Yahoo and Taboola have entered into a staggering 30-year commercial agreement which will see Taboola power native advertising across Yahoo’s digital properties (lead image: Adam Singdola, CEO and founder, Taboola).
The digital ad space will be available to buy through the Yahoo DSP (demand-side platform) and will establish Taboola as a “leading” native ad offering for advertisers, publishers and merchants on the open web.
Taboola will benefit from Yahoo’s scale — it reaches nearly 900 million active users per month — across mail, sports, finance, and news.
By running Yahoo’s native advertising solutions, Taboola hopes to improve reach, better campaign performance, and improved user experiences. The companies believe this will help support brands as they look for alternative advertising options outside of walled gardens.
Under the partnership, Yahoo will receive just under a quarter of the pro forma equity of Taboola and will allow the company to improve its own ad offerings, improve consumer experience, and create shared value as Taboola’s largest single shareholder.
“Yahoo is an internet pioneer, representing one of the largest, most trusted and most sophisticated publishers in the world,” said Singolda.
“Everywhere I look, I see a rocket ship growth opportunity for both of us – native, ecommerce, video, header bidding (display) and more. This win-win partnership will meaningfully accelerate our growth flywheel, expanding our reach to more users on the open web with high-intent traffic to provide world-class solutions for advertisers, publishers, merchants and users in a cookie-less world.
“For publishers in the open web, we’ll be able to invest even more in driving revenue, engagement and audience growth moving forward, empowering performance, brand advertisers, merchants as well as agencies with an immense reach to users in a premium, trusted environment. This partnership is a big step toward achieving our goal of generating $US1 billion in ex-TAC* by 2025.”
“Partnering with Taboola enables Yahoo to further enhance the contextual and native offerings within our unified advertising stack,” added Jim Lanzone, Yahoo’s CEO.
“The partnership also allows Yahoo and Taboola to continue to differentiate in market, improving user, advertiser and publisher experiences across properties, while benefiting from the long-term tailwinds in digital native advertising. Together with Taboola, we will maximize reach and campaign performance for advertisers, enhance monetisation opportunities for publishers, and drive improved, privacy-forward experiences for users. As we continue to build the next era of Yahoo, we are thrilled to have strong partners by our side.”
The deal is expected to close in the first quarter of next year, subject to regulatory and customary shareholder approvals and certain closing conditions.