Using Automated Local Marketing Services

I first came across a client using ReachLocal a couple of years ago and I was dumbfounded by the whole process. The client had hired me to redo their website, work on SEO, update social media, and help generate leads via online advertising. In addition to my cost they were paying ReachLocal a large monthly fee to essentially duplicate efforts on a separate platform. ReachLocal had created a second template based website that was so ugly and disjointed I couldn’t imagine having it out for the public to find. They were optimizing their version of the site so that it was beating the clients main website and they were supposedly running ads to create leads that would go to a ReachLocal phone number and then would have to be passed on to my client as a lead. WHAT? And worst of all, they weren’t seeing many leads. The client had very little control over the messaging, the look and feel of the site and the ads, and the engagement process became two steps for potential clients.

I quickly asked for a meeting with ReachLocal so they could explain their value to me. I was just as disappointed as I expected to be after a 30 minute conversation with an “account manager” that referenced Google’s recent algorithm change at least 5 times as a way of validating their worth to my client. We immediately canceled the contract and focused on real goals with messaging and branding that we could control and results that were measurable. I expected ReachLocal to pop back up with other clients but luckily never encountered them again.

Today I sat down to breakfast with the Wall Street Journal and happened upon this article, Searching for Help With Web Ads, but Not Finding Much. It is a full rundown about ReachLocal and a similar company Yodle based out of New York. The article confirms so many of my suspicions- unqualified sales people in charge of monitoring advertising, automation of ad changes, and a sizable number of complaints to the Federal Trade Commission of their past five years (over half of them in the past two years).

Small businesses are making large investments and not seeing a return. There are incidents of listings being misspelled and contact information being incorrect. The ads were not targeted and were being served to people out of market and leads are so unqualified that they become a hinderance rather than a potential new customer. The small businesses are then paying for Google ads on a cost-per-click basis for completely worthless clicks, which can be quite expensive.

If there is anything I have learned over the years is that it takes hours of time and constant review to run a very successful ad campaign online- whether via Google AdWords, Facebook Ads, Twitter Ads, StumbleUpon, or others. MtoM works with many clients that want to see qualified traffic to their site, leads that will convert, and a pay off in their sales numbers. We also work with people that have set budgets because they are a start up or a small business that needs to be conservative. The original creation of the ads, the A/B testing, and the continuous tweaks are all essential in to a highly successful campaign. It is also important to know which advertising platform will allow you to reach your audience. As Tracey highlighted earlier this week in her post about Facebook’s new sidebar ads, changes to advertising feeds can also change your strategy. We encourage you to work with someone that will be a partner in the growth of your business and not a deeply flawed automated system.

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