Yahoo Advertising has launched a central AI suite that boosts performance-based solutions within the Yahoo DSP.

Yahoo Blueprint has been launched to enhance decision-making, making AI more accessible, and serving as a results-driven guide throughout the campaign lifecycle to deliver better outcomes for advertisers.

According to the IT company, the new suite, which is powered by a global pool of more than 335 million plugged-in Yahoo users, offers clients “stronger results”, “confidence” and “simplicity and efficiency”.

“What sets our AI suite apart is the vast scale of proprietary data we tap into before considering third-party or customer first-party data,” Yahoo Chief Revenue Officer Elizabeth Herbst-Brady said.

“In introducing Yahoo Blueprint, we are now allowing advertisers to capitalise on Yahoo’s extensive history of machine learning and data-driven decision-making in a new and accessible way.”

Some of the features within the first phase of Yahoo Blueprint include new data visualisations, that centralise AI-driven insights and recommendations in one easy-to-access hub, enabling advertisers to extract insights and act quickly.

Bidding and forecasting precision, thanks to ‘Omniscope’, an algorithmic forecasting tool, has also been introduced, alongside, audience insights, a highly intuitive, AI-powered insights tool.

Other capabilities include predictive audiences, leverage over one million dimensions like interests and demographics, alongside customer value optimisation, which finds new customers who possess the same predicted value as the advertiser’s highest regarded customers.

Herbst-Brady added: “With Yahoo Blueprint, advertisers always hold the reins. Yahoo Blueprint not only prioritises performance enhancement but also minimises friction and upholds transparency, guaranteeing both ease of use and advertiser control.”

The platform has already been adopted by Fortune 500 brand partners and agencies.

The post Yahoo Advertising unveils new AI suite appeared first on Mobile Marketing Magazine.

Tumblr, the once-thriving blogging platform, is being sold to WordPress owner Automattic Inc. for a fraction of its 2013 asking price, according to The Wall Street Journal. In 2013, Yahoo purchased Tumblr for $1.1bn, and when Verizon absorbed Yahoo shortly after, it also inherited Tumblr. Unfortunately, other sharing platforms including Facebook, Instagram, and Reddit have come to overshadow Tumblr, making it more of a burden for Verizon than an asset.

While Automattic’s purchasing amount hasn’t been disclosed, Axios reports it is somewhere “well below $20m”, meaning both Yahoo and Verizon are taking a steep loss with the deal. Still, Automattic believes the purchase is a smart move, and that Tumblr will fit in well with its suite of existing platforms.

“Tumblr is one of the Web’s most iconic brands,” said Matt Mullenweg, Automattic CEO. “It is an essential venue to share new ideas, cultures and experiences, helping millions create and build communities around their shared interests. We are excited to add it to our lineup, which already includes WordPress .com, WooCommerce, Jetpack, Simplenote, Longreads, and more.”

As part of the acquisition, around 200 Tumblr employees will join Automattic. This could be exactly what Tumblr needs to revive its user base, as Sensor Tower reported first-time users for Tumblr’s mobile app declined 33 per cent year-over-year last quarter. A huge hit to the platform was its 2018 ban on pornographic content, which was a huge factor in Tumblr’s popularity.

“We couldn’t be more excited to be joining a team that has a similar mission. Many of you know WordPress.com, Automattic’s flagship product. WordPress.com and Tumblr were both early pioneers among blogging platforms,” said Tumblr in a blog post. “Automattic shares our vision to build passionate communities around shared interests and to democratize publishing so that anyone with a story can tell it, especially when they come from under-heard voices and marginalized communities.”

“Today’s announcement is the culmination of a thoughtful, thorough and strategic process,” said Guru Gowrappan, CEO, Verizon Media. “Tumblr is a marquee brand that has started movements, allowed for true identities to blossom and become home to many creative communities and fandoms. We are proud of what the team has accomplished and are happy to have found the perfect partner in Automattic, whose expertise and track record will unlock new and exciting possibilities for Tumblr and its users.”

