Comments on: Local Advertising Booster Yodle Growing Like A Weed, Raises $10 Million

By: brett

brett — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 23:41:22 +0000

Hi Richard,

If the invitation is still available, I’d love to pick your brain. What’s your email address?

Thanks,
Brett

By: Levina

Levina — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 23:13:18 +0000

I signed up with Yodle because not only do they have a great advertising solution, but they record the phone calls coming into my spa, and this was something I valued. Now I go back and listen to how my staff and I handle the calls that come in. It lets me see how many appointments were made that day and how we handle our potential customers’ calls. We have been with Yodle for almost two years now and I have been just thrilled with the results.

By: Weldon McMath

Weldon McMath — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 13:26:10 +0000

We have been very satisfied with the results we’ve gotten from Yodle for our property management business. Additionally, our account manager, Cassie, has provided excellent customer service and always promptly returns our calls.

By: Brittney Cross

Brittney Cross — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 15:21:28 +0000

I have been with Yodle for over a year and whenever we need to make any changes to our account, our account manager responds almost immediately, is polite and respectful. In the past year we’ve generated over 300 customers using Yodle!

By: Pete

Pete — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 12:58:33 +0000

I have been on line with Yodle since June1st 2009 and to date have not recieved one single lead. ( I have a handyman service )All that I have gotten are calls through my site from marketers. Isn;t wonderful that I am paying for marketers to call me through my web site phone number that Yodle provides? They promised me the world but thus far have not delivered. I have expressed my concerns on several occasions and have been told how they are going to change search words and etc and still the same old thing. As far as I am concerned Yodle has taken me for a ride and after my three month agreement is over, I am through with them.
To get leads while I was waiting for Yodle to kick in, I posted on Craigs list for free and have gotten plenty of buisness.

By: Jake Steeley

Jake Steeley — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 16:04:27 +0000

This is a great business! Yodle, ReachLocal, and other companies in the industry are scooping up the profits too at the expense of the customers.

If one of Reach Local’s customers asks to see their AdWords account, what do they say? I mean, if I was a customer of Reach Local and asked for my login and password to my AdWords account, would I get it? “It’s a platform thing”.. “it’s controlled by our system”.. “it’s making you money”…

OK, so what’s my login and password?

What about the microsite you built for me.. Can I have FTP access to it? Could you please zip the files and email my site to me? It is mine, isn’t it?

What are you trying to hide here? Why can’t I see where my money is going?

Robby and leverage1 – you’re right on the money. If you can’t do it alone, find a pro who can. If that company tries to block you from seeing how you spend your money, quit. The hours may cost money but at least you’ll know if you can trust them or not. Reach Local? I’m just a number to you.

I trust Google and agencies who try to help me succeed. Integrity is the key.

By: Yakov

Yakov — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 22:21:35 +0000

That is right don’t trust them.You better spend your money buying books about effective online marketing strategy from book stores. (not e-books)

By: Brad Cousino

Brad Cousino — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 05:07:14 +0000

Bob Doran… where are you based out of? Contact me at bradcouz@gmail.com and we can connect. Check out http://www.link.../in/bradcousino

By: Bob Doran

Bob Doran — Fri, 29 May 2009 02:44:53 +0000

If anyone knows of a Vendor that we could hook up with in this area please let me know.

We have a large local sales force that could sell this type of service.

By: Robert C

Robert C — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 23:01:32 +0000

Laverge1

Are you well versed in algorithms and computers and is that how you positioned yourself first on the local google page? How does a layman acheive this?

By: von

von — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 19:12:23 +0000

Richard give me an email address so that i can pick your brain.

By: von

von — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 19:10:25 +0000

Richard could you send me an email? I would like to talk to you about your knowledge within this business segment– you seem to know what you are talking about.

By: Jake

Jake — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 00:31:52 +0000

Richard – I’d like to contact you. I’m working with Yodle now and have a couple of questions. I’d really value your insight.

Jake

By: michelle

michelle — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 20:00:32 +0000

its not pay per call.. whoever told you was lying. its pay per click. TRUST ME I KNOW. Someone saying you only pay for a call is flat out lying to you, and you need to get the truth before you get your butt handed to you.

By: leverge1

leverge1 — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 00:48:07 +0000

Robby that is the 1st smart thing I’ve read in this post. I’m a small business owner and I am on the 1st page of my local google search page and I did it for FREE.

By: Robby

Robby — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 11:05:25 +0000

It all sounds so great…. However no online company can do a better job than an informed business owner who “minds their business”. Companies like Yodle feed on the business owner who is clueless and shocked into using their services. In conclusion, local search is the easiest to optimize compared to generic nationwide search and Yodel’s change from SEO to SEM is pretty much just because they are lazy and have figured out the hard way (by failing the first time around) that good Internet marketing & advertising involves WORK and their switch to Search Engine Marketing is a bail out, smoke and mirrors, lots of bells and whistles.

