In the hopes of jumpstarting its m-business, the company is reportedly working on new advertising in its application.
In an effort to try to give its mobile marketing business a shot in the arm in a similar way to what Facebook has recently accomplished, Yahoo has started to test new in-app ads that can be clicked by device users in order to conveniently install an application onto the smartphone or tablet they are using.
This move looks quite similar to the mobile app install ads from Facebook, though there are some differences.
In Yahoo’s case, this mobile marketing effort appears within the content feeds of its smartphone and tablet based properties, and it focuses on catering to mobile app development firms. According to an email from a spokesperson from the company, “We’re testing in-stream ad opportunities with an initial group of advertisers who have mobile apps and want to connect directly with audiences across Yahoo mobile apps and sites.”
This could enhance the mobile marketing experience that is provided to app developers.
The spokesperson went on to explain that the goal behind these native ads will be to assist various brands in being able to boost their app downloads. At the moment, it remains in the testing phase, and it will appear throughout the various Yahoo properties with in-stream advertisements that run on Android and iOS smartphones and tablets.
Yahoo has not yet managed to be recognized as a mobile business, despite the fact that it is self described as being “mobile-first”. More than half of the traffic that the company sees every day is through these devices. However, its 2013 year-end earnings report stated that the revenue from that channel is “not material”.
At the same time, other giants in the industry, such as Facebook, have been successful in migrating their ads – and their advertisers – from the larger devices to the smaller ones. Mobile marketing brought in over half of the fourth quarter ad revenue at that social network, which saw a total of $2.34 billion in ad dollars coming in during that period. This strategy found its start with mobile app development companies.
