The Ultimate Showdown: Google Ads vs. Yelp Ads – Which Platform Will Bring You More Customers?

Tired of shouting into the void? Ever feel like your advertising dollars are disappearing into a black hole? Whether you run a cozy bakery, a bustling dental practice, or an innovative tech startup, attracting new customers is the lifeblood of your business. 

But with so many advertising options, how do you know which one will give you the biggest bang for your buck?

Today, we're diving into the ultimate advertising showdown: Google Ads vs. Yelp Ads. 

If you're wondering which platform will supercharge your marketing efforts and bring in a flood of eager customers, you've come to the right place. 

We'll break down each platform's strengths and weaknesses so you can confidently choose the one that best suits your business goals.

What is Google Ads?

Imagine you own a local med spa and want more people to discover your services. Google Ads is like a megaphone that helps you shout your message to a massive local audience online.

Here's how it works:

Why are Google Ads so effective?

In short, Google Ads is a versatile and powerful tool that can help your business get noticed by the right people, drive more traffic to your website, and ultimately increase sales. It's like having a personal marketing team working tirelessly to promote your business 24/7!

What are Yelp Ads?

Now, let's turn our attention to Yelp, another go-to hub for finding local businesses and reading reviews. And Yelp also offers advertising options to help businesses like yours get noticed.

Yelp is more than just a digital phone book – it's a thriving community where people share their experiences and opinions about local businesses. When potential customers are searching for a restaurant, plumber, or hair salon, Yelp is often one of the places customers check before doing business with you. This makes it a potentially powerful platform for local businesses to connect with their target audience.

Here's how Yelp Ads can work for you:

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Why should you consider Yelp Ads?

If you're a local business looking to increase your visibility and attract more customers, Yelp Ads could be a valuable tool in your marketing arsenal. It's a platform where reviews matter, local connections are made, and potential customers seek businesses like yours.

Head-to-Head Comparison: Key Factors

Reach and Audience: Who Are You Talking To?

When it comes to reach, Google Ads is the undisputed heavyweight champion. 

With billions of searches happening on Google every day on both mobile and desktop, your ads have the potential to reach a massive global audience, or a hyper-focused local audience on scale. This is especially beneficial if your business has a broad target market or offers products and services that appeal to a wide range of demographics. 

In comparison, Yelp's strength lies in its hyperlocal focus. 

It attracts a dedicated community of users who are actively seeking out local businesses and rely on reviews to make informed decisions. This makes Yelp an ok option for businesses like restaurants, hair salons, dentists, and other service providers that cater to a specific geographic area.

Advantage goes to: Google

Targeting Options: Hitting the Bullseye with Your Ads

Now, let's talk about targeting, the art of getting your message in front of the right people at the right time. 

Both Google Ads and Yelp Ads offer a variety of targeting options, but they each have their unique strengths.

Google Ads: A Multi-Tool for Precision Targeting

Google Ads is like a Swiss Army knife of targeting options, giving you an impressive array of tools to fine-tune your targeting. Here are some of the key features:

Yelp Ads: Hyperlocal Targeting 

The Yelp ads platform has far fewer options compared to Google and it is a less precise and less efficient platform than Google with its ads. 

Here's what you can expect in terms of options to use to target your ads:

What makes Yelp less efficient and less precise has to do with its geo targeting options along with refining the keywords you use, and the lack of additional targeting options that Google has.

Advantage goes to: Google Ads

Comparing Google Ads Geotargeting to Yelp Ads Geotargeting

With Yelp, if your customer base is less than a 5-mile radius, you may have trouble narrowing your targeting.  As you can see below, the narrowest we can set the radius is to 5 miles. Yelp does offer the ability to target based on zip codes and neighborhoods, but this feature may be limited if there’s not enough search volume in those areas.

In comparison, Google offers more fine-tuned geo-targeting abilities. 

Here’s an example of the geotargeting interface in Google Ads.

