This is a pioneering ad unit of Yahoo! Advertising under Marissa Mayer, former Googler. The company has introduced Cost-per-Lead (CPL) ad right under a website’s listing within the organic search results. The new ad format can gather information like demographics, phone numbers, CIP codes and email addresses. The ads are clearly marked as ‘Ad from’ with the advertiser’s name. Yahoo! can earn off search separately from its deal with Microsoft, thanks to the new ad unit.
Advertisers will be well off as well as they will be able to find contact info right on the search page. They can choose a headline, logo and up to six fields for users to fill out. They are also allowed to customize the ‘thank you’ text. It will increase searcher engagement. Advertisers need to pay only when a user completes the form.
All submitted user data will be verified to make sure advertisers are only charged for valid leads. Yahoo! announcement has also said that the ad format has yielded click-through rate increases of 6 percent.
The innovative ad format has enabled advertisers to promote their brand more actively on the search page. Prices won’t be auction based, but will be set via advertiser size and vertical. Only one CPL will appear per SERP and if two or more advertisers are eligible, the ad with higher ranking will be shown. The ads just annotate the organic listing with no effect on search results.
CPL ads are already appearing for Match.com an online dating site:
Yahoo! says the marketers interested in CPL can contact their sales representative. Although Yahoo! gets its organic search and many paid listings through Bing Advertising, they’ve preferred managing CPL advertisers themselves.
