San Francisco — In an effort to make its core cashcow more powerful, Yahoo on Tuesday embarked on to increase its appeal to advertisers by offering three new tools to target Web audiences — Search Retargeting, Enhanced Retargeting, and Enhanced Targeting, including the ability to select advertisements based on what a person has searched for over the Internet.
With the global state of economy worsening, in such situation every dollar counts, particularly in the volatile field of online advertising. The technology, which is dubbed as Search Retargeting, is one of three new features created to tailor ads based on user behavior.
Likewise, Yahoo’s Enhanced Retargeting product offers personalized display ads to users who have recently surfed specific content or e-commerce sites.
For example, users might view an ad for current flight prices on trips from New York to San Francisco after they have recently performed a search for that particular flight on a travel advertiser’s Web site.
Officials consider this new product takes classic behavioral targeting to another level by offering ad messages that displays highly specific, offer-driven messaging, and lastly the Enhanced Targeting for search, which enables advertisers adjust ads shown next to search results according to user age and other factors. This innovation could be seen as a direct challenge to Microsoft, which has made demographic targeting a point of differentiation for its own struggling search product.
The new offerings are just the latest ad innovations rolled out by Yahoo in recent days. Just a week ago, the company introduced several new creative options for search ads consisting of video and banner placements rather than the text ads common to the medium.
These improved ad-targeting initiative comes in the wake of newly-appointed Yahoo! chief executive Carol Bartz sets out to revive the struggling Internet pioneer’s fortunes.
After taking up the leadership at Yahoo! in January, Bartz promised to streamline decision-making and improve efficiency at the California-firm.
Yahoo! senior vice president of advertising marketplaces group Michael Walrath said the tools “significantly improve the ability for search and display advertisers to reach their target audience, providing increased efficiency and accountability.”
Yahoo has contended that it is a powerful company when able to serve both online ad formats, the search ads next to search results and the “display” ads such as graphics and videos. Indeed, as evidence of its hybrid philosophy, it has begun testing display ads next to search results, something rival Google does not do.
Bartz considers Yahoo is more powerful as a whole than “pulled apart and left for the chickens.” Of course, if Yahoo did dispose of its search business, a possibility that Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer indicated he is still interested in, it could arrange the partnership to use that search engine and thereby get access to the same search query data for targeting display ads.
These products are intended to assist advertisers target ROI on their advertising spend more effectively, David Zinman, vice president and general manager for display advertising at Yahoo, said in a statement.
More importantly, Yahoo is doing that by combining its search and display ad strengths in a single offering.
“Search terms are a strong indication of user intent right before they make a purchase. That is useful information for a display advertiser,” noted Zinman. So, Search Retargeting for display advertising leverages search terms and then retargets the user with display ads.
Yahoo’s Joanne Bradford, svp, U.S. revenue and market development, and Michael Walrath, svp, advertising marketplace group, are prepared to present each of the new ad products on Tuesday at the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s annual meeting here. At that conference, the supposed clash between the art and science/technology sides of the digital ad business has been a hot topic.
According to Bradford, these new products combines the best of both worlds, while also potentially bolstering pricing. “These help us drive performance for brands,” she said. “The two sides do not have to be in conflict.”
Regarding pricing pressure on the industry, Bradford added: “We think advertising is a cyclical business, but when things are down you have to continue to add value. These ads do that.”
Yahoo is right about advertisers seeking out even greater value and ROI in their campaigns, Michael Katz, president of InterClick, said in a statement, strengthening Bradford’s comment.
“During this severe economic decline, there has been a paradigm shift, which has led to a flight to value,” he maintained. “Advertisers are shifting share of wallet away from overpriced real estate on publisher sites and spending more with the platforms who can deliver specific audiences at scale.”