Yahoo is releasing Blueprint Performance, its answer to artificial-intelligence-powered media buying tools like Google Performance Max and Meta Advantage+. Only it’s adding a welcomed dose of transparency.
This is the latest update to its AI engine, Yahoo Blueprint, launched in December 2023, which includes features like media buying recommendations in Yahoo’s demand-side platform. Blueprint Performance can now act on those placement recommendations, improving performance.
Over 50 of Yahoo’s advertisers that participated in early Blueprint Performance tests saw a 30% improvement in campaign performance, such as audience targeting acquisition goals, compared to controls, Adam Roodman, Yahoo’s senior vice president of product strategy and management, told ADWEEK. The company wouldn’t share specific numbers.
“A lot of feedback [we get] from our buyers is that they want control,” said Roodman. With Blueprint Performance, “advertisers can see where savings and the performance increases are coming from in the reporting, and that’s a level of transparency that we’re committed to offer.”
Blueprint relies on first-party data from Yahoo’s owned-and-operated sites, and location and purchase data from people logged in with Yahoo email addresses.
However, it’s not the only DSP offering AI-powered media buying recommendations. The Trade Desk’s Koa aims to give buyers more transparency compared to the black-box nature of PMax or Advantage+.
“Yahoo is known to be more of a performance-focused DSP than The Trade Desk,” said Shiv Gupta, founder, U of Digital. “That intrinsically gives them a little bit of an advantage.”
Higher conversions at lower cost
Blueprint Performance is available to all Yahoo DSP buyers through an opt-in toggle. The tool ingests 10 times more data signals, such as user behavior or traffic, making more accurate campaign predictions, and it speeds the feedback loop by 90%, said Roodman.
