There are a number of critical articles, even complaints, coming out of yesterday's Yahoo press event featuring new Chief Product Officer Blake Irving. The main portion of the event had Irving and CTO Raymie Strata discussing Yahoo strategy and reiterating that Yahoo wasn't simply a media company but a company with deep technology as well. Some of the informal comments and conversations that immediately followed the 90-minute discussion were along the lines of "We've heard this before, what's new?" or "Where's the vision?" During the Q&A portion of the session Irving stumbled a bit w [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Top News | Yahoo: General | Yahoo: Mail | Yahoo: Search | Yahoo: Search Ads | Yahoo: SmartAds | Yahoo: User Interface

We've known for some time, based on a number of studies from Microsoft, Yahoo, SEM firms and ad networks, that an online ad campaign that includes both display and search performs better than one that features only display or search. In another version of that same theme, Yahoo recently said that it was using search queries as part of its larger behavioral targeting efforts across its display network. In other words, search queries become part of the targeting data that inform what display ads are shown to users thereafter. Display advertising has been battered in this recession despite ple [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Mobile | Features: Analysis | Yahoo: Mobile & Go | Yahoo: Partnerships | Yahoo: SmartAds

At various times it's been called AMP or APEX, but today Yahoo introduced its new "unified digital advertising platform," which the company is now calling APT. With the platform it gained through the Right Media acquisition at its core, Yahoo is positioning APT as a dynamic, open marketplace (dispensing with the term "exchange"). The central idea is very simple: simplification of buying and selling advertising across the internet. The first customers -- indeed the apparent drivers of the initiative -- are Yahoo's newspaper partners. Search is not a part of APT at this point. But previously [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Display | Yahoo: Business Issues | Yahoo: Display Ads | Yahoo: Partnerships | Yahoo: SmartAds

Yahoo has announced that they will begin giving their users the ability to opt-out of customized advertising on Yahoo.com. The feature will be added to the Yahoo privacy center by the end of August. This is an expansion of Yahoo's opt-out program for third-party networks. This was done in response to the inquiry by the House Energy and Commerce Committee. You can read a bit more about that over here. [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Legal: Privacy | Yahoo: Business Issues | Yahoo: Display Ads | Yahoo: General | Yahoo: Legal | Yahoo: Search Ads | Yahoo: SmartAds

In articles on the NY Times and Wall Street Journal sites this morning, more details are surfacing about the intended Q3 rollout of Yahoo's new ambitious, integrated ad platform -- what President Sue Decker previously called "APEX" (advertiser-publisher exchange) and is now apparently being called "AMP." The idea is to allow Yahoo and its partners -- initially the members of the newspaper consortium -- to sell ads on each others' sites and throughout the network. The ads will at first be CPM-based graphical ads. Eventually the system will encompass the full range of ad types and formats, inc [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Yahoo: Display Ads | Yahoo: Partnerships | Yahoo: Publisher Network | Yahoo: Search Ads | Yahoo: SmartAds

At the IAB conference in Phoenix on Monday, Yahoo President Sue Decker made some tantalizing allusions to a new ad platform called "Apex." According to the NY Times, this stands for "advertiser publisher exchange." Perhaps analogous to AOL's Platform A effort, it attempts to knit all of Yahoo's recent acquisitions and ad network properties together (e.g., RightMedia, Blue Lithium). The Times quotes Decker on the potential capabilities and intention behind the platform: We are building a cutting edge ad platform that runs across all formats, whether it is search, display, video. It is capabl [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Yahoo: Display Ads | Yahoo: General | Yahoo: Mobile & Go | Yahoo: Search Ads | Yahoo: SmartAds

This afternoon Yahoo announced that it was buying US-based ad network BlueLithium for $300 million in cash. Founded in 2004, the company has 10 offices globally and claims more unique US visitors than Google, MSN, AOL and eBay. It also claims to be the fifth largest US ad network and the second largest in the UK. It's part of Yahoo's push to create "the largest and most effective online ad network globally." That network includes the recently acquired RightMedia Exchange. The company will apparently operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of Yahoo and will report into Hilary Schneider's new orga [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Display | Yahoo: Business Issues | Yahoo: Display Ads | Yahoo: Outside US | Yahoo: SmartAds

The Wall Street Journal explores Yahoo's recently debuted "SmartAds" (prior coverage here), which mix behavioral targeting with other forms of targeting and dynamic elements to deliver a reportedly better response to display advertisers. The new ad platform was tested in Yahoo Travel and reportedly performed well (2x to 3x CTRs of normal display ads) and will be rolled out to other areas of the Yahoo site over time. From the WSJ article:Using SmartAds, advertisers provide Yahoo with sets of backgrounds, images and text that can be mixed and matched on the fly to create an all but unlimited n [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Display | Yahoo: Display Ads | Yahoo: SmartAds

Yahoo is introducing new SmartAds that deliver display ads to people across the web based on their demographic and geographic profiles, plus search and web browsing behaviors. These ads represent the future of graphical advertising at Yahoo, according to Gaude Lydia Paez, director of corporate communications at Yahoo. SmartAds have been successfully tested over the past four to five months in the travel category, and they will eventually roll out across the larger Yahoo network and ultimately on RightMedia and other partner sites. While SmartAds won't replace pure branding in all circumst [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Search Ads: Behavioral Targeting | Yahoo: Display Ads | Yahoo: SmartAds