Online publisher Yahoo has signed a 30-year commercial agreement with Taboola, the content recommendation engine used by websites including the Daily Mirror, NBC News, Business Insider and The Independent.
Taboola will exclusively power native advertising for Yahoo’s websites and will be available to media buyers through Yahoo’s advertising demand-side platform (DSP), which the companies said would make it a “leading native advertising offering for advertisers, publishers and merchants on the open web” as Google prepares to phase out third-party cookies on Chrome by 2024.
Taboola will benefit, they said, from reaching Yahoo’s almost 900 million monthly active users around the world while Yahoo will “further enhance its own unified advertiser offerings, enhance consumer experiences across Yahoo’s owned media properties, and participate in significant shared value creation as Taboola’s largest single shareholder”.
Yahoo chief executive Jim Lanzone said: “Partnering with Taboola enables Yahoo to further enhance the contextual and native offerings within our unified advertising stack. The partnership also allows Yahoo and Taboola to continue to differentiate in market, improving user, advertiser and publisher experiences across properties, while benefiting from the long-term tailwinds in digital native advertising.
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“Together with Taboola, we will maximise reach and campaign performance for advertisers, enhance monetization opportunities for publishers, and drive improved, privacy-forward experiences for users. As we continue to build the next era of Yahoo, we are thrilled to have strong partners by our side.”
As a result of the deal, Yahoo is taking a 24.99% stake in Taboola and will have a representative on the Taboola board. The agreement is expected to close in the first quarter of 2023.
Taboola’s founder and chief executive Adam Singolda described it as a “rocket ship growth opportunity for both of us – native, e-commerce, Video, header bidding (display) and more,” adding that it was a “win-win partnership”.
He added: “For publishers in the open web, we’ll be able to invest even more in driving revenue, engagement and audience growth moving forward, empowering performance, brand advertisers, merchants as well as agencies with an immense reach to users in a premium, trusted environment. This partnership is a big step toward achieving our goal of generating $1bn in ex-TAC [gross profit] by 2025.”
Two of Yahoo’s websites – Yahoo News and Yahoo Finance – are among the top ten biggest English-language news websites in the world. It also has a major sports news presence and runs an email service.
Yahoo was bought by private equity firm Apollo for $5bn from previous owner Verizon in September 2021. Under Apollo, Yahoo acquired algorithm-driven news rating company The Factual a year later. The press release about Monday’s deal cited “long-term support” from Apollo.
Taboola became a publicly listed company in June last year. Earlier this month, it reported “solid” third quarter results which were above expectations but lowered its full-year revenue guidance by 4% “due to continued softness in the advertising industry”.
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