The post Verizon is selling blogging platform Tumblr to WordPress owner appeared first on Mobile Marketing Magazine.

Across the world, there are inspirational leaders and pioneers from all races, ethnicities, backgrounds, sexes, and genders. Some of these people are well-known and recognised, others don’t always have a platform to share their stories.

The thought of providing the inspirational stories of those less known, yet influential, characters is part of the reasoning behind Yahoo Finance’s decision to create a video series to showcase the career journeys of some of the most influential women across business, tech and academia.

“We really wanted a vehicle to champion all these women but, at the same time, show that these businesses are most successful by having that range of diversity and inclusion,” says Lianna Brinded, head of Yahoo Finance UK and host of the Global Change Agents with Lianna Brinded video series.

The idea for the video series, according to Brinded, came about as a result of the DNA of both herself and the entirety of the Verizon Media Group, which Yahoo Finance is part of. This DNA is one which works to be as diverse and inclusive as possible, presenting this through its workforce, products, and marketing.

As such, Yahoo Finance – which boasts over 100m worldwide multi-platform visitors per month, according to comScore – promises this video series isn’t just a “one project wonder” created on the back of International Women’s Day. The financial news publisher has already launched other projects that focus on work management, and diversity and inclusion in the workplace. And it’s looking to launch networking groups around Global Change Agents with Lianna Brinded to bring together women from across a variety of industries to “advocate, help amplify, and help each other out”.

“The way of reaching more people is to make sure that the editorial that you do and the products that you build are all within growing a community. And that includes bringing in a lot more women, it includes bringing in a lot more diverse communities, that can see a product that evolves as society evolves,” says Brinded.

“So, if you look across Yahoo Finance, it’s not just this series.”

In the first episode of Global Change Agents with Lianna Brinded, Brinded sat down for a chat with Eileen Burbidge MBE, an American venture capitalist and chair of Tech Nation.

Burbidge – who has worked at companies including Apple, Skype, and Yahoo – is a founding partner at Passion Capital, an early-stage London venture capital firm. Passion Capital has invested in startups like Monzo, GoCardless, and Adzuna.

Alongside her roles at Passion Capital and Tech Nation, the UK’s network for tech entrepreneurs, Burbidge is also a non-executive director at Dixons Carphone.

“Eileen has been one of my heroes that I’ve seen across the industry for the last few years. To me, she is the embodiment of what a change agent should be. She’s not just someone who has had a great career and we should just put her on a pedestal,” says Brinded. “She’s actually transformed the industry that she’s in, she’s helped champion other women, she’s had a career that has been built on building teams. She’s also had an incredible trajectory in terms of how she’s done that and how she’s elevated people along the way with her.

“Overall, she’s in an industry which is predominantly male and she’s shown that if you believe your ideas, if you work hard, if you work with others around you, then you can succeed in whatever you want to do. On top of that, she’s very candid and honest in terms of navigating that – and I think that’s very inspirational.”

Watch Eileen Burbidge talk to Lianna Brinded

The Global Change Agents with Lianna Brinded series isn’t just influenced by inspirational women on-screen – in the form of Brinded and her guests – but also has an influential name working on the project off-camera: Lara O’Reilly.

O’Reilly is widely-considered one of the best journalists in the marketing and advertising space and has previously covered the industry as a reporter at The Wall Street Journal and senior editor for global advertising at Business Insider.

In 2016, O’Reilly was named ‘Digital Journalist of the Year’ by the London Press Club and, two years’ prior, was named in MHP’s ’30 Under 30 to Watch’ list.

Now, she’s taken on the role of executive producer for the Global Change Agents with Lianna Brinded series.

“I’ve always gravitated toward strong, talented women. And Lara has been one of those journalists that is one of the standouts in her field. She, of course, has dozens of other job opportunities and that’s going to continue because she’s one of the most talented journalists in her sector,” says Brinded.

“What I really feel is testament to her coming on board is she really believes in the project. She really believes in what we’re trying to build. And, even though she still has a lot of opportunities coming her way, she wants to stay and focus on this because it’s not just a one-off thing that we’re looking to do.”

