Interview: Court Cunningham, CEO of Yodle.com

In an effort to bring you more small business resources, I asked Court Cunningham, CEO of Yodle.com, a few questions.

How does Yodle work?
Yodle advertises our clients across a network of search engines, directories, and other sites in order to generate qualified leads for that client. We are a “full-service” company in the sense that we have the capabilities to handle all of the online advertising needs of a local business including website design (about half of our clients don’t even have a website), campaign setup, ongoing campaign management, and tracking.

Say that we are working with a dentist. We want to make sure that when consumers in that dentist’s area are looking online for the dental services that client offers, that they not only find our client, but more importantly, that after they find our client, they are sufficiently compelled by our client’s website to actually pick up the phone and call.

What makes it different from online Yellow Pages websites?
For one, we distribute across an entire network of sites that reaches over 90% of search traffic. This is a far greater reach than any individual online Yellow Pages website has. In fact, it’s a far greater reach than all online Yellow Pages combined. Further to that point, Yodle is what we call “site agnostic.” We are not in the business of placing our clients “high up” on a particular site or directory. We are in the business of advertising our clients across our network in order to generate them the maximum number of qualified leads to their business. If a particular site isn’t driving qualified leads for a particular client, we adjust their campaign to focus their budget elsewhere.

In a time where cost is a concern, how does Yodle help small business owners?
One of the primary advantages of online advertising – especially with Yodle – is that it is so transparent and accountable. When a small business owner used to place an ad in, say the newspaper, sure they might know that they got some customers from that ad, but what was their real ROI for their advertising investment? They really had no way of knowing. With Yodle, we not only track how much a client is spending and how much traffic they are getting to their website, but more importantly we track and record the phone calls that our clients’ ads are generating, so they can easily measure their true ROI. This measurability is so crucial – especially during tough economic times – in that it really allows the small business owner to make the tough decisions about what advertising expenses are “fat” that need to be trimmed and what aspects of advertising are really driving revenue and profits.

Spending on advertising has traditionally been painful for local businesses; however, when you know with 100% certainty that every dollar you spend on advertising generates seven dollars in return (this is the average for Yodle customers), then continuing to spend on advertising during a recession is a no brainer.

How much traffic does the average site on Yodle get? Are you taking market share away from big players like Bellsouth?
The traffic of a particular client’s website varies greatly depending on a number of factors including geography, industry, and budget size. Moreover – and I think this gets to the core of what our business model is all about and how it’s different than many other players in the industry – I would contend that traffic, in and of itself, is not really that important to the success of a local business online. True, a site has to be seen in order to generate leads, but a particular business could have a third of the traffic of another business and still be more successful because they are getting the right kind of traffic and delivering the right kind of message to that traffic. That is what Yodle is in the business of doing. Identifying how to reach that right kind of traffic and then sending it to our clients so that they generate revenue, not just page views.

As for taking market share away from players like Bellsouth, I think all one has to do is look at the performance of many of the traditional publishers to tell that there has been a fundamental shift as to where consumers are looking for local businesses and that ad dollars have started to follow suit. There’s no doubt that our own 700% year over year growth last year is largely attributable to this market shift. That being said, the majority of our customers aren’t coming directly from those publishers, rather the majority are local businesses that recognized the value of online advertising, have tried it themselves, and then have found that managing their own campaigns is too complicated or too time-consuming, so they look for help.

For more information, visit Yodle.com.