What is Yahoo Gemini?
Yahoo Gemini is a self-serve advertising platform from Yahoo that brings together mobile search and native advertising within a single platform.
This ad format has only recently launched in the UK and runs through the Yahoo Ad Manager, which is a platform that allows you to create and manage ad campaigns.
Yahoo Gemini ads are charged on a cost per click (CPC) basis.
What is native advertising?
Native ads are different from normal search ads. Although still clearly marked as an ad, they are formatted the same as the existing content on the page. These ads are designed to integrate dynamically, seamlessly and naturally within content displayed in the same format.
Yahoo Gemini ads run across all of Yahoo’s web properties, such as Yahoo News, and across all devices.
How do I set up a campaign?
Before you set up your ads and targeting you will need to assign a desired goal for the campaign. Yahoo Gemini gives you three goal types to choose between:
- Website visits
- Brand awareness
- App downloads
Once you have specified the goal type for the campaign you are then able to select relevant targeting criteria, including demographic, geographic and keyword targeting, and set up ad creatives.
What are the creative requirements for the ads?
The ad specifications include a large, rectangle image with a minimum size requirement of 1200 x 627px and aspect ratio of 16:9.
It is also recommended that you have a square image with a suggested size of 627 x 627 px and aspect ratio of 1:1. It is not a requirement to upload a square image, as if you don’t upload one the platform will automatically take a resized square crop of the larger image. However if you want to have full control over the creatives for mobile devices it is worth considering this element.
Alongside the images you also need to create a text ad with an ad title, ad description, company name, display URL and destination URL. The ad title has a 50 character limit and the description has a 150 character limit.
Once you have inputted your ad text, the ad manager allows you to preview how the ad will appear in different formats and on different devices. It is worth bearing in mind that the ad text may be truncated in certain formats, particularly on mobile, so you may want to take this into consideration when thinking about your text.
As the same ads display across all devices, for the best results you should also think about how your chosen landing page displays on mobiles and tablets as well as on desktop.
There is no minimum number of ads required to run Gemini ads, however Yahoo recommend that you have at least five ads running for any campaign. There is no limit either, however Yahoo recommend no more than 100. For ease of management, having between five and 10 ads would allow you to test a few different messages and variations.
What are the benefits?
Yahoo Gemini ads have an extensive reach across a large audience on Yahoo web properties, and can be a way of targeting customers in a contextually relevant and innovative way.
Native advertising integrates naturally within content on the page, so is different way of targeting your audience compared to normal search or display ads. The Yahoo Ad Manager also has its own integrated reporting platform that allows you to report on impressions, clicks, CTR and conversions (if you have set up conversion tracking).