Ever since Carol Bartz took over Yahoo’s failing reins, it has been in news more often than not, fortunately about their products than impending takeovers. We at WAT have covered most of them including closing down of many services and a few upgrades and updates. In the light of an overwhelming amount of shut down news, introduction of a new product certainly is appealing.
Yahoo today announced the launch of a DIY ad builder. According to a news release, Yahoo announced the pilot launch of Yahoo! My Display Ads. It is a self-serve display ad solution designed to help small and medium-sized businesses advertise on Yahoo! network. The service is powered by Seattle-based AdReady.
Yahoo describes the product as:
By using a web-based, self-serve interface, advertisers can create and customize campaigns using more than 800 display templates. Additionally, advertisers can elect CPM or CPC-based pricing, catering to both branding and performance marketing goals.
According to Search Engine Land, The templates can be sorted 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.
RightMedia exchange is incidentally owned by Yahoo. Yahoo had brought Right Media back in 2007 which perhaps was its attempt to put forward a front against Google’s acquisition of Double Click. Incidentally, Google had also launched a DIY ad tool back in October. I haven’t compared the two tools (I wonder if it obvious) therefore not in a position to pit one against the other.
It is an interesting move by Yahoo to add such a service to its product suite. Right from the time of Geocities, it has been providing services that are otherwise too technical for people to do with and has often met with reasonable success. A program that let’s you have a certain amount of control into what you are getting into would always be welcome for Small business owners who are the target of this product.
The question however becomes how effective would these ads be on a practical note. Won’t they face issues of ad blindness and inneffictive copies and performance on a general scale?
This new solution provides an affordable and accessible option for businesses to run brand and performance campaigns that reach the local audiences that matter to them most
Author should have specified that the service is available only for publishing Ads in US , UK and Canada..
It’s interesting to compare Yahoo’s new offering with the most similar self-service display product already out there, AOL’s BidPlace SB (full disclosure: I work for this product). Both Yahoo and BidPlace SB allow advertisers to reach the majority of US Web visitors (SB’s reach is higher, at 91%). Both offer advanced targeting options and, within the next couple of weeks, both will offer the ability to build banners on-site. (BidPlace SB will offer both templates and the ability to build banners from scratch.)
However, the similarities end when it comes to pricing. Here are the recommended CPC bids for the same targeting on both products:
Run of Network, Geo = Florida
Yahoo: $1.30
BidPlace SB: $0.74
Auto Content Channel
Yahoo: $4.93
BidPlace SB: $2.45
I’m curious how Yahoo can justify charging 75-100% more than BidPlace SB for the same types of inventory and targeting? Especially when BidPlace SB offers a full budget guarantee to protect advertisers from over-billing for excess delivery, while Yahoo does not.