So, Global Change Agents with Lianna Brinded kicked off on 3 April with Eileen Burbidge and will run twice monthly for nine months. But why should you watch it?

“The reason this is different is that it’s not just showcasing the people right at the top – the people that would be recognised in the high street that your mum and dad would know. These people may not have had that platform before and be showcased as much as they have been, despite all their achievements and all that they’re doing for other people and women in work and in their industries,” says Brinded.

“This one fundamentally gets to the heart of the story of the women changing the world and they may not be on every TV or every billboard, but they are 100 per cent the people that are changing our lives and probably don’t even know it.”

The post “People that are changing our lives”: Yahoo Finance talks influential women video series appeared first on Mobile Marketing Magazine.

“Have you ever been in a group SMS thread with 10 people talking about 18 different things at once? It can make it hard to follow along, let alone plan a barbecue,” said Adam Mathes, senior director of product management at Yahoo. “We built Yahoo Together to fix that. Its group chat that makes life easier through organisation and smart tools.”

The app has been in beta for several months, during which time it was codenamed Squirrel. While it is built on a new messaging platform, it still leverages some of the existing technology from Yahoo Messenger, and was built by the Communications Team at Yahoo, who also worked on Messenger.

Together seems to be aiming at the space in between products like Facebook Messenger and more organisational tools like Slack. Alongside the ability to split conversations into topics, it has support for file attachments and has an improved search interface making older chats easier to navigate. However, unlike many of its competing platforms, it currently doesnt support voice or video calling.

The post Yahoo aims to reinvent messaging with Together appeared first on Mobile Marketing Magazine.

The suite, called Oath Ad Platforms, combines the assets from BrightRoll, One by AOL, and Yahoo Gemini into one set of solutions. Furthermore, the demand side platform (DSP) comes with access to a new native and connected TV inventory, alongside other formats.

“Oath Ad Platforms is the culmination of years of experience creating world class advertising offerings powered by data and designed to build brands,” said Tim Armstrong, CEO of Oath, who is reportedly set to leave the company. “We’ve combined the best assets from our trusted platforms with new functionality to drive meaningful results for advertisers and publishers. Oath Ad Platforms is another example of our longstanding commitment to innovation, providing a solution to today’s digital advertising challenges.”

Oath’s ad tech suite will offer solutions for both marketers and publishers. Ad Platforms for Marketers is aimed at helping brands and agencies to focus on what drives their business. The platform is powered by a DSP, connecting to more than 40 global exchanges and providing access to inventory from across Oath, AOL, and Yahoo’s properties; a native marketplace, a global inventory enabling marketers to use in-stream formats to target consumers; and by an SSP and exchanges, offering programmatic access to Oath’s inventory.

Meanwhile, Ad Platforms for Publishers aligns with Oath’s Flurry offering and focuses on omnichannel, video and broadcast publishers, and app developers. Powered by data, it provides access to advertisers through revenue and video management solutions. Oath says it will continue to introduce new tools to the platform, including the rollout of an Oath Ads SDK in 2019.

The post Oath introduces unified suite of solutions for marketers and publishers appeared first on Mobile Marketing Magazine.

Armstrong came to Verizon from AOL in 2015 when the carrier bought the online service provider for $4.4bn (£3.4bn). At the time, Armstrong was CEO of AOL, a role he had held since 2009. Upon joining Verizon, he was placed in charge of the firms digital and advertising division, which became known as Oath after Verizon also acquired Yahoo and merged the two units.

Armstrong was instrumental in the acquisition of Yahoo and has steered the merger of the two businesses, overseeing several rounds of job cuts as part of that process.

Oath currently owns more than 50 brands including Yahoo, HuffPost and Tumblr, but has so far failed to make much of an impact in the advertising space dominated by Facebook and Google. Over a year after the formation of Oath, it has yet to make a significant impact on Verizons growth or revenues, and still holds just 2.7 per cent of the online ad market.

