where can I find real examples/ side by side comparisons of yellow
pages ads that were tested in A/B splits with one ad outperforming the
other? I want to SEE the ads that won and lost and I want to know who conducted
the test.

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Clarification of Question by moistlotus-ga on 31 Oct 2005 19:40 PST

Hi Cynthia:

I'm not looking for what the directories do. I'm looking for internal
testing by companies testing direct marketing vs. "institutional"
marketing, or tests performed by marketing consultants or ad agencies.

I found one in a report I bought years ago, and it was very helpful.
I'm sure there are others who have conducted tests. The tests by the
directories themselves are usually rigged to prove that "Adding red
brings more calls".

I would be thrilled to find tests which proved that effective, though
unconventional ads beat typical ads.....or long copy ads beat short
copy ads....that sort of thing.

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Request for Question Clarification by cynthia-ga on 01 Nov 2005 20:34 PST

Actually, at the time I was considering buying what's called a "high
impact" ad. I'm sure you know what it is. They showed me examples of
before and after anfd what the call counts were. I went from a 1/4
page to the 3/8ths WITH the high-impact ad, and the phone rang off the
hook. Huge difference. FYI, my ad was black, no color, although they
tried like heck to sell it to me.

~~Cyn

The Yellow Page directory companies perform these tests. It is done by
asking people to allow them to monitor the line to count incoming
calls. They use this information to sell yellow page advertising --per
classification. Considering in my locale they have 3,500
classifications in the yellow pages, they have a lot of data.  They
really only showed me the top 100 ads though, spread out over a lot of
classifications, but did NOT include my classification.

I bought the ad, it was the 3/8th of a page size --meaning a half page
tall and 3 columns wide (out of four), My gross revenue doubled.  My
industry was #35 in their list of "Frequency Of Use" based on these
very studies you are asking about.

Besides all that, I have no idea how you can get them to share this
data with you, and it's not publicly available.

~~Cynthia

sounds like you made a good choice in your ad selection. So, do you
think you can find what I'm looking for?

No, but it's fun chatting with you, and remembering how much money I
made from that ad!