Angies List

Is anybody advertising with them? Is it working? I have a contract with them ready to be signed on my desk, just wanted to find out what you guys think.

Hey Diabloz,

I know everything there is to know about Angies List... I have been advertising with them for a while now and 90% of my business comes from there.

What are the basic guidelines of the contract they are offering?

How many reviews do you have on there now?

How many members in your area or the areas you can reasonably service?

Are they offering the concierge program to you?

Have they spoken to you about the storefront? or big deal?

What is the budget you are thinking about spending with them?

How good is your website? this is important as all the members will check it out


Make sure before you sign up that your business image is where you want it to be, or at least close to where you want to be

There is several types of customers on there, middle class spending around 150-200 and then there is a great amount of upper class but they will not call if your prices are in the 150-200 range. We recently raised our prices and our response is really good so far, did a house with an elevator in it today.

Let me know if you have any questions about AL and ill try and help out, remember their prices are not set in stone... they are negotiable.

It depends a lot on your area. When I advertised with them, it was a huge waste...barely had any effect, but oher areas have huge ROI from it.

I would think that your area would generate a pretty good response, but I don't know for certain. I would ask around and see if people are actually using Angie's list before I write any checks.

I just signed up on AL (for free page/listing?), and have one A review so far, but what should I do now?

Advo or wait for more reviews and things to happen??

I have only about 3 reviews. I do have a website that is on my list for an overhaul. The sales girl wants to put me in a very affluent county near mine with 14,000 claimed members for $170 per month. Only 4 cleaners of 14 in that area now. I was supposed to sign a contract and background check before midnight last night " or the prices were going up. Did not sign, as soon as someone sets a signing deadline I shutdown. The sales girl told me that I was better off choosing this larger more member filled county ( for $170) than my own less rich, less affluent county for $70.00. Storefront? Concierge? Nobody has mentioned it to me.

Only 4 cleaners out of the 14 in your area....are those 4 good cleaners doing good business? If they are, it might be worth it. If there is an O/O in that list of 4, try calling them....they just might tell you what you need to know.

Davey Cracker wrote:I just signed up on AL (for free page/listing?), and have one A review so far, but what should I do now?

Advo or wait for more reviews and things to happen??

Just ask your customers to please put up a review.     They dont have to be members to review you.    Its just like yelp,  take a bit to get going but then snowballs

we have around 120 reviews, competing with Pure Clean that has about 300 and our phone rings everyday from angies list this time of year

eldiabloz wrote:I have only about 3 reviews. I do have a website that is on my list for an overhaul. The sales girl wants to put me in a very affluent county near mine with 14,000 claimed members for $170 per month. Only 4 cleaners of 14 in that area now. I was supposed to sign a contract and background check before midnight last night " or the prices were going up. Did not sign, as soon as someone sets a signing deadline I shutdown. The sales girl told me that I was better off choosing this larger more member filled county ( for $170) than my own less rich, less affluent county for $70.00. Storefront? Concierge? Nobody has mentioned it to me.

ask the lady for a temp access to angies list so you can see what the customer sees, tell her you have never seen it before from the member side and you would like to before you make a decision.

They will give you an access log in that will work for the day

Then go on there and look up carpet cleaning in the areas she wants you to advertise, find the 4 companies and look at how frequent they are getting reviews

You can see the dates of the review, so say they have 4 reviews in one month, thats really good because only a small percent give reviews... so 4 reviews in a month might mean they are doing daily work coming from angies list

dont listen to her sales tactics, the price is not going to go up... you can call her in a month and say you will sign the deal for the original price, shell pretend like she has to run it by her manager but thats bs.

14, 000 members is not bad, there should be a decent amount of work there and 170/month is nothing. You only need to get a few hundred of those 14k members

ACpower1 wrote:

Davey Cracker wrote:I just signed up on AL (for free page/listing?), and have one A review so far, but what should I do now?

Advo or wait for more reviews and things to happen??

Just ask your customers to please put up a review.     They dont have to be members to review you.    Its just like yelp,  take a bit to get going but then snowballs

we have around 120 reviews,   competing with Pure Clean that has about 300 and our phone rings everyday from angies list this time of year

That's what I was thinking, asking for them, esp. because some people use AL and Yelp both. BUT I always thought the consumer had to be a paid member to use or post reviews on AL, No?....did that recently change??

That's great you get calls daily.    Are you paying to advo on AL, or just free listing?

Thanks for the Help!!   

If you decide to pay just ask for the manager and they will lower the price for you but you can count on them jacking up the price next year

AC how do non members leave a review?

Dave if you want to speed up the process of getting reviews be a paying advertiser. It's probably crazy expensive in your area though but it's all about ROI. For the record I don't pay for Angies advertising

They can leave reviews here, I have a list of non-member reviews.... just like yelps "not recommended" reviews but there is no hidden filter algorithm, so they dont factor into your overall grade but still count towards # of reviews


Ya Davey we pay Angies List, 1k/month with busy months around 10k in return, slower months around 6k.

Some good sounding info here........thanks for all AC.

eldiabloz,

Did you finally sign up for some kinda of advo with AL?.....if so how has it been working?

Just when I think I understand AL I hear the $1k a month and get confused. How do they charge? based on referals or what?

From what I've gathered from talking to them, is price of advo is very flexible, and they will cater to your needs and budget. They have several avenues of advo for you to explore, and seem very flexible, but it doesn't seem to be based on "referrals" at all, but more so your amount of exposure.

eldiabloz??

you get more exposure the more you pay a month. We reach 120,000 local member for 1k

so they get emails with "deals" etc

also when they call into call center and ask service rep for a good reputable carpet cleaning company then you get recommended based on your reviews and ad program

kind of like a referral but they end up going with you every time pretty much through call center

I received a call from some who said the saw my ad on AL  2 rooms 69.00. No mam that wasn't me. She must have received an email went back to her account and saw the company with the most reviews?

I'm still hoping eldiabloz can let us know his results, if he did sign up after he started this thread?

I have not advertised yet but they told me about 2 months ago that they have revamped How they charge and the whole system. Heard the CEO stepped down the other day. I will be in contact with them very soon to see what they can offer me.

Last time I spoke to them their advertising went up big time compared to years ago. They told me they have had a big growth in members they do negotiate though

how many members in your area El D?    

Ill check the current number here and then let u know our exact costs so you can compare.  

Were bringing in about 3800-4800/week right now in the spring from just Angies List,    slowest week I think was about 2200 or so this winter,   not including the week of christmas/new years which we took off.    


It works well,   starting to look into whats next so we can max out both vans.    In the middle of summer it becomes a little more than what 2 vans can handle but looking to gain a solid gross year round.

AC, do you have the most reviews for the areas you advertise ? How many competitor with closest amount of reviews under your listing ? Assuming they list the result based on total reviews ?