Yahoo ad platform upgrade delayed

Posted by Josh on Wednesday, July 19th, 2006.

Yahoo announced that it will delay the rollout of its new ad program that will include many of the core features of Google’s AdWords program, including ad positioning that factors in quality (presumably click-through-rate).

Yahoo’s advertising interface is long overdue for many improvements, some from a usability perspective, but also functionally. Chief rival Google AdWords is much more powerful, flexible, and — in most respects — easier to use. Our chief concern, however, is that the Yahoo system is simply overpriced for its value, and we often tell our clients to forego Yahoo entirely or spend significantly less on it than Google, even accounting for search engine market share. Yahoo’s antiquated bid-for-position system causes bid inflation and doesn’t reward intelligent, sophisticated advertisers with the performance they deserve.

We look forward to the new Yahoo advertising system, and we hope that we can take advantage of much improved functionality on behalf of our clients before the end of the year.

More information about the delay can be found here.