Yahoo! Search Marketing ANZ reports record performance

Stan Beer
Tuesday, 09 May 2006 19:36

Business IT - Technology

Yahoo! Search Marketing Australia and New Zealand, has reported its strongest quarterly performance since launching in 2004. The company says it has signed up a significant number of new advertisers and extended its network of distribution partners in Australia and New Zealand.

Craig Wax, Yahoo! Search Marketing’s managing director for Australia, New Zealand, India and South East Asia, said the business unit’s performance for the first quarter of the year in the Australian and New Zealand market was up by more than 75% percent over the same period last year, outperforming the total online advertising market in Australia, which grew by 65% (ABVS) over the corresponding period.

“Locally, Yahoo! Search Marketing is growing at a rapid rate,” Craig Wax said.  “We are signing up record numbers of new advertisers including Harper Collins and Homehound.com and our outreach through media agencies such as Optimedia, NetX and DGM Australia has increased significantly.”

“Importantly for our advertisers, we’ve also extended our distribution network, broadening our advertisers’ exposure in key verticals including travel, personals, news, cars, finance, technology and entertainment.  In addition, our partnership with Yahoo!7 has also ensured we provide deeper and more targeted advertiser coverage across the portal’s digital asset base.”

Mr Wax said the strong performance of Yahoo! Search Marketing was also reflected in the growth of the local team which has increased by 50% since January 1, 2006.

Parent company Yahoo! Inc announced today that it will begin rolling out a completely redesigned search advertising platform later this year and early next year, to help businesses more easily connect to Yahoo!’s vast audience. 

Yahoo! has released the new search advertising application program interfaces (APIs) designed to support the new platform.  Replacing the original system which created the search advertising industry, Yahoo! claims its new platform will enable marketers to more quickly launch search advertising campaigns and achieve better overall returns on their search advertising investment.  

The new platform will be deployed in multiple phases on a market-by-market basis to ensure the smoothest possible transition for the businesses that advertise with Yahoo! and to allow service and tool providers ample time to build upon Yahoo!’s new APIs.

According to Yahoo!, the first phase, building the core data platform and technologies, is near completion.  The second phase will begin when Yahoo! makes its new campaign management application and initial features accessible to advertisers.  After the majority of customers are familiar with the new features in a given market, Yahoo! will begin the third phase, implementing a quality-based ranking model. 

“The announcement of the new search advertising platform should further enhance our market position by providing more tools and capabilities to our advertisers,” Mr Wax said.  “The new platform will make it easier for them to understand the performance of their campaigns and take advantage of opportunities across all of Yahoo!’s unique marketplaces, communications and social media assets, as well as those of our distribution partners, including Yahoo!7, ninemsn, Fairfax Digital, News Interactive, Ansearch and AltaVista.”

According to Yahoo!, the new campaign management application was developed based on input from thousands of advertisers worldwide, including Australia and New Zealand.  The initial version will focus on overall ease-of-use in launching and managing campaigns, and providing greater visibility into campaign performance, coupled with more control over how to improve performance.