In the meantime, Verizon has appointed a new chief executive in the form of Hans Vestberg, former CEO of Ericsson, suggesting that its core focus remains on connectivity rather than content. Verizon also has a massive cost reduction program currently in progress which intends to cut $10bn from the companys expenses, largely through network virtualisation.

According to the Wall Street Journals sources, there have been recent discussions about spinning Oath off into a separate business entirely, but Verizon has ultimately decided to retain the business and integrate some of its operations more closely with the rest of the company.

The post Tim Armstrong, Verizons head of advertising, reportedly leaving firm appeared first on Mobile Marketing Magazine.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Oath has been pitching advertisers a service that analyses more than 200m Yahoo Mail inboxes and produces rich user data based on the contents. The data provides marketers with clues as to what users may be interested in buying, as well as being used to generate demographic or behavioural tags based on identified interests.

“Email is an expensive system,” said Doug Sharp, vice president of data, measurements and insights at Oath, in a statement to the Journal. “I think its reasonable and ethical to expect the value exchange, if youve got this mail service and there is advertising going on.”

The practice of scanning user emails is not a new one, but Yahoo appears to have expanded its own version of this service since it came under the umbrella of Oath in 2017, following its acquisition by Verizon. Oaths privacy policy also allows for Yahoo employees to review sections of some commercial emails.

Google ended its own use of email scanning for ad targeting last year, but recently drew criticism for failing to take action to protect inboxes from third-party companies who had also been given access, potentially compromising the data privacy of millions of users. Again, both software and human employees had access to user emails, with one executive from a third-party company saying that employees reading user emails was “common practice”.

Given Yahoos recent history with data privacy, this reminder that user emails may not be as protected as many think is unlikely to be good news for Yahoo, but whether it will cause a shift in policy remains to be seen.

The post Oath bucks industry trends to offer advertisers targeting based on email contents appeared first on Mobile Marketing Magazine.

The first year has seen several changes, as with any new business designed to bring a group of brands under one roof, and the company has focused on unifying its business.

“That unification has come in three parts really,” said Stuart Flint, VP EMEA at Oath, highlighting the work the company has done to bring together 13,000 employees around the world, processes and systems from across more than 50 brands, and aligning product offerings.

“We’ve gone through that unification of people first and made sure we’ve looked after those because without great people and talent we don’t really have much of a strategy, as you’ve got no one to fulfil it. That was the most important thing: getting our people together and making sure that we unified those individuals within their buildings and their job roles and everything else.

“The second one of was really about processes and systems… We’ve had a lot of talented people working very hard and long evenings to make sure we have backend systems that can deliver ads properly and so on and so forth,” continued Flint.

“The third area is around our product. How do we unify our product? How do we create a really good consumer experience across all of those Oath superbrands – as we call them? That’s the journey we’ve been on for the last year and now we’re at a point where we’ve moved on from unification. Now we’re on to innovation, which is about how we innovate our brands specifically – how we innovate our product offering. And that bit, for me, is the most important and most exciting bit that we’re doing right now – in terms of unifying those brands and creating really deep user experiences and deep engagements with our products which we’re investing in substantially internationally.”

In unifying the business, Oath and Verizon have to had to make some calls that were difficult to make – whether that’s shutting down News Digest and Yahoo Messenger or laying off staff – as part of its goal of “creating strong content and distributing at scale,” according to Flint.

“That was our north star and therefore the company had to make decisions around that to ensure that we’re focused on that mission,” he said. “It happens in any business of this scale but it was just to fit our mission essentially.”

Time to innovate
With Oath’s transition from the unification stage to the innovation stage, it is fully focused on its mission to reach 2bn consumers around the world by 2020.

Over the past year, we have seen Oath form partnerships, develop ad formats, and create content in order to put itself on the right trajectory to make that happen.

One big example of that is its distribution deal with Samsung, which was announced just last month. Under the agreement, Oath will deliver both media and advertising content through Bixby Home on Galaxy S9, S9+, S8, S8+, and Note8 devices.

