Yahoo APT Digital Advertising

Yahoo has started once again its take on digital advertising with a brand new platform called APT from Yahoo. This digital advertising solution was previously announced as AMP. APT from Yahoo aims to make the processing of buying and selling of online ads faster and it hopes to network publishers, advertisers, agencies, networks, partners and developers together under one roof. Jon Hamm, star of the AMC Drama Mad Men which is based on a 1940s ad firm, was on hand to celebrate. This really excited Yahoo’s CEO Jerry Yang.

The advertising landscape has changed dramatically since the days when Don Draper was roaming the halls of Sterling Cooper,” said Jerry Yang. “While Mad Men celebrates the Madison Avenue of 40 years ago, APT from Yahoo! clearly represents the future.

During the launch held at the 5th annual Advertising Week conference in New York, Yahoo’s Sue Decker emphasized on the benefits of APT from Yahoo:

One of the major benefits of APT from Yahoo! is the fact that it’s an open system, designed to enable advertisers to reach their audiences in their favorite places across the Web, and publishers to monetize inventory across the broadest possible demand channels.

APT will currently undergo a phased roll-out. Only some selected newspapers will get the first stab at it, specifically publishers the San Francisco Chronicle of Hearst Newspapers and San Jose Mercury News of MediaNews Group.

Yahoo APT Features include:

• Guaranteed cross-selling with pre-defined selling rules
• Creative workflow automation and personalization
• Filters for better controls around creatives
• Flexible and powerful APIs
• Inventory lookup and forecasting across individual and partner sites
• Advanced audience targeting techniques based upon behavior and geography
• Powerful rate card tools for improved yield management
• Federated ad call to support multiple ad formats
• Ad Exchange for non-guaranteed inventory

Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang has also blogged about the launch:

Our confidence in APT’s ability to transform the marketplace isn’t based on theory or conjecture. It’s because of the feedback we’ve been hearing from partners who have been working with us side-by-side as we developed and then began testing the platform. In fact, William Dean Singleton, CEO of Media News Group (parent company of the San Jose Mercury News), also joined us on stage today, using words like “extraordinary and “sea-change” to describe how APT will take MNG into the future.

Digital display advertising is still an area that Google hasn’t explored yet. So that leaves Yahoo with less competitive rivals. Lets just wait and see how it goes.