Interview with Carson Cabianca

Today, TXADPR had the pleasure of speaking with Carson Cabianca, elite account director of advertising sales at Yelp. She gave us some great insights into the prospects of advertising sales as a career, the unique advantages of advertising on Yelp and her work of helping businesses leverage a world of user-generated content.

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Can you explain your job and responsibilities of advertising sales at Yelp? Do you recommend it to current students who have an interest in advertising and sales?

I'm an Elite Account Director at Yelp which means that I manage and nurture local business accounts. My job is to connect consumers to a great local business by calling outbound and selling Yelp's advertising program to prospects in my territory, and onboarding owners with features in order to customize listings, promote business products and convert leads into customers. 

I highly recommend Yelp to anyone looking for sales, as I have learned great communication skills, intricate sales tactics and enhanced my learning of technology and platforms such as Salesforce. It's definitely something good for someone looking to connect with, and teach business owners about the platform in order to enhance their business and create a better experience for the consumer. 

What is the main advantage of a business advertising themselves on a platform like Yelp? What do you recommend to businesses who may be interested?

The main advantage of advertising on Yelp is the return on investment that the business owner gets as well as brand building and necessary exposure on a major platform. 

Every business is different, but I always start by asking if the owner ever has used Yelp as a consumer, as it helps with visualizing the consumer journey on Yelp and helps to understand how transactional it is for a business. Then I'll qualify the business to find a need for the business, what they're targeting right now, and always includes a pitch where I show them how the program works and what other businesses in their industry are seeing success with. 

Where do you see the future of advertising on platforms like this going? 

I think that Yelp is constantly changing and growing, as we are partnered with Apple and a few other companies. I can see more partnerships and a growth in users and businesses with more customizations in order to benefit owners and consumers. 

Yelp has helped foster the growing trend of user-generated content. Where do you see this trend going? Do you expect it to continue to grow and change? 

Reviews are only a small percentage of Yelp which most people are unaware of. Yelp has been successful throughout the years because people trust it since consumers are able to give feedback on their experience with a business. I think this will continue to grow in a positive way.