It’s time to talk Yelp. For a long time, Yelp and its 95 million monthly active users have been a source of laughter, tears and, sometimes, even leads for apartment communities. In fact, GTMA produced an award-winning web series last year based on some of those laughably bad gems pulled from horrible Yelp reviews written about apartment communities. It was a therapeutic process for us all! The bottom line here is that our relationship with Yelp has traditionally been one of playing defense rather than offense.
WE UPDATED OUR RELATIONSHIP STATUS WITH YELP FROM “IT’S COMPLICATED” TO “IN A RELATIONSHIP” BECAUSE…
For those of you skimming this article with no intention of reading all the way through—but you still want to glean the main points—here’s a quick overview of why GTMA decided to finally hop in bed with Yelp :
- We can now offer you the same pricing as Yelp (including any bulk discounts).
- We offer month-to-month commitments, which gives you more flexibility with your ad budget.
- As an agency partner, we have the ability to control maximum pay-per-click bids giving you a better ROI.
- We can invoice property-by-property and service-by-service.
- We can now integrate Yelp data with our dashboard and deliver unbiased reporting of results.
- We can deliver better results with SEO and other lead generation campaigns.
- GTMA can keep your call-to-actions in sync with your current leasing specials.
- GTMA now has the ability to feature some of your best reviews in our ads, or even no reviews at all.
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New Features Unlocked with Enhanced Profiles
Yelp and GTMA have partnered to provide our shared customers a better service than either could offer on their own. Given this special relationship, our client partners benefit by automatically being upgraded to an Enhanced Profile with only a month-to-month commitment. Enhanced Profiles with GTMA include:
- Photo Slideshow: Take control of the photo display order of the profile photo carousel.
- *Video: Include a GTMA-produced video in your photo carousel.
- Block Competitors: Block competitors from advertising on your profile.
- Specials Call-To-Action: Display current leasing specials UPDATED BY GTMA right on the profile page.
- Request A Quote: Capture leads directly on the Yelp platform with a lead generation form.
- In-depth Tracking: Use Google Analytics trackable links , tracking phone numbers for ads, and local phone numbers for SEO.
- Account Management + Reporting: GTMA manages your account in tandem with all your marketing campaigns and provides in-depth reporting including:
- Schedule a tour clicks
- Click-to-call (mobile)
- Direct messages
- Get driving directions clicks
- Check-in offer redemptions
- Visits from Yelp (with conversion tracking when available on client websites)
*Custom Video Included (with some packages)
The Video option is another unique-to-GTMA benefit for client partners. INCLUDED in your monthly management fee comes a 15-second commercial of your community. One of these videos would look something like this:
- An eye-catching version of your logo that will help make the “play” button stand out
- 4-6 high quality images (i.e. renderings, community photos, lifestyle images, etc)
- Graphics with text
- A branded end-slate with your community contact information
If client partners have already shot any video content with GTMA, we will edit this content down to a deluxe video of about 30-45 seconds just for Yelp! Here’s a great example:
Apartment Lead Generation – CPC Advertising on Yelp
Another big reason we’ve decided to get “into a relationship” with Yelp is so we can unlock advanced features as an agency partner. This makes CPC advertising on Yelp a lot more cost effective and beneficial for our client partners. CPC advertising includes placement in search listings and on competitors’ profiles, which would introduce your community to renters while they’re making their decision.
- Placement: Clients ads are placed in search listings and on competitors’ profiles.
- Advanced Targeting: Target by geography, category and/or keyword search.
- Geo-targeting: Yelp allows us to geo-target future residents.
- $300 in Ad Spend Free: For new Yelp advertisers, Yelp will match their CPC budget (up to $300) for the first month of the campaign.
More About Yelp
The demographics breakdown feature is another reason Yelp proves itself to be valuable partner for our clients. Most Yelpers are 18-54 years old, college-educated people with incomes over $100K. That demographic covers the majority of the luxury apartment rental market.
Yelpers are more likely to make a purchase with 42% of them completing a transaction within a day of their first search. This leads us to also believe they are more likely looking to rent if their search intention is to read apartment reviews, and they are more likely to become a potential resident if they click one of our CPC Ads placed on a competitor’s listing than what other digital advertising placements can deliver.
Yelp has also proven a high number of reviews is not necessary in order to achieve success when advertising on their platform. Did you know almost half of all businesses on Yelp have less than five reviews? It’s about quality over quantity.
So what does this all mean you ask? Basically, we’ve learned to stop worrying and love Yelp. 🙂 GTMA is here for you, and we’re incorporating Yelp into our Paid Media department. We’re building strategies around spending our clients’ marketing dollars effectively and wisely on their platform. We’re confident that, with our enhanced reporting and conversion tracking, we can help you rent more apartments.
Learn More About Yelp
For more information about how you can launch a Yelp ad campaign with GTMA, inquire below.