Tracking of Yellow Page Advertising

Hey I was wondering if you guys have ever had a yellow page company track calls based upon the number published…this is a diferent number so it can be tracked to the ad published and they include monthly reports of incoming calls to see if you are getting your return on investment…I am waiting to hear back from them but since they were so sure that it would have my phones ringing I asked them to prove it…I guess we will see if they oput their $$ where their mouth is.

I think it is a 1/4 page ad which includes a full page menu…the menu would be free and the ad is normally $400 per month…they said I could get it for less then 1/2 price…do you think it is worth it?
PS we have never advertised in the phone books since we started 25yrs ago.
Thanks all!

The problem with using a special tracking # is that 2 years from now, some people will still be using the 2007 phone book. However, you will no longer have that number. Thus when the customer calls “your” number they will be told that that # is no longer in service and they may assume that you are no longer in business. Worse than that, the special tracking # may be given out to someone who gets sick and tired of getting 3 or 4 calls a week for you and starts answering the phone at midnight with the name of your pizzeria and telling your customers that the pizza is on the way, and they f*****g better be patient or the driver might put something extra on the pizza.

[quote=“Anonymous”]
The problem with using a special tracking # is that 2 years from now, some people will still be using the 2007 phone book. However, you will no longer have that number. Thus when the customer calls “your” number they will be told that that # is no longer in service and they may assume that you are no longer in business. Worse than that, the special tracking # may be given out to someone who gets sick and tired of getting 3 or 4 calls a week for you and starts answering the phone at midnight with the name of your pizzeria and telling your customers that the pizza is on the way, and they f*****g better be patient or the driver might put something extra on the pizza.[/quote]

You made me split my shorts!!!

my phone # for line 4 hasn’t changed in 10 years, so it would be interesting to try. As far as a local resident telling people that, it’s happened to me. It was a simmilar number apparently, but I never found out what number. I got many complaints about an answering machine message over a couple of months, but we have no answering machine in our store. I tried to figure out the wrong # our customers were dialing, to no avail. After a couple months, I’ve never gotten another complaint.

I hadn’t thought of that aspect of the yellow pages tracking program - it is an EXCELLENT point.
But I don’t think the original poster quite “got it” - the issue is that to track, the YP will ASSIGN you a NEW phone number - not use your line 4. Then if you discontinue the program, you lose that published number (but your customers still call it)…

OK so I met with them today and they approved the tracking…when I asked about the number (which yes it is different form our original one for 25yrs now and gets forwarded to that number) they said it is not one that normally gets used after we opt out if that happens…either way you face that risk anytime you eliminate a phone line so I am not really worried about it…also I think that people around here throw out copies of their new ones instead of keeping old yellow pages for the other problem, but I guess it happens either way…the biggest problem we get every once in a while is their are 2 other places that have the same name as us(non-affiliated) approx 45 min away in opposite directions that we get calls from their customers that causes havoc :evil:

So for less than $200 per month I can get a full page menu and 1/4 page ad.

This would be a regional yellow pages (there are 2 competing books in the area)

We have never done any ads in the past, but we started delivery and figure it might be worth the reduced rate and we can track it to determine if it is worthwhile in the future

Perry,

I didn’t do Yellow Page advertising and was torn. I would be very interested to see how the results turn out for you.

Please keep us updated.

Is the YELLOWBOOK? IF so, I would be very cautious.

can you expand, please?