*** UPDATE 3 ***
A documentary on Yelp called “Billion Dollar Bully” by Kaylie Milliken of Prost Films was just released (currently on Amazon Video, iTunes, and DVD). I was honored to be interviewed to provide my analysis and assessment of Yelp’s paid advertising program for business owners. I am sure you can guess my recommendation…
*** UPDATE 2 ***
It’s hilarious (and by hilarious I mean sad), to see that 7 of our legitimate reviews are hidden. Some of them were from the get-go but others just magically disappeared into the “not currently recommended” section despite having been allowed to show up on our profile for over a year… Since the last update when we had 3 hidden, we are up by four to now seven that are hidden. *tsk tsk*

And yet, the one bogus scathing review from a “Mindy” whom we never spoke with remains…
P.S. We did not sign up for their Yelp paid advertising non-sense (see previous update below). Hmm, interesting eh?
*** UPDATE ***
So my Growth Hacking agency currently have an unpaid Yelp listing so we can help control the online information about us – we’ve had it for some time and recently, an Yelp representative reached out to us via email.

As you can see… it reeked of carrot-dangling vague generalities salesmanship. For example, “$1200 of Extra Free Yelp Ads” which is meaningless because we have no idea what that $1200 actually does and what those Ads are (reading the Main Post below you can see how misleading this is).
And before that he weakly attempted to build rapport by saying that he “previously gone to school and lived in Los Angeles” and as such… knows the “business climate like the back of [his] hand.”
I personally have no idea how going to school and LIVING in Los Angeles would have any bearing on how well you know the business climate. I mean, by that logic, any elementary schooler in the L.A. area would also know the business climate!
And he ended his email with the “assume the sale” tactic by giving me an option between tomorrow or Wednesday (taking away the option to say “NO”).
My response was terse.
“Hi, What is this about? We already have a Yelp listing.“
And you can see below in his response… he just intensified his salesmanship.

He again blew a lot of smoke about a bunch of nothing… “lot of opportunity,” “promotion of $1200 of Extra Free Yelp Ads” (which still explains nothing), “gain exposure,” etc.
Blah blah blah.
And he tried the same “assume the sale” close at the end to get me locked down for a call.
I think he was hoping I’d get swayed by the $1200… little did he know that I knew exactly how absolutely meaningless that $1200 meant in this context.
So I told him straight up,
“Go ahead and send me some info so I can decide if it’s something worth us hopping on a call, I’d hate to waste your time or mine.“
And several days later, he came back like a dog on a bone…

So the dance continued.
I mirrored his email style and shot back the following response (see if you can pick up the similarities between our two emails)…

And this is about the time he called quits because a few days later, he responds with “I will no longer be your point of contact over here at Yelp. You will receive a new rep soon. In the meantime, you can call 877-767-9357 if you have questions. Have a great night.”
In the same email, he sends over some nonsense generic Yelp Ads Video and Yelp Advertising information which are nonsense fluff not geared lacking transparency – I want to know the CPC, where my ads will show, how much (quality) impression I can expect, who will be viewing my ads, demographics, etc. But nope… none of that. And unfortunately, this sales rep wasn’t able to help.
With that said… it’s been almost a month and no one else at Yelp has contacted us so maybe they gave up? *shrugs*
All I wanted was to get something in writing so I can hold them accountable but they shied away from accountability.
On a separate note… we had three 5-star reviews removed from our listing.

Now… I can understand Yelp removing the top two reviews – they are from no-face reviewers whose sole review are the ones left for us. But removing Bree G. (3rd review) when there’s a legitimate image, location, 114 friends, AND 6 reviews?? That made no sense.
And of course trust Yelp to leave a 1-star review on our listing by a angry resentful person who was NEVER a customer and even resorted to name calling in his review.
*sigh*
Way to go Yelp.
*** MAIN POST ***
Maybe you know and maybe you don’t… but Yelp (a local search and reviews online service) offers paid advertising for businesses called the “Yelp Sponsorship Program“.
To sum it up, according to the page advertising this opportunity, this Yelp Sponsorship program allows you to:
- Put up a slideshow of the images of your business.
- Highlight a user’s review that you like the most (as the business owner)
- Promote your business as a sponsored search result and on your competitors’ business pages. Target potential clients while they are making decisions about where to spend their money on a business like yours
It sounds all fancy spansy right? Sounds like you get even MORE control over your business listing which will help “put your best foot forward” and sneak attack your competitors, stealing all their would be clients.
