• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, April 3, 2008

The Association of National Advertisers and Yellow Pages publishers have been butting heads in recent weeks over the quality of research made available to advertisers by Yellow Pages publishers. The ANA's Telephone Directory Committee published an open letter on Tuesday criticizing the narrow focus of the syndicated and proprietary research currently offered by publishers; the Yellow Pages Association is trying to head off the criticism with new research based on call-tracking.

In its open letter, the ANA's Telephone Directory Committee called for publishers to provide national syndicated audience measurement research, far beyond the current scope of research efforts covering just 18% of the country. The ANA committee also wants comprehensive third-party auditing of national circulation. The committee warned that both initiatives are key to retaining--let alone growing--the current $2.3 billion spent by national advertisers on Yellow Pages.

Yellow Pages publishers need to shore up national ad spending as online services like Google, Yahoo, and various city guides make ever-greater inroads into local advertising, their traditional mainstay. Also this week, Yahoo announced that it would begin offering a voice-activated version of its search service for mobile phones, called oneSearch 2.0. The service will first be available on some BlackBerry devices.

The Yellow Pages Association rebutted the ANA criticism with new research from a two-year study by CRM, based on call-tracking data, which shows ROI for national advertisers is 27:1 for national display advertisers--even higher than the 13:1 ratio for local display advertisers.

In simple dollar terms, the median national display advertisement generated 979 calls per year, with an average cost of $15 per call. According to the YPA, 60% of advertisers experienced an increase in call volumes over the two-year study; within this cohort, advertisers saw average number of leads increase 49%.

While the YPA numbers look encouraging, it's unclear whether they will satisfy the ANA committee's broader demands for industry-wide adoption of standard metrics for ROI, usage research and procedures for ensuring accountability, including third-party auditing.