Yahoo is set to expand its Stream Ads service to allow other Web publishers beyond a close knit group of publishing partners to include its sponsored posts on their sites as well.
The Yahoo ads will appear as “recommended content” on participating websites. The recommended content will pull not only from sponsored posts but also a publisher’s own content.
Currently, Yahoo’s Stream Ads appear only on sites such as SB Nation, GameSpot and TV Guide. But according to a report from AdAge.com, Yahoo plans to open up its advertising platform to other publishers too in the near future.
For other Web publishers this may mean additional monetization by placing Yahoo display ads on heir sites and alongside their content.
For advertisers, it broadens the reach of ads that can be purchased through Yahoo’s Ad Manager app. If more publishers are placing these ads on their sites, it will allow businesses to reach more readers.
The ads appear similar to those created by a service like Taboola, which also recently announced new opportunities for online publishers to use its advertising platform. At the bottom of a site’s own unique content, four picture boxes with headlines below them appear on a content page. These posts appear under the heading “Recommended”.
If a website’s visitors click the sponsored posts beneath the content they’ve just read, that site’s publisher will share in the ad revenue. No exact terms for this share of revenue have been disclosed.
What’s unique about Yahoo’s service is that it will include, initially of course, three posts from within the site that’s publishing the Stream Ads. The fourth post among those Recommended will be a sponsored post.
AdAge reports that nearly all those ads will come from Yahoo’s ad portal, Gemini. Gemini is a do-it-yourself app that allows companies to pay for and customize their advertising on the Yahoo network.
Image: AdAge
Adam Lundquist
Hi Joshua,
Great article 🙂 Though Yahoo isn’t as big as it was in its heyday it still does have a large number of viewers on any given day – especially because of the content rather then the search. My question to you is how are advertisers using these sponsored stories successfully? I clicked through a couple of them from SB Nation and they seem to go to sites that are based on views like answers.com. Do some advertisers use them for lead gen or eCom? If so how?
Thanks,
Adam
Seems to me like a modified version of arbitrage. Pay $0.05 for a click on one of these ads and then show 10 pages of content. If you’re pulling a high enough CPM on ads on those 10 pages yo could make it profitable and scale it.