After a year of testing in the U.S., Yahoo is rolling out in-stream adverting to international markets including Canada, Brazil, France and Germany.
Yahoo brought its new stream-based editorial design to Canada in January, which makes in-stream ads a natural next step.
Like Facebook in-stream ads or Twitter promoted tweets, Yahoo’s new ad units will be visually integrated into the main content stream on properties like Yahoo.ca, Yahoo Sports and Yahoo Finance. The company will bring to bear its user data and targeting capabilities to build an individualized stream for each user, featuring mixed editorial and ad content that match each consumer’s interests.
“We’ve sought to really redesign the content and advertising user experience,” said Yahoo Canada country manager Claude Galipeau. “The next phase is to make advertising as engaging and as seamless as possible with the content experience in the stream.”
He said that in the year the company has been using in-stream ads in the U.S., it’s collected substantial evidence that the format works. “We’ve been doing extremely good business. Not only have the ads been well-received by the users, they’ve proven quite effective for the advertisers.”
The in-stream ads will run on both desktop and mobile, with standard ad sizes and character limits that advertisers can use to unify creative across platforms. Using Yahoo Ad Manager, buyers will be able to buy the in-stream units programmatically across both channels. Direct buyers will also have access to in-stream inventory.
On its mobile properties, Yahoo plans to make all its ads native, and eventually eliminate mobile banners altogether. The company has committed to a global mobile-first strategy, and part of that is developing a stream-based user experience that suits tablets and smartphones as much as desktop. Globally, Yahoo has 430 million monthly mobile users, making up more than half its total userbase.
“We’re extremely excited by this rollout,” said Galipeau. “Many of our buyers are aware of how the product has performed in the United States, because they’re part of the same company, and they’re eager to use this new product here.”
