Yahoo To Launch New Web Ad Sales System
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The Wall Street Journal (4/7, Delaney, B4, 2.06M) reports, “Yahoo Inc. is releasing more-detailed plans for an online-ad system aimed at increasing revenue from graphical display advertising, such as banner ads.” The effort “is a bet that advertisers and Web publishers will be attracted to buy and sell Internet ads across a range of Yahoo and partner sites through a single system, with standardized means of targeting the ads at groups of consumers.” Yahoo executives “said they expected to begin releasing AMP in the third quarter for use by newspaper companies that are part of an existing Yahoo ad-sales consortium, and eventually extend it to additional Web publishers, advertisers, agencies and online-ad networks. The company said the system, in a future stage, will handle ad types besides display, such as search, mobile and video.”
The New York Times (4/7, Helft, 1.18M) reports, “Yahoo is developing the system as other Internet giants, including Google, Microsoft and AOL, are all stepping up their efforts to become sellers and brokers of all types of ads on sites across the Web. Many analysts expect Google, which recently completed its acquisition of the ad-serving specialist DoubleClick, to begin making inroads into the market for graphical ads online, which Yahoo dominates.” The system, “which was built out of a combination of technologies developed at Yahoo and others Yahoo obtained when it bought Right Media, BlueLithium and other companies, will also serve ads directly to publishers’ sites and allow marketers to monitor their performance.”
The Financial Times (4/7, Nuttall) reports, “The internet company said it planned a third-quarter launch for AMP, which was aimed at simplifying significantly the process of buying and selling adverts online.” Yahoo “said there would be a phased release of AMP, beginning with its partners in a consortium of more than 620 US newspapers.” The company “was criticised for delays to its last advertising initiative, the Panama system that improved the quality of its search advertising.”
The AP (4/7) reports, “Amp will rely on data Yahoo collects about people’s preferences at its own website as well as other online destinations. The practice, known as ‘behavioral targeting,’ has raised privacy concerns, but Yahoo — like rivals using similar tracking technology — says consumers will appreciate seeing more ads tailored to their interests.” Yahoo’s new platform “will be competing against similar technology recently acquired by Google and Microsoft. Google bought DoubleClick Inc. for $3.2 billion primarily so it would have a better vehicle for selling display ads. The same objective drove Microsoft’s $6-billion purchase of AQuantive.”
Adweek (4/7, Morrissey) reports, “The current inefficiencies are caused by old systems, said Michael Walrath, svp of the advertising marketplaces group at Yahoo!. ‘The size of Yahoo’s publishing business and network business give us a really big advantage because we deeply understand these problems customers face on a daily basis,’ he said.” Walrath “disputed the idea that Yahoo! could not compute. ‘We’ve been in the ad-management business as long as anyone,’ he said.”
Abbey Klaassen writes at Advertising Age (4/7), “Officially named AMP (that’s an acronym for advertising-management platform but could work equally well to describe what Yahoo needs for its stock price), the system will operate like an automated ad network, with a twist that turns the traditional one-way selling model of an ad network on its head.” She continued, “Of course, the Yahoo system, however promising it sounds, could be overshadowed soon should Microsoft get its way and acquire the company. It’s unclear whether Microsoft would adopt Yahoo’s ad technology, but most industry observers say that’s unlikely, especially since Microsoft dropped $6 billion to acquire aQuantive, with its Atlas technology.”
Henry Blodget wrote at Silicon Alley Insider (4/6), “The great hope here, as in all the ad network businesses, is that Yahoo’s demographic, geographic, and behavioral targeting capabilities will allow publishers to get higher CPMs and, perhaps, sell ads into open inventory that they would have otherwise missed.” Yahoo “is already the major player in display ads, and with Google (GOOG) buying DoubleClick and with AOL (TWX) desperately trying to salvage some of itself by putting most of its eggs in the Platform A basket, this move is as much defensive as offensive.” He commented, “Yahoo runs a risk by talking up the platform now, as any delays will bring back the Panama nightmare. But Yahoo needs to do everything it can to persuade the market that it has exciting new stuff coming, or the division-of-Microsoft thing is a foregone conclusion.”
Jonathan Skillings also reported Yahoo’s plans on the NewsBlog at CNET (4/6).