But Stop the Music, Do These Yelp Advertising Features Actually Accomplish Anything? Or are They Just Fluff Designed to Lure You in so They can Zap You?
Suck Them in & Then ZAP Them!
Before we proceed, I’d like to first state that my experience and knowledge of this Yelp Sponsorship program comes from dealing with them on behalf of one of my clients. This client signed up with Yelp (despite my warnings – apparently Yelp’s salesman are SMOOOTH) and I got to learn all about this program.
Having said that, that’s only ONE experience which doesn’t make me an expert but it certainly makes me more knowledgeable of this Yelp marketing program than those who’s never experienced it.
Furthermore, in case you are not familiar with how Yelp works, anybody can post a business on Yelp, as long as it falls under one of their categories and is a “fit” per their policies. And the rightful owner can claim that Yelp page by jumping through some hoops and voila, you have a FREE listing about your business.
And for comparison’s sake, here’s an example of a PAID Yelp review page:
With that said… let’s examine feature #1.
The “Slide-Show”
Now, granted the larger images and the “slideshow” adds a bit more snazziness to the page but honestly, how big of a difference does it really make? If you wanted to see pictures, wouldn’t you be inclined to go visit the business’ actual website?
I’d love to see some split test on this…
Favorite Review
As far as feature #2, I suppose this is a good thing, like Yelp for Business Owners says, “put your best foot forward”. But then they go and shoot themselves in the foot by posting the “Rating Distribution” graph next to it. This graph, as you can see, shows all the reviews, INCLUDING the negative ones.
As humans, we are so inclined to ask “what’s wrong” that I reckon most wouldn’t take the “favorite reviews” at face value; they’d go and seek the worst reviews to find out why those folks gave bad reviews.
Yelp’s Business Owner’s Sponsorship Program feature #3 is my favorite.
Yelp Advertising… on Others’ Pages
So the idea here is similar to Google AdWords, when someone searches for a term related to your business, your listing shows up (as, “Sponsored Result”) with the hopes that your business gets clicked on.
Here’s the caveat though, Yelp is charging you per impression basis instead of per click basis. What this means is that whenever your listing shows up in this manner, it counts against your total allotted amount that you paid of (so you are paying “cost per impression”). If it were click based (cost per click) you would get charged ONLY if your ad gets clicked.
This brings into a few questions, the least of which are:
- So how much is it per impression?
- How many impressions can you expect to get (this is of course dependent on the search volume) – bear in mind that this is a LOCAL search and review online system. Which means that you are really throttling the number of impressions your ads will show up because the number of LOCAL folks doing searches related to you business within your area is a tiny tiny fraction of the searches done nationally combined.
- Are you able to test different the keywords with which your listing shows up (which is costing you money)?
- Are you able to TRACK the results you are getting on fine details? I.e. what keywords are converting, when is the best time to show your Yelp sponsored listing, etc. Basically, questions that any savvy AdWords expert would ask.
- How much control do you have over this campaign? After all, you ARE paying for it.
Before I Go On, Let’s Talk About Leakage
What is “leakage“? Well, in digital marketing term, it means actions taken by your website visitor that doesn’t contribute to your ultimate goal (such as capturing the lead, making the sale, etc.) This often includes having active links which serve as distractions that take the visitor ELSEWHERE.
Now… take a good look at just about any Yelp review page, do you see leakage? Do you see links everywhere? But more importantly (and relevantly from a marketing perspective), do you see the box that says, “People Who Viewed This Also Viewed…”? Do you see how these links tend to be links to direct competition to the business review page you are viewing?
Yelp.com Pay Per Impression is a Friggin’ Joke (& Rip Off You Can Argue)
Okay, so going back to the sample list of questions listed earlier on. Let’s dig deeper and find out exactly what sort of program Yelp is running (and charging you for).
First of all, here’s the cost for Yelp’s advertising program:
$300/mo – promotes you to 1,500 people in your area looking for a business like yours.
$500/mo – promotes you to 4,000 people in your area looking for a business like yours.
$1000/mo – promotes you to 10,000 people in your area looking for a business like yours.
So you are looking at $100 CPM (cost per thousand impressions) to $200 CPM to advertise on their network. In the AdWords world, this is ridiculously high for paying CPM unless you are in some highly competitive and profitable business like real estate and 401k portfolios (oh wait… given the crash of the economy, DOH!). Even then you are pushing it a bit. Folks who are paying high CPM on the pay per click networks have thoroughly tested their campaigns, have tracked EVERY single detail, and have all the control in the world.
