Hasta La Creative!

Yahoo reorganized its homepage in February around an infinite “stream” of content, personalized for the user by their declared or implied interests. Now that feed is getting ads, so-called “native” formats called “Yahoo Stream Ads” that will appear in the feed, whether on the desktop, tablets or mobile phones.

“Both the placement of the ad and the look and feel will be are native to the content,” said Yahoo VP of product, Mike Kerns. And just as content is targeted in that feed, the ads will be, too. “The targeting will be primarily based on your user profile,” he said, but Yahoo can also target those not logged into their Yahoo account through their behavior on the site. “We have improved that algorithm substantially,” he said.

The definition of what constitutes a “native” ad is a moving target. Publishers from Buzzfeed to The Atlantic have seized on the notion, which means ads that mirror the tone or type of content in some way. Mr. Kerns said the ad will be clearly marked as such, so not trying to look like a news story or video, but it will be in the format that predominates in a user feed. Yahoo users watching videos, for example, might get a video ad. Those reading text will get a text ad, targeted to their interests.

Continue reading at AdAge.com