As a member of Yahoo’s Smart Ads program, PointRoll will use Yahoo’s reach and targeting capabilities to provide more customized, relevant and scalable rich media campaigns. PointRoll will also use its ShopLocal retail ad program to offer improved Smart Ads for retail advertisers.

Jason Tafler
CEO of PointRoll

"By partnering with Yahoo, PointRoll can offer marketers new opportunities to quickly and efficiently deliver behaviorally targeted rich media ads to the right audiences," said Jason Tafler, CEO of PointRoll. "

"As recent Dynamic Logic data illustrates, rich media outperforms standard Flash and gif ads. With Yahoo’s Smart Ads program, PointRoll helps brands auto-optimize creative and targeting to greatly improve the relevance of their campaigns and get the most out of every impression."

Smart Ads can be used in any vertical industry, but Yahoo says it has seen success within the retail industry, where many advertisers are looking for new ways to reach consumers.

Testing Smart Ads with ShopLocal retail ad content has shown improved campaign performance for retail advertisers such as CVS and Kohl’s. These advertisers saw gains in click performance, conversion and overall return on investment.

Yahoo sites attracted 154 million unique visitors in June, each spending an average of 4.6 hours on the properties, according to comScore.

Yahoo and Tumri worked with Hewlett-Packard to create a Smart Ad campaign that reached more than 140 million U.S. users. The campaign resulted in a return on ad spend that was more than 20 times higher than traditional display ad campaigns. HP has developed separate Smart Ad campaigns with Yahoo and Teracent that also produced better results than traditional campaigns.

Catherine Paschkewitz

"The ability to run a display advertising campaign that can match the ROI of my search marketing spend is a potentially game-changing proposition," said Catherine Paschkewitz, director of demand generation, HP Direct.

"The Smart Ad solution has enabled us to increase our ROI by reaching the right set of users with the right message."

Yahoo said it also plans to offer its Smart Ad technology to mobile advertisers through a partnership with Teracent. Advertisers will be able to customize ads to individual users in real time.  Smart Ads on mobile will offer details such as location, and time of day.

The new program will expand its current Smart Ad offering to advertisers across all categories. Yahoo plans to continue adding new Smart Ad program partners that will eventually be certified by Yahoo. Yahoo also said it could expand the program internationally.
 

Both Anmuth and J.P. Morgan Securities analyst Imran Khan rate Yahoo’s stock as “Overweight,” according to a Forbes report.

Anmuth also liked Yahoo’s purchase of BlueLithium for $300 million.

“We believe the acquisition of BlueLithium is a solid strategic fit within Yahoo’s recent shift toward performance-based advertising, including the acquisition of RightMedia and the recent launch of SmartAds,” Anmuth wrote in a client note.

Just as the Bear Stearns news did yesterday, the Lehman Brothers news has done today for Yahoo, pushing its stock price to $24.10 near midday. The stock still has room to move up to approach its 52-week high of $33.61 from earlier this year.