Yelp Store Visits Aims To Boost Brands’ Consumer Visits

New ad products introduced by Yelp will let restaurants better understand the impact of their ads on local foot traffic, according to reports.

The service, Yelp Store Visits, is primarily intended for businesses with multiple locations. It will look at first-party attribution, and work to determine the cost per visit that customers are spending by using opt-in location information.

A company that participated in a pilot for the program achieved a cost per visit of $1.17 via Yelp ads, according to Yelp. The company in question said that 91 percent of those visits happened within 24 hours of engaging with Yelp ads.

Another program, Showcase Ads, enables national brands to highlight new menu items, temporary promotions and seasonal offers. Yelp also said it’s adding a video component to its app for businesses.

Denny’s, the fast-casual dining chain, was involved in Yelp’s pilot for the Store Visits program, and several Fortune 500 companies — like IHOP, Starbucks and T-Mobile — worked on the pilot for Showcase Ads, Yelp said.

Compared to a year previous, Yelp’s revenues from larger advertisers rose by 21 percent in its third quarter of 2019. Roughly one-third of the largest U.S. restaurants and retailers were Yelp clients by that period, too.

Restaurants are trying to not fall into the same trap as retail did in years past, when retailers ignored the encroaching digital world and the presence of online retailers. Therefore, restaurants are trying to be digitally present as much as possible, which often involves working with companies — like Yelp — that can provide far-reaching benefits, such as helping to fill seats and advertise in crowded fields.

In other Yelp news, the company recently introduced new methods for restaurants to post updates on things like happy hour and menu items. New additions to its Waitlist feature allow users to see current estimated wait times, and enter the queue via the app.