Yahoo Launching Smart Ads

Yahoo announced the launch of Yahoo SmartAds, a new advertising platform that delivers tailoreddisplay ads to highly targeted audiences.The new service automatically converts creative campaign elements and offerings into highly customized and relevant display ads by delivering ads according to the Web surfer’s age, gender, location and online activities.

Yahoo SmartAds is powered by Yahoo's demographic and geographic targeting capabilities and aim to connect users with what they are looking for based on their distinctive, expressed interests. For example, if a user is browsing for hybrid cars in Yahoo! Autos and has selected San Francisco as their default location in Yahoo! Weather, Yahoo!'s SmartAds platform can assemble and deliver a display ad in real time that showcases a hybrid vehicle from a major auto brand, as well as local dealer information and current lease rates. This provides a relevant experience to the user and allows the marketer to reach a user who is likely to become a customer.
In addition, Yahoo's patent-pending SmartAds platform allows advertisers and agencies to design a single set of individual creative components, provide Yahoo! with that artwork and a feed to their entire database of offers, then allow Yahoo!'s SmartAds technology to automatically generate the hundreds - if not thousands - of unique ad combinations based on those components. This helps advertisers and agencies scale to take full advantage of all of Yahoo!'s audience targeting capabilities while maintaining control over how their brand is presented.

The company is launching ads with two major airline companies as well as some travel aggregators, none of which wanted to be identified. The ads will appear on Yahoo's network of owned and operated sites and eventually will be expanded to the newspapers Yahoo has partnered with, as well as Yahoo partners Comcast and eBay.