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Nov. 29, 2007 at 10:04am Eastern by Barry Schwartz

Yahoo Contextual Ads To Power "Ads For Adobe PDF"

Yahoo, Adobe team on PDF ads from News.com reports Yahoo and Adobe are working together to put contextual ads in PDF documents. Over at the Adobe Labs, you can find a new product named Ads for Adobe PDF.

Yahoo will be powering the ads within PDF documents that are contextually relevant to the content within the PDF. If you produce PDF documents and want to monetize them with relevant ads, this seems to be the product for you.

To get ads on your PDF documents, you will first need to be approved for the beta. To sign up for the beta, complete this form. Then you apparently upload your PDF documents to the system, then Adobe and Yahoo will place the ads within the documents automatically.

Here is a sample image of Yahoo ads in Adobe PDFs:

The PDF FAQs has more information on how this all works. Here is a copy of the PDF document as text:

What is Ads for Adobe PDF powered by Yahoo!?
Ads for Adobe PDF is a new opt-in service that enables commercial publishers to monetize their PDF content through advertising. The advertising service, powered by Yahoo!, automatically matches and displays dynamic, contextual ads in a panel of Adobe Reader and Adobe Acrobat when a user views the PDF. Commercial publishers that sign up to participate in this program are eligible to be paid for valid clicks on ads. In this unique advertising relationship, Yahoo! helps connect advertisers from its extensive network of online advertisers with commercial publishers that are distributing content through Adobe PDFs. Yahoo! will incorporate this new advertising inventory into its portfolio of online advertising opportunities.

How does it work?
When a recipient opens a PDF document from a commercial publisher participating in this program, ads will be dynamically matched and displayed in a panel adjacent to the content. The publishers are eligible to be paid for valid clicks on the ads. Adobe has partnered with Yahoo! to provide ads across a broad range of categories to match PDF content. Since the ads come from Yahoo!, publishers do not have to establish and maintain direct relationships with advertisers.

To use the service, publishers follow these easy steps:
1. Apply for an account.
2. Upload and register the PDF content.
3. Distribute the registered PDF content - just as they do today.

PDF registration associates the publisher with the content in order to receive payment and automatically analyzes the content to enable ad matching.

How will ads be matched to PDF content and will they be relevant?
The PDF content is thoroughly analyzed, using an algorithm that takes into consideration factors such as:
* Keywords - identifies keywords based on how frequently the word appears, where it appears in the content, and how it appears in the content, among other things
* Context - associates categories or concepts with specific words; for instance, content about soccer could be associated with sports

This analysis enables contextual ads to be matched to the PDF content.

How is this different from ads placed in PDF content today?
For commercial publishers, the current approach for securing advertisers or sponsorship for PDF content is very time-consuming. Ads for Adobe PDF takes advantage of Yahoo!’s existing relationships with an extensive network of advertisers, and provides publishers the opportunity to monetize PDF content with little effort and without the need for an advertising sales force.

For readers, Ads for Adobe PDF provides dynamic ad content that is up-to-date and related to their interests. Given this new opportunity to monetize PDF content, some commercial publishers may choose to provide readers with access to more free content, which previously was available only to paid subscribers.

For advertisers, Ads for Adobe PDF provides a powerful new channel to communicate their messages to a highly engaged and targeted audience. In addition, Ads for Adobe PDF provides advertisers a means to track the performance of ads placed in PDF content, just as they can today with ads placed in web sites. That’s an important distinction from current ads in PDF content, which are static, and offer no means to measure the effectiveness of the ad placement.

When will Ads for Adobe PDF be out of beta?
Adobe and Yahoo! anticipate several beta cycles prior to release for General Availability. We will provide updates on the release schedule in the coming months.

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