How Intriguing Hair used Yelp Ads to double monthly revenue and secure high LTV customers

“Yelp Ads were very effective for getting new and higher value customers. I love the fact that they weren’t just one-time customers—they’re actually part of our client base now. I feel like they’re going to be lifetime customers, almost all of them, which is very valuable for our business.”

— Nikia Londy, owner of Intriguing Hair and Yelp advertiser

Summary

Nikia Londy has been designing and installing custom hair integrations at Intriguing Hair for over a decade. After years of experimenting with marketing strategies without lasting success, she started advertising with Yelp Ads in 2023 and more than doubled her monthly revenue in only six months.

With Yelp, Intriguing Hair has achieved:

• $15,000 in average monthly revenue
• $800 in revenue per client (up 60% before starting Yelp Ads)
• 327% increase in average monthly Yelp Page visits
• 217% increase in average monthly leads

Background

Nikia Londy, a hair extension expert with 17 years of experience, founded Intriguing Hair in 2013 with the goal of helping clients feel and look their best. She specializes in luxury hairpieces, extensions, and wigs for Black women, as well as custom integrations for women experiencing hair loss.

Challenge

After a decade in business, Nikia hadn’t found an advertising platform that aligned with her audience, and she relied primarily on word of mouth to acquire leads. She was struggling to stand out from the competition, which had grown significantly in recent years, and needed a way to boost her brand awareness while converting customers at the same time.

Solution

In October 2023, Nikia launched Yelp Ads, which displayed her business in key places on the Yelp website, app, and competitors’ Yelp Pages. Within the first month, visits to Intriguing Hair’s Yelp Page skyrocketed, going from 67 in September to 334 in October. Nikia received her first-ever messages on Yelp and saw a 217% increase in average monthly leads—resulting in her highest revenue per client ($800) in 11 years and more than double (+107%) her monthly income.

Plus, customers who found Intriguing Hair on Yelp spent $300 more on average than leads from other platforms, and most came back for maintenance within six months. In addition to Yelp Ads, Nikia also started using Portfolio, a Page Upgrades feature, to give customers a visual reference point for her services, which helped her capture more qualified, higher value leads.

“That visual component [using Portfolio], especially in the beauty industry, gives a whole different aspect to your Yelp Page. We do extensions extremely well, and being able to show that is a no-brainer for a customer to choose us. If they’re in the marketplace to buy something, they’re definitely going to choose us if they see the work that we do.”

— Nikia Londy

The business mentioned above was awarded six months of free Yelp Ads and Page Upgrades as a part of being selected as winners for the Yelp for Business x Luminary Fellowship. Nikia was not compensated for her opinions on Yelp products or features.