Yahoo takes 25% stake in Taboola in digital ad push
Yahoo! Inc is deepening its push into digital advertising, even as its competitors warn that the market is faltering.
The internet pioneer, which was taken private in a $5 billion deal last year, “is taking a roughly 25% stake in Taboola. com Ltd, the company known for serving up attention-grabbing links on websites,’’ the CEOs of the companies said in an interview.
The deal is part of a 30-year exclusive advertising partnership that allows Yahoo to use Taboola’s technology to manage its sizeable business in native advertising — ads that have the characteristics of traditional news and entertainment content.
“I’m thinking, you know, five, 10, 30 years,” Jim Lanzone, CEO of Yahoo said. “Digital advertising has huge wind at its back over the long term.”
“While the company will continue to try to bring in money in other ways, such as expanding its subscription business or investing in e-commerce, we have hundreds of millions of people consuming news and sports and finance on market-leading properties that are heavily monetized through advertising — and will continue to be,” he added.
Yahoo, a giant of the early internet, was eclipsed over the years by tech rivals like Alphabet Inc’s Google and Meta Platforms’ Facebook.
The company was taken private by the investment firm Apollo Global Management in the hopes that new leadership and a respite from the public markets would give it a chance to grow.
Yahoo says it has about 900 million monthly users of its properties, which include AOL, TechCrunch and Yahoo Sports, making it one of the largest destinations on the web.
Taboola, founded in 2007, specialises in native advertising, operating a sprawling advertising network over thousands of well-known websites, including CNBC, NBC News and Insider.
The deal with Yahoo gives Taboola the exclusive licence to sell native ads across Yahoo’s sites, and the companies will share revenue from those ad sales.
The companies did not disclose the terms of the revenue split.