Yahoo! hustles display ad deal to fend off Facebook

Sep 16, 2011

Carol Bartz may have just left the building, but Yahoo!'s newest CEO Tim Morse is already attempting to boost the portal's performance and fill the firm's coffers by flash-selling display adverts.

According to The Financial Times, Yahoo!'s top brass are hustling to secure a mutual ad-selling arrangement with Microsoft and AOL in a bid to ramp up ad revenues and stop Facebook from toppling Yahoo! in the US display-advertising market.

All three firms have remained tight-lipped on the issue, but industry sources let slip that the trio seem close to finalising a deal after making successful pitches to New York ad buyers earlier this week.

Details are still thin on the ground but it's thought that each of the firm's mad men sold premium ad space on their own pages to Manhattan buyers, as well as second-tier slots on partner sites.

The move could make buying display ads across Yahoo!, Microsoft and AOL as quick and easy as buying search-related ads on Google.

However, critics have been quick to note that each firm can only guarantee premium space on its own network. Good placement on secondary sites, however, will likely be subject to each partner site's discretion depending on its own ad sales - potentially making for a tough sell to savvy media buyers.

Criticisms aside, Yahoo! seems quietly bent on rolling out the system by the end of this year - especially as the firm's second quarter display advertising revenues came in at just $467 million - $40 million below forecast - after a sales shake-up left the company with fewer hands to sell premium ads to big-name customers.

Source:  bigmouthmedia.com