The deal could help Yahoo better target ads on mobile devices
Yahoo has reached an agreement to acquire Flurry, a mobile analytics company, as part of a push to grow its advertising revenue within its mobile products.
Flurry provides tools that help developers and publishers learn more about who's using their apps in order to better target them with ads. The information, including gender, age and location, helps Flurry play digital matchmaker between publishers and advertisers. The technology can be used to place banner, full-screen and video ads.
The San Francisco-based company says it receives data from over 540,000 apps on 1.4 billion devices worldwide. Apps that use its technology include Skype, Pinterest and the BBC's news app, the company says.
Flurry could help Yahoo make more money from its growing lineup of mobile apps, potentially allowing it to better target ads and offer more personalized features.
"When completed, our acquisition of Flurry will be a meaningful step for the company and reinforces our commitment to building and supporting useful, inspiring and beautiful mobile applications and monetization solutions," said Scott Burke, Yahoo's senior VP of advertising technology, in a blog post.
He said Flurry's technology helps brands better reach their audiences, providing data on both the desktop and mobile use.
Yahoo didn't disclose the terms of the deal, though a report on the tech news site Re/code put the value at "hundreds of millions" of dollars.
Flurry's team will remain in San Francisco, Yahoo said, and its products will "continue to serve the application developer community."
Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer has been focused on turning Yahoo around and growing its business since she took over as CEO in 2012. Mobile has been her main focus, with new or redesigned apps like Yahoo News Digest, Mail and Flickr released over the past year.
Mobile has not been a strong sales driver for Yahoo, but that could be beginning to change. Last week, during the company's second-quarter sales call, mobile was described as being "meaningful" to Yahoo's bottom line -- a change from "not material" in previous quarters. Yahoo's total sales were still down by 4 percent.
"We will work to make our tools, targeting and processes more efficient at showing the right ads to the right user," Mayer said last week.
Zach Miners covers social networking, search and general technology news for IDG News Service. Follow Zach on Twitter at @zachminers. Zach's e-mail address is zach_miners@idg.com
Big brands were once protected from small brands by high barriers to entry. Big brands had the resources to employ big agencies, to crack big ideas and to invest in big campaigns. They had the luxury of time to debate strategies and work on long-term innovation pipelines. Retailers used to partner with big brands.
According to the World Economic Forum in its most recent The Future of Jobs report, the most important skills for the future are not technical, task-oriented skills, but higher-order skills such as creativity, social influence, active learning, and analytical thinking.
Businesses continue to highly value the attention they buy through paid media, yet at the same time, many continue to disregard and under-value opportunities to connect with customers using their owned media.
In this bonus last episode of this new podcast series, BrandHook MD, Pip Stocks, talks with former ANZ group general manager of marketing, Louise Eyres, talks about the importance of thinking like a customer and using intuition to solve customer painpoints.
Well written Vanessa!! Agreed with your view that human experience is marketing's next frontier. Those businesses who are focused on the ...
Clyde Griffith
Forget customer experience, human experience is marketing's next frontier
Great tips for tops skills need to develop and stay competitive
Nick
The top skills needed to stay competitive in a rapidly changing workforce
The popularity of loyalty programs is diminishing, though I'd say it is because customers are savvy enough to recognise when a loyalty pr...
Heather
It’s time for marketers to rethink their approach to ‘loyalty’
Thanks Nadia for sharing this blog. It has really useful and amazing information about Salesforce Commerce Cloud and digital engagement w...
Holly Smith
Adidas taps data and technology smarts to build personalised digital engagement with consumers
clearly someone who's jealous and only comments from the safety of being behind their keyboard
Peter Sibson
The purpose of purpose - Brand science - CMO Australia