Yahoo formally launches its ad network
Yahoo on Wednesday formally christened its new ad network, dubbed APT.
The ad exchange, which was formally known as AMP!, is aiming to streamline the display ad buying process by boiling planning and optimizing down to a dashboard. The platform is being rolled out in phases with the San Francisco Chronicle and San Jose Mercury News as the first customers.
APT is an important initiative for Yahoo as it tries to close its monetization gap with Google. With APT, Yahoo is trying to bring more efficiency to display ads and better monetize remnant inventory and better cross sell.
In a statement, Yahoo said APT has "the potential to allow unprecedented ease of cross-selling across the largest open network of publishers, advertisers, ad networks and agencies from a single integrated interface."
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That's a fancy way of saying Yahoo is rolling up ad buys into a dashboard that looks like this:
Yahoo already has a captive audience via its partnerships with hundreds of newspapers, but the big question is whether the exchange holds up over time. Google with its DoubleClick acquisition is looking to bring similar efficiencies to the display ad market.