But on Yelp? Hellllll no! You don’t know what your “campaign” looks like let alone have any control over it. You are like a blind mouse and they are the big bad kitty toying with you. And yet, they are still charging you an arm and a leg. And one quick look around Yelp will tell you that most businesses are NOT high-price markets, they are mostly smaller markets like restaurants.
This brings me to my second point of frustration when dealing with these Yelp folks, where’s the proof of these impressions people paid for??? Where are my listings showing up? And what’s the conversion rate?? Again, they tell you nothing and keep you blind.
YUCK.
Sales Team Who Doesn’t Know Jack and Preys on Toy Mice
Okay, so I had the opportunity to speak to a Yelp representative on the phone on my client’s behalf. Armed with my knowledge of AdWords, marketing, the works… I came prepared. Sadly for the person on the other line, that’s more than I can say for her.
I asked about all the things I mentioned before (about click through rates versus impressions, how I can track my campaign, how much control I have, etc.) and she was STUMPED. She couldn’t understand why we would care about such matters. As a matter of fact, I’d venture so far as to say she didn’t know JACK about marketing, and yet, she’s representing a team that’s suppose to help us market.
But what REALLY got to me was when I asked her about a 24 hour backout clause, which means that within 24 hours of the start of the campaign, if I am not satisfied with the results I am seeing, I can cancel. Nope she said… and the reason is because it takes time for the program to ramp up for me to really start seeing results.
EHHH? It’s the internet we are talking about here right? I can track clicks fairly easily right? Hmmm… okay.
So then I went on and asked what is the minimum sign up period, to which she replied, “6 months”.
OMGWTFBBQ, 6 month minimum at $325 a month where you have NO IDEA what’s going on? Thanks but no thanks.
The Proof is in the Pudding – Proof that Yelp Sucked
Against my better judgment, my client went for it anyway, and looking at the chain of emails he received from Yelp along with how their program is setup, I can sympathize why.
See, Yelp is banking on folks NOT knowing the difference between “impressions” and “clicks”. They are banking on the fact that businesses will confuse “impressions” with “visitors” – as in, “For $300 a month I can get 1,500 NEW customers every month? SWEET, sign me up!” They are banking on folks not knowing how to track their progress and not caring to either. They are banking on being able to just sweet talk their would be victim on the phone and dazzle them with fluff.
And worse yet, without the clients being able to track the campaign, Yelp is able to get folks to resign, again and again, by giving out meaningless stats.
To give you a perspective of just how much SUCKINESS is in this program, with the aid of Google Analytics and my idea of adding a page that leads people to a printable in-store coupon, we were able to see how the program performed. Here are the stats, in 2 months time, Yelp drove 64 unique visitors to this special landing page (which again helps us track the comers from our Yelp advertising campaign) and of those 64 visitors, we got 9 customers that we can tell.
This meant 32/1,500 = 2% conversion from visitor to Yelp to the website and 0.3% from impression to actual customer. Put it another way, my client paid $72.22 for each of those clients – clients who are just diners to his restaurant.
NOTE: We are not even sure if these visits and visitors are a direct result of my client PAYING for this Yelp advertising program, read below to see what I mean.
Ouch.
Look, You Don’t Need to Pay for Yelp, Nor Do You Want To
Don’t get me wrong, Yelp.com is awesome, I use it all the time to get the low down on new restaurants, find a plumber, etc. But you don’t need to pay to use it! Business owners can get free Yelp review pages and those rank (from a search engine optimization perspective) just as well as the paid for pages.
This means you’ll get traffic regardless!
Hope this was enlightening for you. Like I said earlier on, I’ve had only one experience with Yelp and boy was it a horrible one. I’d love to hear some success stories and some proof that it worked.
Until then, don’t pay Yelp a dime to join in on their “Yelp for Business Owners” program, especially if you are a restaurant owner.
Raymond Fong
If you are looking for real trackable result, I’d like to recommend you take a look at our gowth hacking agency. We help businesses (both startups and traditional businesses) gain more exposure, get more leads, obtain more customers, and ultimately add to their bottom line leveraging the internet.
P.S. You might be interested in this post I wrote as well, “Yelp Strikes Again…“
P.P.S. You might enjoy my book on growth hacking, “Growth Hacking: Silicon Valley’s Best Kept Secret”, because it’ll help you grow your business.
