Sunnyvale, California — Having appropriately beefed up the technology underlying its Smart Ads program, internet pioneer Yahoo is rolling out a refurbished dynamic ads product out on its homepage and is stepping up its sales efforts for a video version of the same platform that can target consumers based on information such as location, age, gender and online behavior.
Smart Ads, which was first formulated in 2007 and later reinforced with its 2010 acquisition of Dapper technology, now include videos that can target consumers based on demographics, geography and online behavior. The outcome, according to Yahoo at least, is higher engagement rates and lower ad production costs for brands.
“We are encouraging the advertiser to expand their video advertising assets that they have developed for other channels [for] users on the Internet, but we will look to personalize the asset based on the user profile or the user behaviors that we understand of our users,” said Dev Patel, VP of advertiser and publisher solutions at Yahoo.
The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company has also started permitting advertisers to potentially personalize ads for the 108 million monthly uniques that visit Yahoo’s homepage. In addition, Smart Ads for Homepage are optimized for each user by Dapper, the dynamic creative firm Yahoo acquired last year.
Yahoo is also teaming up with online video advertising company Mixpo on the Smart Ads for Video offer 15-second video clips inside banners. Both Yahoo Premium Display and Network Plus inventory can be used for this unit.
Advertisers can utilize the units to tag video ads to be delivered to specific groups of consumers based on a browser’s IP address or the information that consumers submit to Yahoo, such as member profiles or search queries, said Patel.
According to Yahoo’s internal statistics, Smart Ads are 12 times more likely to get clicked on than static display ads and can deliver 20 times more return on investment. Check out this case study for clothing retailer 6pm.com.
According to the company, “Smart Ads incorporate multiple elements in one ad in real time, including messaging, products, offers, and imagery. There are potentially millions of combinations, based on variables such as a consumer’s demographic, location, and online behavior. The result: You can show a personalized ad to any consumer. With Smart Ads, you have the power to make each ad relevant to each consumer, which helps you deliver on your marketing objective.”
Yahoo delivers Smart Ads on its own sites as well as on sites in the Yahoo Network Plus ad network, which is designated as “non-guaranteed” inventory on both in-house and partner sites. Smart Ads do not appear on sites in the Newspaper Consortium, a network of more than 700 newspaper websites that have partnered with Yahoo on ad sales.
Entertainment marketers will be among its early buyers, Patel said, since they have rich video assets and an incentive to customize creative by region — for instance directing viewers to theaters and showtimes. Yahoo could not name specific brands, however. Besides, marketers can also target consumers with Yahoo cookies that track their on-site action, such as content views and search queries, he said. Consumers can opt out from targeting through Yahoo’s AdChoices mechanism.
The Smart Ads for Video units can include direct response features, such as social media sharing buttons, product offers, email opt-ins and surveys. Besides, brands can deliver their ads in Flash or HTML5 formats, said Patel. He added that the company has no plans to extend the product to mobile devices.
Patel declined to say what advertisers are using the Smart Ads for Video product at-launch but said marketers “in the areas of entertainment, auto, consumer packaged goods and travel” have “shown interest.”