Sunnyvale, California — Ever since Carol Bartz took the helm at Yahoo’s failing reins, and regardless of her keen maneuverings, she has been in the new more often than not, but fortunately this time about their products than impending takeovers. In a bid to lure the business of small, brick-and-mortar companies, Yahoo has just announced the launch of a self-service display ad solution platform called My Display Ads, designed to assist small and medium-sized businesses to put their ad campaigns on Yahoo’s content network.
The Yahoo My Display Ads, which according to the company’s description is a “self-serve display ads” for advertisers that cann not necessarily maintain a creative department or consulting firm to design display ads for their business. “Display advertising is not just for the big companies, anymore,” the product description reads. “Yahoo! My Display Ads offers an easy, affordable way to create banner ads and run them across the Yahoo! network in a matter of days.”
The program, which Yahoo is calling a “pilot,” is targeted for clients whose monthly ad budget is less than $2500 per month and lets them pick display ad templates from over 800 models in as simple as three steps: create the ad, target your campaign and track performance.
The service is powered by Seattle-based AdReady.
Samples of Yahoo’s new display ad templates. (Credit: Screenshot by Tom Krazit/CNET)
“Yahoo! My Display Ads allows small businesses to build on their search marketing with display campaigns that reach a targeted audience on some of the Internet’s most popular websites,” said Joanne Bradford, senior vice president North America Revenue and Market Development, Yahoo!.
“This just affords access to small advertisers, which we think is important to the overall market,” said Bradford .
For the most part, small businesses with restricted budgets tend to prefer search advertising, which allows them to pick keywords specific to their business and spend relatively small amounts of money only when searchers click on their ad. By employing a web-based, self-serve interface, advertisers can create and customize campaigns using more than 800 display templates.
To develop the product, Yahoo in association with startup AdReady, which sells creative tools that helps marketers develop proprietary advertisements. Their selection of over 800 ad templates includes dancing mobile phones, countdown clocks and pieces proclaiming “amazing values.” Users can also upload their own creative.
Additionally, advertisers can choose CPM or CPC-based pricing, catering to both branding and performance marketing goals.
According to Search Engine Land, The templates can be classified by best performing (CTRs are exposed), most used and newest. Advertisers can use their own ads as well. Ads can be targeted by geo, content category or Yahoo property. They show on the Yahoo network and third party sites via the RightMedia exchange.
It is an interesting move by Yahoo to add such a service to its product suite. Yahoo expects to persuade those companies to spread the wealth around a bit more by informing that display ads can have benefits beyond clicks, such as brand building. It has been trying to convince advertisers that a mix of search and display ads is the best way to get your message across for quite some time.
Nevertheless, the draw-back for Yahoo is that those businesses tend to spend that money with Google, which devours around 70 percent of the revenue spent on search advertising.