I was scammed too ! They said they would not turn the campaign untill I have all my information ready. The said we need your cc and inorder to get the “discount” they needed my cc and the rep said don’t worry we won’t charge you anything and said the phone call is being recorded you have my word. They turned the campaign on and I was billed 300.
Oh my gosh I hate Yelp they are now getting me for 450 a month I don’t know what to do I’m scared to cut them off they even went behind and got my new card. I was late on a payment because I had lost my card and forgot to read issues then the new number and somehow they got the new number I didn’t call them and give it to them at any rate the Yelp for advertiser if you’re getting online quotes they go with five other people’s quotes there’s always adds before your ad it’s misleading and will take you somewhere down the rabbit hole that you don’t want to go. My not recommended reviews are all four or five star ratings of course my 1-star reviews get posted immediately. I called to ask about this they told me oh there’s an algorithm that determines where they get placed this place is so full of crap I hate them but the millennials nothing against you millennials should use Google instead of Yelp I’m actually thinking of canceling was Yelp because of it shady and underhanded business practices I do believe that if I paid them a thousand bucks a month that all of my reviews would be posted of course they assured me that this wouldn’t happen and it doesn’t work like that but the previous owner paid a thousand bucks a month and all of his reviews were posted things that make you go hmmm?
Another victim of Yelp’s SCAM and FRAUDULENT business practice here. I too was lured by their $300 in free ads. Talking to their phone reps was even worse. I couldn’t believe how rude they are, I couldn’t believe it. I can see here that I am not alone. I am really upset about how they treat small business owners. We all should band together and file a CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT to them. They definitely should face severe consequences for their dishonest business practices.
Agreed Shady Business Practice’s
#yelpscamme2. I could kick myself for finally falling. They’ve called me for so long and I said no, or didn’t return the call. Finally I just picked up and so it began. I was mislead for sure. Told it would be free for a month until 12/31/18 and the deadline was 12/11/18. He called and called, bait on the hook and I fell for it…arrrgh! My understanding was there wasn’t any charge, because Yelp was willing to invest ads and pushing me to the front of my key words. After all, I had a 4.5 rating that could easily be pushed to the 5 star winners group! This would show me in a short time how valuable Yelp would be for my business. I could cancel 1/1/19 if not pleased and walk away free of charge if I didn’t want to continue and maybe I’d even have a few new clients, on Yelp. HUH!!! I’ll be a fool no more. I guess I had to really learn that lesson, approx. $300 later. Even though I cancelled and couldn’t get my money back, Visa says, call it fraud and change cards not allowing them to charge anything else, which a charge is promised by the end of this month….arrgh, I’m not sure if I should go through that change…? Not sure if they will try to charge even more than they said they plan to….?
I got scammed too. Priced per click were outrageous and none of the leads were even associated with my business. I got wasted $150 of pocket money after the $300 bonus they give upfront. It’s a racket for sure and unlawful if you ask me.
I do not ever intend to use Yelp for businesses again. I still do not see the added value in what the rep claimed we would receive & what we actually experienced. Not a single but of business came to us from paying to advertise with Yelp. I’m also disappointed in the rude & unprofessional conduct of the reps we spoke with when we brought our dissatisfaction to their attention. One rep even explicitly stated “I’m not giving you my last name & I’m not escalating your call.”
Wow! I am the latest victim of Yelp! … I too was suckered in by the $300 in free credit… I have to start googling these things before signing up and providing credit card information… They got me for $1300 dollars … What I found to be mind boggling was that they never sent any payment confirmations or invoices or anything for their monthly billing… They just silently bill you while providing no ROI at all… Its SHAMEFUL and Ironic for such a successful company like YELP to take advantage of small business owners and no one seems to be providing a consequence for their actions so they keep doing it to so many people… Basically I was never informed by their reps that I had to go turn off the ads after the credit expires … from the control panel and how to exactly go about doing that … I have gotten exactly 32 clicks to my website for $1300 dollars … THATS INSANE … and not a single message or lead was of quality enough to turn into any sort of business… ALL TRASH … If you are reading any of these comments prior to advertising with YELP! … I am sure you dont need any more advice as far as not to do any business with this crooked company … I will do my best to spread the word more and as should you and anyone else you know …
This informative review on Yelp by Raymond Fong further substantiates what I and many others have know all along, and that is: while the internet provides a plethora of useful information, it provides as much, if not more, misinformation in addition to serving as a platform for businesses like Yelp that continue to scam the public with their clever deceitful marketing, hiring people that have a difficult time articulating much less reading from a book they’ve been given for talking to existing and would be customers. Since the internet is much too vast to police and prevent the crooks online from fleecing the public, it’s definitely become the goto medium for such activity. Last but not least, I really have to place a lot of blame on those who are easily convinced and sold on Yelp and similar scams as it appears most are looking for the magic bullet, so to speak, to help resolve their issues in improving their lot in life. Sad to say, there is no magic bullet or shortcut and the snake salesmen out there know it!
