Perhaps you’ve heard of Yext and are wondering if it’s for you. The short version description of Yext is:
Yext is a data management tool that is designed to keep track of your business’ location-related information on multiple directories. The software allows you to sync your:
- Business Name, Address and Phone Number;
- Business hours, products and services, holiday hours, photos and videos, staff bios, menus, and calendars;
- In-store coupons and other mobile wallet content;
- Address, phone number and content in any language;
- Business categories;
- Location labels, and advanced search and filtering.
Wikipedia has this summary on Yext.
Yext is a New York City technology company that coordinates business listing information across several different Internet databases and media sites (Google, Facebook, Bing, Yelp, etc.) and purports to allow its customers to ensure that their business listings are up-to-date and accurate in those databases to which Yext has access.[1] Businesses use Yext to update the public facts about their brands across Yext’s network of maps, apps, search engines, intelligent GPS systems, digital assistants, vertical directories, and social networks from a cloud-based platform called the Yext Knowledge Engine.[1] The company was founded in 2006 by Howard Lerman, Brian Distelburger, and Brent Metz.[2] Yext customers include businesses of all sizes, including Fortune 500 companies to marketing agencies. As of January 2017, Yext’s annual revenue was $124 million - Wikipedia
Our opinion
At this point in time we are currently recomending clients avoid signing up for Yext due to concerns over what happens when you stop paying for the service.
According to this article which concludes:
Summary of Our Observations When You Cancel Yext
60% of the listings disappeared or started featuring incorrect information after the subscription was canceled.
Of the other 40% that remained accurate:
- 35% were stripped partially or fully of any enhanced details (and they might have already been accurate before signing up for Yext).
- Only 3 listings (5%) remained accurate and featured enhanced details, but of them 2 listings had been manually claimed before the Yext subscription had been started.
- There was incorrect and incomplete reporting of the listings synced with Yext PowerListings while the subscription was live;
- No effect (positive or negative) on practitioner listings while the subscription was live;
Many of the services that Yext provides are redundant to the work that Skunkworks already performs manually for our clients. And let’s face it, there’s only 4 places you need to ensure have accurate records of your business information. And we're on top of those.
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Alternatives
- An Agency that knows how to do the work properly without requiring an expensive 3rd party tool that will lock you in and underperform.
- WhiteSpark
- BrightLocal