I have been playing a little bit, a very little bit with Yelp. It is not my main push as a marketing tool that being a B2B company but still I play just in case I have a client that needs to be there.
But how long will Yelp be around? Does it, can it make money?
Well, it doesn't! At least, not yet.
The company lost $7.6 million through the first nine months of the year on revenues of $59 million. They (industry experts) think if should become profitable, it will be due to advertising, specifically local advertising, which stands at at $40 million and is 70% of its total revenue through the first nine months of this year. Brand advertising stands at $13 million is 22% of revenue. And "other services," like Yelp Deals, remnant ads, and revenue from reservations is 9%, or $5.4 million.
Here are the most important details:
Revenue: $22 million in Q3 2011, up from $12.6 million in Q3 2010.
Yearly revenue: Yelp brought in $47.7 million in revenue last year. It brought in $58.4 million in the first nine months this year, compared to $32.5 million in the first nine months last year.
Profits: Yelp lost $3.8 million in Q3 2011, up from 2.9 million in Q3 2010.
Yearly profits: Yelp lost $9.6 million last year and lost $7.6 million in the first nine months this year.
Visitors: Yelp had 61 million monthly unique visitors as of the end of its third quarter.
Reviews: Yelp has 22.4 million reviews on the site as of the end of its third quarter.
Advertising: 71 percent of Yelp's revenue comes from local advertising, compared to 21 percent from brand advertising and 8 percent from "other services.
"Google in particular is the most significant source of traffic to our website accounting for more than half of the visits to our website from Internet searches during the nine months ended September 30, 2011," the S-1 filing reads.
CEO Jeremy Stoppelman owns 11.1 percent of Yelp. The company's investors own 61.1 percent of the company.
Yelp has $23 million in cash, down from $27 million at the end of 2010.
And here are some interesting tidbits:
42 percent of Yelp's customers are between the ages of 18 and 34, and 33 percent are between the ages of 35 and 59.
45 percent of Yelp's customers are college graduates.
Nearly half of all reviews (23 percent each) are restaurant or store reviews.
PayPal co-founder Max Levchin owns 13.8 percent of Yelp.
Yelp has spent $4.4 million on infrastructure this year so far, up from $2.9 million in 2010.
Yelp's business could be adversely affected by "earthquakes, fires, floods and other natural catastrophic events and to interruption by man-made problems such as computer viruses or terrorism."
Yelp says it does not intend to pay dividends in the future.
Yelp employees outside of Stoppelman only own 14 percent of the company. Stoppelman, his investors and Levchin own a collective 86 percent of the company.
Yelp's employee with the second-highest ownership is chief operating officer Geoff Donaker at 1.6 percent.
Larson Notes & Satire: My yelp numbers are going up? Are my prospects there? Yes, prospects can be everywhere. It is all in how to touch them in a way they want to be touched.
As Henry Ford once said, he knew half of every dollar he spent on advertising was wasted. He just didn't know which half.
So where should you be advertising and marketing everywhere and anyway you can be 90% effective. The key is to be as effective in each area you are involved in so you own that channel. A multichannel attack works because one size or one approach does not fit all. Need help call us.
“We don’t sell lists, we find customers.”
Want to be a Blogger but can’t write?
Try our ghost blog writing service!
Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws/
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/LarsonAndAssociatesFans
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates
https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate
P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.