Also terribly unimpressed with Yelp. I believe they lied to me when they said my cost per click was $5.90. Turned out that my ad that I ran for less than a month received only 9 clicks and they charged me $280. I complained and the manager said she would look into it. In advertising you have to test, test, test. So this was my test. I personally believe they lack in training and the question of their integrity is still out there.
Business owner in Michigan here and I “concur” with all of the other reviewers regarding Yelp’s ad platform. It is a TOTAL waste of time and money. Do NOT get suckered into the $300 dollar promo offer, because as others have mentioned Yelp is more interested in depleting funds than providing a strong / reliable ROI. The sales reps that cold call are telemarketers (period). They are script-reading-happy-hour-20 something-bimbo’s, calling from a Manhattan boiler room, and doing God knows what “on the side.” There is nothing coincidental about the comments in this thread; everyone has a similar story because this is how these street walkers have been trained. Somewhere out there is a Russian Pimp wearing a wide brimmed hat with a big Yelp logo. The tale of these tele-barbie’s reads more like the plot to the fourth installment of “Taken” and hopefully one of these girls has an ex-CIA, middle aged divorced Dad, who has the special skills to save her. If not, then would someone please call Chuck Norris!
Nov 1- 2018 – I let YELP waste one. hour talking to me. I have heard for sometime that they are scammers. He was friendly, trying to accommodate, giving. me $5 a day price for their new way they do business per click and if they do to click you are not charged line. I let the phone call go on way to long, due to that he felt I should have bought something. When I asked him to reach out in the new year.. that was simply not enough to stop his barrage of what he could do to help me. When he mentioned a business in Charleston that had the new slideshow that they design, I have that already for free. I went into private mode, googled the business name he suggested that had their special add, it took over 6 attempts in private mode to even get his Charleston company to show up on google directing me to Yelp. I asked him when they do their weekly E blasts on things to do in the area we live: Like: have coffee here, tacos there, best breweries… why they do not have that for photographers and he said that is handled by IT. He will probably trash. my Yelp page now. Appreciate Ray your feedback here, and hope when business folks get the YELP CALL they see this before they commit to a campaign that unless you go directly to Yelp- is not worth the 300.00 per month price of admission.
Do not fall for their sales pitch.
Yelp is hoping you sign up and then forget about the service so they can continue to drain you bank account for months or even years.
They have a no refund policy as you were provided with “marketing services” .. Basically they will try and politely tell you to go pound sand when you call to get money back.
I wish I had seen this website before I signed up for the scam.
Luckily I only got stung for one month and three days. They refused to refund the 50 bucks they took for the three days. I figured the 240 bucks they took for the month was my fault for falling for the pitch. Having seen no return on the investment, it was truly a slap in the face for them to bill me another 50 a month later….
RUN RUN RUN Yelp is coming for your money…………
Hi I own a highly successful carpet cleaning company smSir Cleanalot carpet and upholstery cleaning with over 78 five stars reviews. Only 25 five star reviews are showing because everytime yelp calls and I inform them we’re not interested in advertising at this time the take away 4 or 5 reviews. These are reviews that are well connected and been yelp users for a while. It’s one big scam. They should be sued. This is why people are starting to use Google more as a source of reviews.
Yelp and the ghost clicks were maddening. Didnt recieve a single bite, and somehow magically there were just enough slicks to gobble up my monthly amount. Total total scam.
I found advertising on Yelp to be a total waste of time and money. I got suckered in by the $300 in free credit. This was back in March and April. I think it was something around $25 CPC. At that rate, it went by quickly, even though it took two months to reach that threshold on a few amount of clicks.
I just got another email from Yelp with ANOTHER $300 credit promo. It seems like they are desperate to generate revenue from their ad platform. It just isn’t worth it. People use Yelp to look at reviews, not search or seek out businesses. It makes no sense to choose them over Google Ads from cost-efficiency perspective.