Panama: Are you ready?
Following Microsoft's announcement last week, Yahoo has given public details of a long-promised and overdue overhaul of its own online advertising system. CTR-based campaigns and the ability to geo-target are among the standout new features. The stage is now set for a real clash of the titans.
Saul Hansell has a great report in the Times, as does Richard Waters on MSNBC/FT. Here are a couple highlights:
The new system marks the first complete revamp since the platform was launched by internet start-up GoTo in the late-1990s and is designed to act as the foundation on which much of Yahoo's advertising business will run for at least the next five years, said Tim Cadogan, vice-president of search at Yahoo.
Cadogan also said that a new ranking formula will also take into account the click-through rate of an advert, along with a number of other factors – an approach that echoes the one followed by Google.
Jordan Rohan, an analyst for RBC Capital Markets, estimates that if the strategy works, Yahoo will increase search-advertising revenue at least 20 percent right away — about $125 million in the fourth quarter of this year and $600 million next year.
While designed initially to handle keyword advertising for Yahoo's search engine, the new platform has been built to deal with other types of targeting, using factors such as demographics or user behaviour, said Mr Cadogan. As a result, it will eventually be able to handle adverts that can be "plugged into" a wide range of interactive services on different hardware devices, he added, such as video ads that can be inserted into an IPTV service viewed on a TV set.
Reports & Commentary
Details Of "Panama" Ad System Upgrade, SearchEngineWatch
A New Way to Turn Ad Clicks Into Ka-Ching, New York Times
Search Platform Revamp, ClickZ
Overhaul of online advertising, Financial Times
New Search Advertising System, Search Engine Journal
Details of System For Keyword Ads, Wall Street Journal
Eyeballs 2.0 - Boom or Bust?, Om Malik
Yahoo Launches Major Update to Ad Platform, John Battelle's Searchblog
Monday, May 08, 2006
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