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Yahoo is celebrating the power of creative to drive campaign results.
Yahoo Creative, announced at the Cannes Lions Festival, is a data-driven solution that helps advertisers tailor the creative of their ads based on real-time insights, making them more relevant.
And early tests show that it’s driving results.
“There are 205 million logged-in users that our clients are often using for targeting and identity in the platform,” said Tony Gemma, head of global ad creative, Yahoo. “Now we’ll be able to do creative decisioning against [them].”
Yahoo Creative—developed in partnership with Innervate—uses different elements of creatives like headlines and image placements, combining them with additional signals from Yahoo Mail data, such as a person’s shopping habits or previous purchases, to serve relevant ads.
Driving brand awareness: 20 of Yahoo’s advertisers, including American cruise line Princess Cruises participated in early Yahoo Creative tests.
For Princess Cruises, Yahoo Creative led to increased search from display ads across Yahoo’s owned-and-operated channels. This improved top-of-funnel metrics like awareness and consideration, according to Nick Charrow, director of media planning at Princess Cruises.
A 2023 study by Yahoo, in collaboration with MAGNA Media Trials and IPG, found that 56% of purchase intent is influenced by creative quality over targeted media placements. The study surveyed 4,100 respondents across 61 metrics, evaluating display ads on desktop and mobile devices for CPG, automotive, and food delivery brands.
“In today’s cookie-less landscape, dynamic, relevant, and engaging creative is critical for campaign success,” Elizabeth Herbst-Brady, chief revenue officer, Yahoo said in a statement.
Why we care: Yahoo recently introduced a transparent AI media buying and placement tool for advertisers. As the industry shifts away from third-party cookies, solutions like Yahoo Creative, along with transparent media buying tools, combine the power of creative and media placement, enhanced by data and AI.
“Rather than waiting [for] post-campaign [insight], we can make decisions that drive performance for that advertiser as it’s learning in the optimization layer,” said Gemma.