Combining Internet advertising and local businesses is what Yext is all about. The company, founded in 2006 and operating out of New York City, offers local advertising technology to local businesses in the form of Pay-Per-Action phone calls, Yext Rep, and Yext Tags – a way to highlight listing on local sites.
With a seed money of $25,000, and 2 rounds of funding, one in 2008 ($3.5 million) and another in 2009 ($25 million), the site was launched in its present configuration in Sep, 2009. The company earned $20 million on 2009, their first year of operation.
Poised to replace Yellow Pages with online ads that result in phone calls instead of clicks, each ad has a tracking number that allows the company’s software to analyze the information. When a business signs up with them, Yext places their ads across the internet in local directories and search engines. Each customer gets his own inbox for calls, a transcript of every call and a full audio file that can be played back. When certain keywords appear in the conversation (they use speech recognition software licensed from IBM), the customer gets charged for it. Marketing calls, wrong numbers, job seekers and calls from outside the agreed geographical area are put in a junk folder and are not charged.
Yext has MapQuest, Yelp and Citysearch on board. In order to combat Google Places, which can prioritize listing the way they see fit for $25 a month, Yext launched Tags, which allows them to highlight your business in the lists. They also offer Reputation Management which enables you to stay informed about your business’s online reputation from one spot.
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