Is Yahoo`s Smart Ads a Smart Idea? - Will it Work?
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This is good timing for Smart Ads for another reason: many users are starting to get more comfortable with personalized search. Search personalization may be subtle at first – and sometimes off-target, as I pointed out earlier. But the search engines have a very good reason to make it work better: it will improve their own bottom lines.
If a search engine learns how to improve its personalization, it will automatically improve the targeting of its ads. If it can take that improved targeting off-site, or to other areas of its network, as Yahoo is trying to do with its Smart Ads, it should show much higher click-through rates for its ads. In its press release for Smart Ads, Yahoo said that “In testing conducted on Yahoo! FareChase, Smart Ads generally resulted in click through rates of two to three times higher than static, non-customized display ads using the same targeting and placement.”
Those aren’t bad numbers. But the task of matching users to ads based on search and browsing behavior continues to be a challenge. On the other hand, the fact that Yahoo is actually beating Google to the behavioral targeting arena, and has such a huge amount of user data to draw on, can potentially give them a real edge. Todd Teresi, senior vice president of display marketplaces at Yahoo, called it “scalable one-to-one marketing.” Keep your fingers crossed for Yahoo; this just might be the future of search in general, and search advertising in particular.
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