On Monday, Yelp announced a new “Revenue Estimate” tool to help local-business owners understand how their business from Yelp compares to national averages from a Boston Consulting Group (BCG) study. The free tool multiplies customer leads sent to the business via Yelp each month by the business’s average revenue per customer lead. It also includes the average spend per customer for each business category.
In its blog post announcing the tool, the company says the tool will help business owners in two ways:
- “First, it helps quantify the revenue opportunity Yelp is already sending to each business.
- Second, it establishes a revenue baseline for prospective advertisers, from which they can later evaluate the impact of their investment in Yelp Ads.”
The BCG study, which surveyed 4,800 business owners, found that small businesses with a free business owner’s Yelp account saw an average of $8,000 in annual revenue from the online reviews site.
“Even more interesting, the survey revealed that Yelp advertisers benefit nearly three times as much, generating average annual revenues from Yelp of more than $23,000,” the company noted in its blog post announcing the study’s findings. The average local advertising spend is $4,200 annually ($350 per month), highlighting strong ROI.
In early February, Yelp announced that it welcomed more than 100 million unique visitors to its desktop and mobile sites in January. That number doesn’t include the 9.4 million unique mobile devices that used Yelp’s mobile app during that month. The company also noted that the average customer across all categories spent $101.59 in their first visit to businesses they find on Yelp.
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