As a result, Samsung customers can keep up-to-date with content from Yahoo Sports, Newsroom, Yahoo Finance, and Go90, while native ads are being distributed via Yahoo Gemini within Galaxy apps and Game Launcher experiences.

“Our strategy is around content distribution and so that’s us building content, that’s our owned and operated content that we write and create in terms of video, but it’s also the content we create for our clients for example,” said Flint.

“As part of our mission to make sure that we succeed and grow to 2bn consumers by 2020, we have to have a pretty decent distribution path.  One of the partnerships that we’ve gone into is Samsung and the left swipe, allowing users to have a deeper experience within the Samsung devices. They’re driven through essentially Oath apps within the mobile phone, so it’s a great user experience and a great distribution partner for us. That really supercharges and grows the scale for our business in mobile, which is a wonderful opportunity.”

On the content front, Oath recently launched a Yahoo Sports video show dedicated to the World Cup called ‘The 32’.

Sponsored by Volkswagen, the show is presented by Reshmin Chowdury and Toby Tarrant and is being streamed live during every day of the World Cup through the Yahoo Sport app and website. It is also available to watch online following the livestream and available via Yahoo’s global editions.

The series combines World Cup news with fan culture, discussing results, team selections, and gossip through the biggest sporting event in the world.

“How do we create really deep, useful experiences for consumers? They’re really enjoying short snippet shows like 32, which is fun and that’s what the World Cup is about,” said Flint. “Creating those deeper user experiences that isn’t just around content, it might be in time, but ultimately right now we’re creating wonderful experiences around the World Cup. It’s all about the fans – that’s what football is about. And we’re really excited about the show, it’s doing really well across Europe. I think that’s the kind of experiences we’re wanting to create in the future as well.

“It’s difficult to look far ahead but we’re creating content for the consumer,” Flint continued when pressed about the possibility of similar content in future for the Olympics or even a show like Love Island. “We’re understanding our consumers in ways we’ve never seen before and data allows us to do that. I think we’ll make sure that we’re doing the right thing by the consumer. It’s all about the consumer first. So, I think that’s the type of content we’re looking to create around major sporting events, but with a difference. We’re not trying to run live games throughout the World Cup – that would be very expensive and something that’s not part of our mission right now.”

He added that the key to Oath’s acceleration phase was investing in their core pillars and driving toward its 2bn consumer target. The company’s five key areas are news, sports, finance, home page, and entertainment but where this investment falls within those categories is still being mapped out.

Turn it, leave it, stop, format it
One area where Oath hasn’t shied away from investing heavily over the last year is advertising. In the last 12 months, we have seen the company unveil several ad formats.

Most recently, the company showed off a pair of extended reality ad formats in the shape of 3D and programmatic virtual reality (VR) formats. These followed the rollout of augmented reality (AR), native, utility, and social mobile ad formats in previous months.

A big reason behind these ad formats is looking ahead to 5G, according to Flint, referencing parent company Verizon leading the way with its work to implement the next generation mobile network in the US.

“When 5G comes to Europe in time, we’re going to be ready to create those experiences for users, said Flint. “That innovation and creativity is really important within that real estate, which is a really small real estate when you think about it and doesn’t necessarily always lend itself to putting ads on there. I think it is about wonderful user experiences within the super channels we’ve created.

“Verizon is leading the charge as the largest telecommunications business in the US and I think Europe will follow suit and in time. For us, it’s about creativity,” he continued

“If you think about the potential, Ryot Studios is our creative arm within Oath and they are very excited about the opportunities that will be unlocked in terms of creating user experiences above and below ground. That’s where we think the potential is for sure.”

Despite this, Flint made it clear that offering great content is the most important part of Oath’s business because “advertising experiences come after you’ve created good content” and “you have to build something that people love to come to and want to engage with”.

An Oath
Looking ahead, Oath is being led by their new president, K. Guru Gowrappan, on its long-term strategy of reaching 2bn consumers, while region executives like Flint are tasked with delivering on the short- and mid-term strategy of continuing on this acceleration path and creating “great consumer products”.