In the example above, I set the radius to as low as 1 km. Much narrower than what Yelp allows for because there are far more people available to reach in Google versus Yelp so narrower targets are allowed. You can also set Location Exclusions in Google Ads so your ads won’t show in certain areas as well.  

Google also allows for larger scale targeting by cities, counties, states, and countries. 

The advantage goes to: Google

Compare Google Ads Keyword Targeting to Yelp Ads Keyword Targeting

Google was founded on keywords. Its keyword abilities far surpass anything that Yelp has to offer. This comparison is not even fair. 

Google’s Keyword Research

Google offers robust keyword research tools to find precisely the best keywords. Google will show you all sorts of actionable data. Below we used the term “best med spa san diego.” 

The Google Keyword Planner not only shows us other terms to consider, but also average monthly search volume and top of bid range for cost-per-click. 

In addition to the keyword research tools Google provides, it also provides in-depth information on how each individual keyword is performing. 

Here’s an example below.

Look at all the data on specific keywords for this account.

By analyzing the data, we can identify the keywords that are driving clicks and conversions, such as phone calls or online bookings. Armed with this information, we can optimize our campaign by pausing underperforming keywords, thereby reallocating our ad budget to the keywords that generate the most sales. (read our related post on setting up conversion tracking for Google Ads).

Yelp Ads Keyword Targeting

The Yelp keyword tool is very limited. The below screenshot shows the Yelp keyword tool. There’s not much there.

Yelp also doesn’t provide any insights into which keywords are working well and which are wasting your ad dollars - you have no insights to act on which means your ad spend is wasted.

Tracking and Analytics

Google Ads Tracking

Google makes available an immense amount of data to you so you can refine your campaign to its very best. 

As I showed earlier, you can see clear keyword level data to refine your keywords.

Here’s another example where we can see the type of lead for five different campaigns: 

You can also see leads and conversion data by geography. This enables you to further refine your campaign to stop showing ads in places that are not sending you business. 

Yelps Ads Tracking

In comparison, Yelp Ads shows you a heat map of where your ads are “reaching” - not which areas are sending you the most business. Again, you cannot refine your ad spend based on these data. Some of these areas are for sure wasting your ad spend in this case.

Yelp does provide more ad insights as you can see in the below screenshot broken down by various actions. 

Other Features

Day parting is another feature Google Ads offers that is an effective feature. Day parting allows you to show your ads only during certain days and times of the day. So, if you have a finite budget (read my related post on Low Budget Google Ads Strategies), you can focus it only during your business hours when you’re most likely to convert traffic. 

Here’s an example for a restaurant where we have ads running only Friday, Saturday, and Sunday during specific hours to focus the ad spend during those times. (read a related post here on Google Ads Dayparting)

Yelp doesn’t have this feature. Ads run all day, 7 days per week.

Feature Comparison Table: Google Ads vs Yelp Ads

Which Ad Platform Should You Use: Google Ads or Yelp Ads?

Without knowing more about your precise situation, Google Ads is hands down the most effective ad platform overall. And it’s the one we consistently recommend to our clients.

However, Google Ads can be complex for those not regularly engaged in advertising. Successful campaigns require expertise in managing Google Ads, including setting up conversion tracking, conducting keyword research, and possibly creating landing pages or integrating with your website.

Google does offer simpler alternatives, like Google Ads Express and Smart campaigns, but these versions lack the comprehensive features of the full platform and tend to be less effective.

Yelp’s ad platform is very simple to use. 

On the other hand, Yelp’s advertising platform is much simpler to navigate. However, not every business thrives on Yelp. While restaurants and salons may find success, the platform doesn’t necessarily cater to a wide variety of business types. In contrast, Google Ads reaches a vast and diverse customer base daily, making it a more universally applicable option.

Got more questions about Google or Yelp Ads?

Book a time with me to discuss your project and how we can help you win more business now.