Advertising has taken a more aggressive stance via the internet. It can now solicit direct and proactive responses from its target market by encouraging them to post comments on a certain product, write product reviews, or interface online via chat messaging regarding a product or service. Advertising online, unlike the Yellow Pages phonebook, delivers measurable results at once, more appeal at less cost.

This is the woe of Yellow Pages ® Directory advertising. It appears recent years have seen its steady decline – it is possible that it is it heading for the worst, now that the more prominent search engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN and America-On-Line (AOL) have started to touch base with the local market? Advertisers can now connect with their local market by city, or by a specific locality just like the Phonebook through the emergence of advertising products that deliver streams of higher revenue via a website. Google’s Adwords for one, as the forerunner in this new era of clickable and location-targeted advertising has taken internet marketing by “leaps and bounds”.

The apparent demise of Yellow Pages ® Directory advertising is caused by the following handicaps:

1.) The phonebook requires an immediate cash outlay, regardless of results;

2.) Your ad is placed under a category where your product or service belongs; imagine the number of competitors you have on the yellow page. A prospect who runs his finger up and down the list ends up in a comparison shopping-spree;

3.) Your ad cramped on a 2×3 size in order to save on cost will get you unnoticed;

4.) Lots of competitors vying for the same attention; to get noticed your ad has to come out in a bigger size and in a more prominent design – this can be costly;

5.) You cannot effect a change on your printed ad at anytime;

6.) Advertisements on the Yellow pages look similar; it will cost you more to look different and unique;

7.) If you want your ads to appear in all states or cities, you have to advertise in different phonebooks – imagine how much it would cost;

8.) Regardless of the number of people actually using the phonebook, which continues to decline, you are still paying the same advertising cost.

A few years after its inception, Adwords has positioned itself as one of the primary revenue-generating programs of Google Inc. It has gained widespread acclaim and recognition from several online communities; the blogging industry, as well as marketing and advertising companies worldwide. Google Adwords presents a flexible marketing flagship, wherein advertisers are given the ability to promote their products and services on the Google Search Engine, as well as millions of websites signed up under the Google Adsense program. Google Adwords primarily target advertisers, while Adsense caters to different ad publishers. Publishers get a percentage from the clicks made on the ads posted on their website(s).

Viral marketing has taken a strong footing these past few years as well. With the rise of Search Engine Marketing, people have seen the potential of gaining revenue, in a much faster pace, from different online activities. Google Adwords, as well as other revenue generating programs like Yahoo Search Marketing and MSN Adcenter, contribute a great deal to the success of online viral marketing.

As the success of online marketing progresses, it appears the existence and popularity of the Yellow Pages ® wanes, pushing people and companies to seek the cheaper, yet more versatile offers of PPC’s and other online marketing ventures. A large percentage of global companies use the internet everyday. Advertisers, as well as publishers are seeing the big picture; taking hold of a flexible and affordable marketing program like Google Adwords assures them more exposure at a lesser cost.

What does the future hold for Yellow Pages ® Directory Advertising? Unless it reinvents itself, it could not collide with the giants and eventually might just sign up the pages of advertising history as a “has been”. What a waste of something that was once very useful.

Has Phone Book Advertising, commonly known as the “Yellow Pages ®”, finally stepped aside to give way to recent trends in online advertising? Recent years have witnessed a major decline in Yellow Pages ® Advertising in favor of the Pay Per Click (PPC) and organic Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Did the “fingers that do the walking” finally grow tired?

Pros of Yellow Pages ® Directory Advertising

Advertising through the yellow pages has its advantages: it was thought to have the farthest reach since every home has a copy of the Phonebook. When an advertiser places his ads on the yellow pages, marketing becomes the least of his worries for the next 12 months – the phonebook takes care of it, 365 days of rain and shine, snow included. When a customer finds your business on the yellow page of his phonebook and dials your number, you have on the other end of the line a potential customer who has an immediate need for your product or service. This cuts the chase for you – from traffic to revenue.

For a newbie in business, advertising on the yellow pages guarantees him stray customers here and there, even if nobody realizes his business exists! Customers, when they happen to see the ad placement on the phonebook may dial the number, on happenstance.

The disadvantages in advertising on the Yellow Pages ® however, far outweigh the good:

 Phone book advertising requires a year-long advance payment for the ads;
 Your ads are placed side by side with your competitors’; level of competition is high;
 The smaller your ad, the less noticeable it becomes; the bigger it gets, the more expensive;
 Corrections will wait until the next directory sees print; nonflexible.

Then came along the internet; technology sparked a new beginning for different industries to promote their products and services. The internet paved the way for different businesses and groups to find an alternative advertising medium that will quickly and easily target different online consumers. Pay-Per-Click (PPC) became one of the rapidly growing advertising models in the online scenario.

Then came SEO

Online advertising also took a major advance due to the initiatives of the different search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc.) to allow Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to thrive online. With the online competition driving different companies to seek out PPC platforms, companies struggle to bid for higher positioning on the search engines and gain more sales from the different advertising campaigns.

Looking back, we could say that proponents of the Yellow pages might have unwittingly inspired the brains behind search engines to integrate PPC campaigns in online advertising. Through the Pay-Per-Click programs, search engines supplied to advertisers, publishers and consumers what the Yellow pages lacked.

What PPCs Offered

Firstly, PPC campaigns can target a wider scope of advertisers, publishers and consumers than a local copy of the Yellow Pages ever could.

Secondly, unlike Yellow Pages ® ads which advertisers must pay for regularly, without the assurance that the ads will be effective in reaching consumers, PPC offers an effective online platform upon which thousands of advertisers and publishers can generate revenues from.

PPC Advertisers can also monitor properly, which ads work and which do not. Since they only pay for the number of clicks on their ads, money can be put to good use. Advertisers can put ads on hold and show only those that are giving good results. Yellow Pages can’t do that.

PPC over Yellow Pages ®

With Yellow Pages, you get to show only a number of ads per page. Pay-Per-Click gives you maximum exposure at a fraction of the cost you would regularly pay for advertising on the Yellow Pages ®. An advertiser could rotate a few hundred ads, and at 10 to 15 cents initial bid per click. Although you need to bid for a specific keyword, your ads will still be shown even though you pay only a small amount. PPC also allows you to maintain and change ads as often as you want thereby giving you flexibility in your marketing campaigns;

And lastly, if you have proper Search Engine Optimization on your website, as well as PPC campaigns, you can improve your overall exposure, and gain better sales. These are the unbeatable duo in internet marketing today.