Yelp Debuts 2 Ad Options for Yelp Audiences: Sponsored Collections, Seasonal Spotlight Ads

Business directory and crowdsourced review forum Yelp debuted two new ad products Tuesday as an extension of its Yelp Audiences ad platform: Sponsored Collections and Seasonal Spotlight Ads. Sponsored Collections—available on the Yelp iOS application homepage with Android to follow soon—enable brands to showcase local businesses based on common themes, such as consumer products being served at nearby local restaurants. The option is available free of charge to local businesses with storefronts on Yelp that are highlighted. Brands with or without storefronts must pay for Sponsored Collections, and the platform partners with them to curate lists of locally owned businesses that match the criteria that are chosen. Kraft Heinz is running a multifaceted campaign on Yelp that leverages its multilocation advertising products to reach business owners, and the company is leveraging Sponsored Collections in November and December to highlight local restaurants across 25 cities that are likely to carry Heinz Ketchup and Philadelphia Cream Cheese products. According to The Trade Desk, Kraft Heinz’s Yelp Audiences campaign has reached nearly 4 million Yelp users who self-identified as business owners and restaurant operators off the platform, Yelp senior vice president and head of go-to-market, national Tom Foran said in a statement, “Sponsored Collections are a win-win for national and local businesses. These campaigns create a local footprint for a national brand to tell its story at a hyperlocal level by sponsoring a business collection on Yelp that helps support its initiatives. Sponsored Collections can be customized, enabling advertisers to create meaningful connections with local businesses and consumers.” Kraft Heinz head of brand marketing, away from home Brandon Potter added, “This campaign reinforces to food service operators that consumers see brands like Heinz and Philadelphia as signals of quality in a restaurant. Yelp’s rich data set allows us to target this very specific—and hard to reach—audience both on and off the platform.” The goal of Seasonal Spotlight Ads is to drive in-store traffic for brands with multiple locations by providing Yelp users with information about new products, promotions or seasonal deals via carousel ads made up of individual posts on the homepage for Yelp’s iOS app. The option is also available to brands via Yelp’s Android app, and it must be used alongside other ad campaigns on the platform, either on-platform via Yelp Ads or off-platform via Yelp Audiences. IHOP ran Seasonal Spotlight Ads during the pilot period to promote Father’s Day and National Waffle Day and saw a strong incremental lift in store visits based on its third-party attribution studies, and the restaurant chain will continue to use the option for Thanksgiving. Yelp chief product officer Vivek Patel said in a statement, “With each new ad product we roll out, we’re further enabling national and multilocation advertisers to tell their story on Yelp. Our advertising strategy for national and multilocation brands focuses on what’s most relevant for the consumer and how brands can leverage seasonal moments to create multiple, meaningful touchpoints. We’re thrilled to see that the reaction to Seasonal Spotlight Ads is overwhelmingly positive, as we’ve actually sold out of this ad space for the 2021 holiday season.” Finally, Yelp reported a “significant increase” in consumer adoption of first-party attribution tool Yelp Store Visits, saying that cost-per-click ad budgets from national and midmarket clients leveraging the option shot up by more than five times in the third quarter of 2021 compared with the same period in 2019, while the average number of accounts more than doubled over the same time period.