Yahoo used its keynote at CES to unveil a range of advertising and content services going live in Q1, with a growing focus on mobile products going into 2014.

Ads

The web giant has brought all of its ad properties, including native ads on Tumblr, under one roof within its new Yahoo Advertising brand. Ads are now categorised as native, audience, premium and search and can be bought across desktop, mobile or video.

The announcement includes the new programmatic Yahoo Ad Exchange, where advertisers can use their own data to buy targeted ads on Yahoo or relevant placements across the web using Yahoo Audience Ads. The company has also updated its Yahoo Ad Manager and Ad Manager Plus self-service buying platforms, all of which will go live in Q1.

Yahoo has committed to using a cost-per-engagement model for sponsored posts on Tumblr, where advertisers will only have to pay if people engage with the ad placement.

In its Q3 results, Yahoo said that mobile ads are growing rapidly and we can expect to see more detail about mobile ad revenues in 2014.

Mobile-first content

With mobile users already up by a third from Q1 last year, Yahoo’s CEO Marissa Meyer unveiled a new app built using the tech acquired with its buyout of Summly in March. Yahoo News Digest is live on iOS in the US and uses push notifications to alert users to twice-daily curated news ‘atoms’ made up of summarised content from across the web.

Yahoo has also gone live with dedicated Food and Tech digital magazines, responsive websites that Mayer said have been built with mobile in mind. Although they both ever so slightly still smack of old-fashioned Yahoo assets, the tiled layout, Buzzfeed-style headlines and sponsored in-stream ads are easily digestible on the small screen. Stories expand when clicked, rather than opening a new tab.

Aviate – watch out Google Now?

The company also announced an acquisition, mobile app management platform Aviate, which will become a key part of the Yahoo’s Android strategy in 2014. As an alternative to the homescreen, Aviate categorises and groups apps based on real-time context – wifi, GPS, time – as well as content category.

The buyout of this company looks like it could offer a way for Yahoo to foreground its own apps among Android users, in a similar way to Google Now, gather a load of information about app usage and potentially sell third-party in-app ads, or buy in-app ads for their own properties, based on this data.

The service is currently in an invite-only beta and Mayer said that Yahoo will continue to develop the product throughout the year. “Imagine if your phone can deliver the right experience to you at the right time instead of you having to search for it. What if your phone suggested music and map apps when you got in your car or fitness apps when you got into the gym?”