REDMOND, WASHINGTON (BNO NEWS) — Recognizing Google’s dominant presence in the Internet market, Yahoo!, Microsoft Corp. and AOL on Wednesday announced joint advertisement agreements to boost the process of buying and selling premium online display inventory.
According to the agreements, ad networks operated by Yahoo!, Microsoft and AOL will now be able to offer each other’s premium non-reserved online display inventory to their respective advertising customers.
The partnership is expected to enhance the demand for and value of each party’s display advertising offerings as well as provide better yield for both participating publishers and advertisers.
Under the terms of the nonexclusive agreements, “each company will continue to make its own decisions, differentiate its offerings and set its own controls for how it operates any exchanges, ad networks or other aspects of its display businesses,” a statement said. The companies will also actively compete with each other for both advertiser and publisher partners based on their own unique product differentiators.
However, by integrating one another’s real-time bidding (RTB) technologies to facilitate the availability of non-reserved inventory by early 2012, Yahoo!, Microsoft and AOL expect to have the opportunity to access each other’s non-reserved inventory to achieve the benefits of scale and efficiency.
The Microsoft Advertising Exchange and Yahoo’s Right Media Exchange will initially serve as two marketplaces from which the partners can procure this inventory for resale to advertisers and agencies. AOL may, at its discretion, opt to use its own exchange technology solution subsequent to the launch of the partnership.
Ross Levinsohn, Yahoo! executive vice president Americas, said the partnership will result is expected to result in a more efficient, effective and more effortless way to access premium inventory and formats.
Rik van der Kooi, corporate vice president of the Microsoft Advertising Business Group, meanwhile, said the new partnership will create an opportunity where advertisers and publishers alike could benefit from easier access to – and demand for – high-quality inventory.
Furthermore, Ned Brody, chief revenue officer at AOL, said the agreements “should reduce friction in the marketplace, which will benefit both advertisers and publishers.”
In addition to the United States, Yahoo! and AOL will have an agreement that extends to Canada, although Microsoft’s Canada business is not participating directly in the agreement.