Yodle’s first business venture failed and now they have put a big adhesive strip on it and they think it will work. People need to learn about the Internet, educate yourselves and be your own person it’s not that difficult to get the hang of.

Yodle is an enabler, much like someone providing money to a drug user, the more you use them the more your are reliant on them like a bad drug addiction. People of the world ! Think for yourselves… Yodle is just a very bad way to go !

By: Fred Gregors

Fred Gregors — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 03:04:03 +0000

The difference between Yodle and the rest of the field is that they give a dedicated account manager for each client, not just some sales rep who is more interested in getting sales.

By: Steve

Steve — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 17:47:48 +0000

why did you leave ReachLocal?

By: Richard

Richard — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 08:46:15 +0000

I used to work for Yodle’s Competitor…ReachLocal.

The average client in this space, at least in NYC is $1500/mo.

They usually steer away from anything below $500, mainly because the margin on these products only leaves so much to be used toward ads.

Of course the technology doesn’t work perfectly and they do work better in certain verticals than others, ie; dealerships, dentist and cosmetic surgery, anything with a high enough margin to offset the lack of poor ad copy, website and positioning in addition to the ability in providing healthy enough budgets to survive after agency fees are deducted.

I see the main goal for these companies is to position themselves as agencies to expand into other locally focused ad formats, ie; video, banner, etc.

Also a major reason these guys are getting funding is that they are opening offices in all the major cities, getting sales teams together and gobbling up all the businesses who are fed up of yellow pages or are just not technically savvy enough to set up an EFFICIENT and EFFECTIVE ad campaign.

Its a good market, with LOTS of room for improvement. I give Yodle credit for acknowledging that no matter how well you optimize the distribution of ads on the search engines, getting the click is only a part of the sales cycle when customers are looking for local services through search engines.

Feel free to contact me about in depth questions, I have a pretty deep understanding on this topic.

By: Crisis como las de Silicon Valley son las que necesitamos por aquí Loogic.com

Crisis como las de Silicon Valley son las que necesitamos por aquí Loogic.com — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 11:14:14 +0000

[...] 10 millones de dólares de inversión en la empresa de publicidad local Yodle. [...]

By: Chris

Chris — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 18:45:43 +0000

Yodle is no better than their biggest competitor (Reachlocal) other than the fact that my understanding of Reach’s system allows reach to proxy the site and monitor what keywords actually get phone calls and get conversions where Yodle has to build a completely new website. Does Yodle actually optimize the website or the campaign? In either event, you are better off going with a local company that can use both SEO and PPC to get you a better return.

By: Strategic Internet Marketing

Strategic Internet Marketing — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 18:19:53 +0000

This is just great and predictable because eventually the off line companies have to start advertising online. The Internet keeps growing and the user base does too.

Thanks for the update,

Greag

By: todd

todd — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 15:32:54 +0000

Mr Hentin,Thats great you have used both products! The best thing about the web and SEM is that it is NOT an either/or; in this space it is a Both/And in that you can use Reach, Yodle, Merchantcircle, yellowbot, LocalBizNOW the IYP’s and other platforms to maximize your exposure and ROI. Kudos to you and others like you

By: Todd

Todd — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 14:47:40 +0000

Great for YODLE! Great for the Industry!
CPA however is a very difficult measure for the SMB is an “A” a phone call, a consumer profile, a webiste visit, a request for quote? The SMB’s are not as savvy as the Larger online spenders (Auto Dealers) who understand lead generation and have CRM and lead management tools in process. A company called Caffein (Owned by ePrize) was challeneged at getting the SMB “leads” or “A”’s
At the end of the day this starts with Exposure thorugh SEM and ends (in the SMB mind) with a phone call – thats the one tangible thing to agree on between provider and SMB as Yodle or anyone else in not tied to the POS. Court and his team are doing well and the industry will shine this year – even in a challeneged economy

By: Mose

Mose — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 23:33:44 +0000

This isn’t pay per call!!!! I worked with this company and just terminated my relationship with them. They give use statistical averages to “guarantee” calls. You give them a minimum $500/month and they use that on PPC (google, yahoo, msn, superpages). They then tell you that by spending this money you will get x number of calls from those clicks. I ended up spending the money with yodle only to find that the majority of my clicks came from way outside my service area (sometimes in different countries) but I was charged for all of these clicks. When all was said and done I had paid $750 and had received 0 calls, thats right ZERO. So as for being Pay Per Call, that is absolutely incorrect.