“In 12 months’ time, I think we would have fulfilled the mission of building extremely strong brands in market, increasing our daily active users and creating better user experiences, and entering more awards potentially around mobile formats, for example,” said Flint. “Those are three things I’d be really proud to sit here in front of you in 12 months’ time and say ‘we did what we said we’re going to do around consumer brands, we grew our audiences, and we’re up for some awards for creativity in the Cannes Lions’.

“We’re never shy of coming forward in terms of talking about great things and great work that we’re doing. I’m really excited about those super channels [Yahoo, AOL, HuffPost] and what we offer. And that seems like a very sensible route to market for me.

“We are a successful company and it’s just about how continue to be and how we accelerate that growth path around our users to 2bn in 2020 – and the revenue will come with that,” he concluded.

The post Its our goal to reach 2bn consumers – Oath one year on appeared first on Mobile Marketing Magazine.

The improved mobile web version is designed to bring the user experience closer in line with the app, providing more native interactions on a smartphone. Users can interact with their inbox more quickly by swiping right to mark messages as read or left to delete them, and the inbox has been reformatted with an infinite scroll, rather than users having to hit next to see more emails.

The look and feel of the inbox can be personalised, with various new colour themes available, and can also be more easily organised with folders. For convenience, users can also add an icon to their home screen that links directly to the Yahoo Mail mobile browser experience, bringing it even closer in line with app functionality.

The Android Go version of the app aims to appeal to users in developing markets where the stripped-down version of Googles operating system is used for entry-level smartphones. The Yahoo Mail Go app delivers the same features currently available to standard Android users while keeping the RAM usage on devices below 50MB, and the install size below 10MB.

According to Yahoo, the original Yahoo Mail app is already pretty lightweight, meaning that an Android Go version could be created without removing any major features, and using the same architecture as the standard app.

“By 2025, the number of global mobile internet users is predicted to expand by over 50 per cent,” said Joshua Jacobson, senior director of product management at Yahoo Mail. “We believe it is important to understand and meet the specific needs of this massive wave of new mobile users, and deliver the same first-class Yahoo Mail experience regardless of device, location, storage capacity, or network speeds.”

The post Yahoo updates email offering with rejuvenated mobile web experience appeared first on Mobile Marketing Magazine.

Presented by sports journalist and broadcaster Reshmin Chowdury and broadcaster Toby Tarrant, The 32 is streaming live on the Yahoo Sport app and website every day of the tournament, and promises to bring insight, analysis and fan views to the World Cup. The series is also available following the live show to stream online, and will be made available to fans around the world via Yahoos global editions.

Filmed in front of a live studio audience, the series aims to combine the latest news from the World Cup with fan culture and flavour direct from the venues, thanks to reporter Peter Hall. The studio in London will welcome big name guests from the world of football throughout the tournament, who will join discussions on news, results, team selections and gossip.

“The 32 is a fantastic example of the original, quality content that Oath produces across its globally-renowned brands,” said Mark Melling, head of RYOT Studio EMEA at Oath. “This fun show with a great line-up of talent will bring fans closer to the thoughts and feelings of other fans and experts from all 32 countries involved and on the ground in Russia itself through original video designed to augment their tournament experience. Were excited to share this experience with Volkswagen as our partner.”

As part of the sponsorship, Volkswagen will take 100 per cent share of voice on-page against Yahoo Sports coverage of the World Cup in the UK, and will work with brand media agency PHD Media to connect with this highly engaged audience.

“We are delighted to be sponsoring this great content with Yahoo Sport, part of our broader programme of aligning Volkswagen SUVs with the beautiful game,” said Sweta Dusara, communications manager at Volkswagen. “The 32 fits perfectly with our brands tone-of-voice and gives us an ideal environment to showcase our brand new Complete Confidence SUV campaign.”

The post VW sponsors Yahoo Sports World Cup video series appeared first on Mobile Marketing Magazine.