Anne Coqueugniot and the growth of Yellow Pages Canada in the Digital Age

Anne is a product manager for Yellow Pages Canada, and an overseer of the partnership between Yellow Pages and Google, ensuring that they are utilizing Google Ads and Business to the best of their abilities. Yellow Pages is a big name, historically associated as “The Book” or “Directory”, a master booklet of Business and Personal Address’ that was widely used in the pre-internet era.

Although they are still printing books to this day, Yellow Pages is more than just books. In the early 2000’s, they grew beyond the infamous yellow book, focusing on their main principle of connecting business and people together, they just had to find these people. As technology evolved, they learned to move their system to the online, such as advertising solutions and digital ads, keeping up with consumer demand. Yellow Pages provides the tools for small businesses to compete with big companies by partnering with big players (Facebook, Apple, Amazon) and offering technologies that will boost businesses' presence online in an easier way. By being the middle player, small businesses are able to spend less time bringing people to their business and more time focusing on the actual business, while Yellow Pages does the rest.

Anne says she never worked on the print side of things but was able to hop in when they made the transition to the digital aspect of the company like Google Ad Management, Digital Marketing, and working with the partners. Anne knows that digital ads are essential to keeping up with the industry, and states that it is essential to use digital ads to reach success, “it’s essential for a business to be there, or else their competition will be there, for sure.”

One of the main challenges faced by digital advertising is competition & pricing. As ads become more popular, more people are advertising on Facebook and Google, causing a higher rate. One of the things Anne states can be helpful for small businesses when it comes to this is being more targeted. Knowing what works and focusing on a fixed area, means you’re spending less and earning more, but be sure it does this on all channels and not just one. Another tip Anne mentions is knowing what you're looking for from your ads, knowing your objective, and knowing which platform will deliver that for you.

Anne recommends at least 6 months for a small business to collect data in order to understand their market and if their ads are performing. You won’t get results on day one, so its important to get enough data to get the full picture. It can be hard to spend, especially for a small business, a large budget on ads, but they need just enough time to figure out the adjustments and understand what you need to be successful and its a good fit for you or not. “Start small, but also be aware of the market you are evolving in.” Its more than just having ads out there, but knowing what your competitors are producing and spending and also be a factor in your success.

As the digital ads landscape continues to evolve, Anne urges businesses to invest in and optimize their content. Without good content design, savvy copywriting, and a good brand image; you will fall to the wayside no matter how much you spend on getting your ads. Your image is everything when you are competing with so many others, you have to stand out in the right way.

Written by Juliana Bermudez