We all know that in advertising you either adapt or die. It’s become very apparent that, for the last five years, yellowpages, the big, clunky, yellow service directory book,  is losing steam and validity as a quality advertising source. I mean the book obviously has uses. For example, you’re teaching your underage child how to drive, your toddler needs a step stool for the toilet, or if you’re just looking for something to collect dust. I don’t really mean to unnecessarily beat up yellowpages, but the company and that whole yellow book segment know that their time is about up in the advertising world. As a result, Yellowpages started managing PPC campaigns. Who’d a thunk it? Onypc.com, which stands for Online Yellowpages is their last potentially legitimate attempt to stay relevant because yellowpages.com is clearly a joke and a ripoff.

After converting one of their extremely confused, annoyed, and down right pissed off PPC clients into one of ours, I had some info gathering to do. What was the service, what was their pitch, and how did they talk potential clients into their pay per click campaign? So I actually called yellowpages and told them that I needed help running one of my campaigns cause I was just too busy and yellowpages sent out a sales rep and a Search Engine Marketing Manager. This is what transpired:

Service Highlights:

• onypc.com (yellowpages) manages your campaign in Atlanta
• PPC Campaign is spread among many major search engines; Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ask.com, etc..
• Choose a comfortable monthly budget
• Cool Online Portal for Transparency
• onypc Landing Page
• 12 month contract (NO OUT)

Major Onypc.com (Yellowpages) Flaws:

• With onypc.com (yellowpages) you don’t actually get to speak with the campaign manager, you work with a Search Engine Marketing “Manager” that probably has never managed a PPC account.
• I had the rebuttal, that if I knew Google converted at twice the rate of the other search engines, and was the same relative Cost per Click (CPC), why would I be forced to display ads on less effective search engines. The response was, “We have you covered on 92% of the Search Engines, why would you only want to be covered on 72% of the searches!” Really, who was this guy kidding? I have been managing $100,000+  monthly PPC campaigns for over 3 years. It’s common advertising sense to appropriate your spend to the medium that converts at the highest rate and lowest cost.
• Cool Backend Portal; this was the biggest selling point for them (very sad.) Apparently this offers transparency, which is very important to someone investing money in advertising. With the portal you can see how many clicks you had and how much you spent, with one very important metric excluded, the cost that yellowpages paid for that click.
• How much Does yellowpages make? We all know that there is an inherent cost for a click. There are various models out there for pay per click but typically there is a one time setup fee and then a monthly management fee relative to the monthly PPC spend. Only yellowpages has a far different model, for this example you (Painting Professional) would give yellowpages $2500 and they would show you 80 clicks in the report on your cool back-end portal. Doing simple math you know you spent just over $31 per click, seems ok right?  Absolutely not!!! Only If you are a personal injury lawyer specializing in Mesothelioma.
• Obviously you have to get paid for services rendered, but if you are only paying $3 a click on Google and charging them $31 per click, that’s strong armed robbery. I asked how do I know that I’m not getting ripped off? Response. “We’re Yellowpages.” hahahah, riiiiiight!
• A Landing Page? check this out  S & J Roofing. From an Analytics standpoint you are dealing with a limited # of page views and time on site, why would you want another obstacle up to keep you from securing a client? I have no clue either. It is no wonder that their clients hate them.
• Agreement Length = 12 Months. So after everything is said and done, we have ripped you off, stolen your money, landed the potential clients that you over paid for on our site, and now we are locking you in for 12 months!

My fellow readers! I scream SCAMMMMMM. Please do yourselves a favor, do not spend your money with onypc.com (yellowpages) they are giving the SEM and more specifically PPC world a bad name. If you are interested in a Pay Per Click (PPC) campaign where we land your potential clients on  your website,  show you what the clicks cost on Google, and then focus on increasing your conversions overtime please contact Digital Footprint Media.