Deeper Mobile Calls to Action: A Conversation with YP

Today at IAB’s Mobile Marketplace Conference in NYC, I had the chance to catch up with YP’s David Kurtz about a new ad unit the company announced. Kurtz has been no stranger to our own conference stage and editorial, as VP of publisher products for the largest local ad network out there.

The new ad units announced today will plug into that network and include more granular geo-specific calls to action such as store locators. These will be integrated right into the ad unit and show users the right information for the closest stores, including maps and business details.

This is clearly great for large national advertisers that have dispersed geographic locations because it allows them to target national campaigns in a locally relevant way. That localization has been known to boost ad performance, and has done just that in trials YP has run with these new ads.

Specifically, a campaign for Blockbuster in tandem with ad agency Booyah, saw about a .05 percent CTR (average online CTRs are around .01 percent). Fifty five percent of those clicks launched a map while 20 percent clicked on a coupon and 22 percent of those coupon clicks were shared with friends.

In addition to these metrics, the two main selling points of these ads are 1. the dynamic creation and optimization of landing pages, and 2. the geofencing engine that taps into YPs longstanding expertise and scale in local ad placements.

In order to make sure they’re providing the greatest value and ROI to advertisers, Kurtz says that they ask advertisers to choose the actions they want to drive, such as calls, directions, click to landing page, etc.. These will of course vary from one business to another.

These secondary actions are a key proof point for campaign effectiveness, and could in the future represent CPA pricing models for YP. But for now, Kurtz maintains that advertisers’ comfort levels lie more with CPC and CPM pricing, while secondary action analytics will show things are working.

Most of all, the key takeaway is that YP is positioned well by bringing together these localized campaigns in a way that alleviates the local segmentation challenge. In other words, local targeting sacrifices reach — a key metric for brands. But YP’s scale makes up for it, as does the local performance boost.

“We’re in good spot to do things with these [advertisers],” says Kurtz. “Store location on mobile isn’t new, nor is dynamic campaign generation. But we’re the first to be able to do it at scale with all the assets in one place finally.”