When it comes to local search, the Internet Yellow pages providers can hold their own and even win out with both users and advertisers in comparisons with Web-based competitors from Google, Yahoo and the like.
A study done by the Yellow pages Association and comScore Networks which was released at Ad:Tech San Francisco tracked consumer searches across five popular categories: financial services, health care, home services, automotive products and services, and restaurant dining. The research revealed that users of Internet Yellow Pages (IYP) sites found their desired local search results with fewer clicks than those using a standard search engine: 4.6 clicks on average with IYP versus 7.6 clicks for search engine users.
“The study underscores the growing importance of IYP as a player in the increasingly competitive local search market,” YPA president Neg Norton told attendees at an Ad:Tech session titled “Leveraging Local Search”.
The findings are significant because Yellow Pages, long a powerful print marketing tool used by local businesses, have seen that dominance fade as local search moves online. Even the newly published YPA survey found that 66% of users performing a local search bypass the Internet Yellow Pages for Web search engines; those engines account for 58% of all local searches.
Not only is an IYP search more efficient on average, the study found, but it draws users who are more attractive to advertisers. IYP searchers are 10% to 15% more likely to have household incomes over $75,000 than local search users and 41% more likely to have household incomes over $100,000. Searchers who use Internet Yellow Pages are also 25% more likely to have access to high-speed broadband connections and about 5% more likely to be in the 25-to-44-year-old age group.
The Yellow Pages study also noted differences among the two search user groups in terms of the sites they visit and the things they buy, either on the web or at brick-and-mortar stores. The IYP users tend to favor financial sites, and those involving manufacturing or media, while local search users are drawn to sites centered on community and gaming, according to the study.
When it comes to their buying habits, IYP users spend more total per buyer than their local search counterparts in the automotive, home and garden, general services and health and beauty categories, and spend more per buyer on offline purchases in the drugstore, automotive, restaurant and home and garden categories.
