Yahoo! launched a new advertising tool called SmartAds, which allows marketers to offer ads according to the web surfer’s age, location and online activities.

“We do behavioral targeting now,” she said. “This makes display (advertising) more of a direct response vehicle than just branding.”, said Yahoo spokeswoman Gaude Paez, who described SmartAds as “Real-time custom advertising”

She also said “Many marketers haven’t had the ability to tailor their display advertising messages at scale for different segments”.

“It’s not just about marrying the creative information and the targeting,” she added. “Our platform can allow them to give us those data feeds,” and hence to change ads as quickly as offer structures change on the back end.

Yahoo’s rivals also coming to display advertising. Google is buying DoubleClick for $3.1 billion and Microsoft has agreed to pay $6 billion for Aquantive.

Share and Enjoy: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Furl
  • StumbleUpon
  • Technorati
  • YahooMyWeb