Yahoo to Marketers: Search and Display Ads Are the Same Product
In a keynote address at a conference today in Orlando, FL, Yahoo executives Joanne Bradford, senior vice president of US revenue and market development, and Michael Walrath, senior vice president, encouraged marketers to stop thinking about search and display advertising as separate products, and to use a new tool expected to be in place by the end of this month to bridge both, reports Jessica Vascellaro of the Wall Street Journal.
Yahoo’s new tools and services will allow marketers to target graphic ads to Yahoo users based on terms those users have searched for in Yahoo’s search engine, and further customize which ads get displayed based on a user’s web browsing history. Another service allows marketers to buy text ads placed next to search results targeted to a certain time of day, or other factors such as age and gender. Other companies offer similar tools or features, reports Vascellaro, but don’t offer the same size or scope as Yahoo does.
The tools and services were tested by the University of Phoenix in January. The educational institution bought graphical ads targeted to searchers looking for terms like “online college.” The University of Phoenix discovered that those who performed that search clicked their ads 60% more than those who saw their ads but didn’t search for something that might trigger the University of Phoenix in their results.
The announcement comes during a tumultuous time at Yahoo, a distant second to Google in the search ad business in terms of market share. Carol Bartz, Yahoo’s CEO, is reportedly preparing to shake up her executive management team, which should result in some executive departures, reports Vascellaro.
By Robert Pothier
