was and what kind of headlines, descriptions and keywords they might respond to and sent the information to my rep. They wanted time to process and do research which was expected.
A month later the Yellow Pages managed Google Ads campaign was up and running. I was given access to their metrics dashboard and the clicks started to appear. I have been running StatCounter for some time, so I could line up the clicks they recorded with what was happening on my site.
I quickly become concerned at the website visitors behaviour. Most visitors quickly bounced. Reviewing the metrics I saw that the keywords were not appropriate and so I assumed that the visitors bounced because of the mismatch between what they expected and what they got. That started a back and forth conversation where I became increasingly specific about my concerns and what I wanted YP to change. Nothing that was done seemed to change the visitors behaviour and I could quickly imaging my investment disappearing with nothing to show for it. Finally I was told that I needed to stop changing things and wait for the ads to start working.
But things did not improve at all. I felt the need to start my own low budget Google Ads account just so that I could understand what was happening and fix things. Within a few days I could see more meaningful traffic. Completely frustrated with YP I asked about cancelling.
I told that I was not sufficiently patient, so I backed off and waited with no changes as they specified. Another bill arrives 24 days later with no improvements and so I finally gave up.
Timeline
| Date *Approx | Event |
|---|---|
| Feb 13 | Signed Contract, adjusted Feb 15. |
| Feb 17 | Replied with my client and ad design information |
| Mar 13 | Ads and metrics Active |
| Mar 18* | Metrics Disappear |
| Mar 23 | Metrics Reappear but the results are not good. |
| Mar 24 | Send corrected keyword suggestions. (Change #1) |
| Mar 27 | Still not looking good so I ask to talk and we have a meeting (Teams). At about this point I start doing my own keyword research and build up a detailed strategy for a marketing campaign broken out into two groups to allow comparison and improve targeting. |
| Apr 2 | Provide details on the first group. (Change #2) |
| Apr 7 | Provide details on the second group. (Change #3) |
| Apr 9 | Response with questions, which I answer. |
| Apr 10 | As I up my own research to stop the poor performance, I have more questions and concerns. |
| Apr 13 | I ask to target the entire country with highly specific keywords instead of targeting a few cities with very generic keywords. I also ask for keyword corrections again since some are overly generic and would just mislead users. Was told that I needed to leave things alone so the ads could start working on their own. |
| Apr 15* | Frustrated, I take matters into my own hands and create a Google Ads account to understand what is happening and fix things. NOTE: This from the guy that wanted to outsource it all. |
| Apr 17 | I had a functional Google Ads account with more professional looking Ads, and producing results that looked far more legitimate. The Yellow Pages traffic still looked disinterested. Tired of the battle with Yellow Pages, I send an email asking about the options for cancelling. I quickly get a call telling me that I have not been patient enough (its been one month), too much tweaking, and to paraphrase, "How can I think that I know how to do ads better then them?" I agree to give them one month. Enabled StatCounter Premium to get deeper detail on what users are doing. |
| Apr 18 | One day after that call, I get 1 single, solidly legitimate looking click from the Yellow Pages ad. The next day there is another legitimate looking click, but from outside the targeted region. (Error or shared link?) After that the disinterested visitors resume. No navigation, just a few seconds of mouse movement, scrolling and then exit. |
| May 11 | Another bill arrives 24 days later with zero improvement so I decide to call it quits again, this time more firmly. - I am passed on to a Manager, - The Ads stop (May 10th), - The Metrics access disappears. |
| May 14 | Connect with the Manager for a rundown of my issues. Forwarded to another. |
| May 21* | Finally connect with a Manager in the Cancellation Department. A testy conversation where he repeatedly says that he understands but obviously does not. The basic result is that he accepted my cancellation request, but the contract allows YP to continue billing me until it expires. I was not very gracious. |
| May 25 | Send an email request confirmation of my cancellation request. Zero Response. |
| May 28 | The YP Ads restart and play catch-up, but my metrics access is still gone and is never restored. The Ads are just as ineffective as before. I suspect the Ads were restarted to legitimize that they are still charging me. |
| Jun 29 | Another month of ineffective Ads with no metrics. |
Was I too impatient?
Yellow Pages and many others would say that I was too quick on the draw and that I should have been more patient. The general consensus is that Ads take time to get working.
It is true that Ads can take time to get working well. But, it is not true that you should leave campaigns unattended when there are clear signs of failure. If visitors are obviously not interacting with a site then something needs to change, and Fast! It could be:
- Poor Targeting: Keywords, Intent, etc..
- Message Mismatch: Ad Promise vs. Page Deliver,
- Site Issues: Slow, or a bad user experience,....
While trying to work through the issues it became very clear to me that the Yellow Pages provided metrics (when available) gave me very little information and no control over what was happening with my Ads. This made it very difficult to discover and fix any issues. Creating my own Google Ads account made it obvious how much I was missing.
Once I started running into issues with Yellow Pages, I did a deeper dive into their PPC reviews and discovered their autorenewal/cancellation policy. This meant that allowing things to drag on was not a good solution. So I decided that an early exit from a bad deal was my best choice. Now I just need to pay out the rest of the contract with zero benefit.
The only good part of the experience with [[Yellow Pages (not Recommended)||Yellow Pages]] was that it forced me to focus on the whole question of how clients found my website and moved (or failed to move) to a purchase decision. It forced me to Own the Marketing and the client experience much more fully.
Helping small business stay focused on their core business.