Yahoo unveils Apt ad platform
Yahoo Inc. on Wednesday launched a much-anticipated upgrade to its online advertising system, one the company termed revolutionary, in a bid to emerge from the shadow of search industry leader Google Inc.
Playing to Yahoo’s strengths in graphical display ads and technology targeting pitches to Web surfers’ interests, the new Apt From Yahoo platform will initially involve newspaper companies that belong to a 2-year-old consortium led by Yahoo, which many joined hoping for relief from the decline in their industry.
The platform, formerly known as Amp, is intended to make it easier for advertisers and publishers to buy and sell display ads, borrowing many of the self-service techniques that have made search ads lucrative for Internet companies, especially Google.
By tapping data Yahoo already collects on Web surfers’ preferences, Apt aims to help advertisers narrow their pitches to specific groups, because sharper targeting will let websites charge more for ads.
The typical newspaper now sells more than half its inventory at deeply discounted rates because it can’t offer such specific targeting, said William Dean Singleton, vice chairman and chief executive of MediaNews Group Inc. and chairman of the Associated Press.
Singleton said Apt should help eliminate or reduce the need for deep discounts.
“If we can sell the amount of online advertising we are selling today at rates that were much more normal, you wouldn’t be hearing people talk about the woes of the newspaper industry,” Singleton said at a launch event in New York.
It’s unclear whether the technology will give Yahoo the lift it needs. A previous technology for search ads, called Panama, failed to resonate with Wall Street despite accolades from advertisers, and Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Yahoo has been in a funk, its stock recently sinking to its lowest level in nearly five years.
The new platform, 18 months in the making, comes at an inopportune time because advertisers are pulling back spending as the U.S. economy weakens, said David Hallerman, a senior analyst at research firm EMarketer.
But even if it isn’t a game changer, Hallerman said, it can help Yahoo reach the companies that are still advertising.
