Report Indicates That A Big Mobile Ad Push From Yahoo Is Coming Soon

According to a report from The Information, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer plans to soon unveil the company’s plans to take on Google and Facebook in the mobile advertising stakes. The company has been taking steps to increase its mobile capabilities in recent times, and began reporting on mobile ad revenues separately in the third quarter of 2014. Now, this latest report indicates that Yahoo has been further increasing its mobile ads team and will be announcing an overhaul of its mobile ad products at a developer conference next month.

The Information explained that sources familiar with the matter have told them that Yahoo will be announcing a self-service platform for marketers to place ads across the Flurry mobile app network, which includes major app publishers such as The Guardian as well as games developers including Pocket Gems and Glu. The report indicates that Yahoo will do that by combining Flurry with Gemini, its mobile ad buying platform. Gemini previously only offered ads across Yahoo’s own properties, but if these sources are reliable, it will soon act as an ad buying platform to seriously compete with Facebook’s Audience Network and Google’s AdMob.

This announcement is very significant because Yahoo can’t rely solely on its own content platforms if it wants to take over a large amount of Facebook and Google’s mobile advertising share. Although it still owns relatively popular blogging platform Tumblr and its own branded-content sites like Yahoo News and Yahoo Finance, these are now considered somewhat dated and are being threatened by newer services. Flurry provides Yahoo with the ability to offer a wider and most likely younger audience from already popular and growing apps to add to its own properties such as the Yahoo Weather and Yahoo News apps.

Although eMarketer projects that Yahoo will pass Twitter in 2015 to take third place in the U.S. mobile ad market share with 3.7% of an estimated $28.5 billion market, this is still small in comparison to Google’s 37% and Facebook’s 17.6%. However, moving into third place does illustrate growth and momentum, and shows that Yahoo’s efforts to increase its display ad business are paying off.

It’s also important to note Yahoo’s recent acquisition of video ad tech company BrightRoll. If the company decides to branch out into mobile video advertising too, this acquisition will give Yahoo lucrative video inventory to add to its ad stack, thereby making it an all-in-one proposition that could prove to be very effective.

However, there are many industry experts who have criticized Yahoo CEO Mayer for making talent-driven acquisitions of small startups that don’t appear to have added immediate value to Yahoo’s core business. However, if the company starts making significant revenue by combining its $200 million acquisition of Flurry with its in-house Gemini platform, some of those critics may change their minds about Yahoo’s strategy.

“As we said when we announced the acquisition of Flurry, our combined offerings will enable more effective mobile advertising solutions for brands seeking to reach their audiences and gain unique insights across desktop and mobile, but we don’t have anything specific to announce at this time,” a Yahoo spokesperson told Business Insider.