New Ad Targeting Products Announced

Helping marketers reach the audiences they value

Today Yahoo! announced the launch of new products and features that will help online advertisers reach their target audiences more easily and efficiently. Two of them are meant for display ads:

Search Retargeting, which gives advertisers the ability to target display advertising based on user search activities. For example, if a user searches for the keyword “sandals,” indicating strong purchase intent, an advertiser can target that user with a tailored display ad for footwear.

The University of Phoenix found that Search Retargeting helped it achieve an effective cost per lead at the same level as its search campaign, and 50% cheaper than its regular display retargeting efforts.

Enhanced Retargeting, which allows advertisers to deliver dynamically generated display ads across the Yahoo! network based on user activity on an advertiser’s site. For example, users who visit an airline website to check offers for flights from SFO-JFK can be served a personalized offer for that specific flight when they visit a page within the Yahoo! Network.

In a recent trial, a market-leading online travel company saw a 230% increase in total bookings and a 651% increase in click-through rate when comparing Enhanced Retargeting to their traditional retargeting campaign. Obviously, retargeting results depend on a number of factors, including your desired audience and your creatives.

One targeting product is specifically for Sponsored Search ads:

Enhanced Targeting, which includes ad scheduling and demographic targeting within search. The new features are designed to extend the advertiser’s control over where and when an ad is shown at both the campaign and ad group level, including what time of day and day of the week an advertiser would like campaigns to run, and what age and gender they’d like to reach (demographic). Advertisers will be able to vary their bids for different segments in order to increase their ability to reach the desired audience. We’ll talk more about these changes as we make them widely available in March.

The announcement was made today as part of Yahoo!’s keynote presentation at the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s annual conference. “Marketers are looking for increased accountability for every dollar they spend,” says Michael Walrath, our senior vice president in the Advertising Marketplaces Group. “Yahoo!’s new targeting products significantly improve the ability for search and display advertisers to reach their target audience, providing increased efficiency and accountability.”

For more details on these exciting offerings, please see today’s press release.