Yahoo is betting on a clickbait powerhouse

Yahoo and its yodel ruled the late ‘90s internet — but in the years since, it’s seen ups, downs, and a whole lot of acquisitions. So, what’s next?

This week, Yahoo announced a ~25% stake in ad company Taboola, per TechCrunch.

Taboola provides “chumbox” ads, the array of sponsored clickbait found across news sites. It will now take over native advertising across Yahoo’s brands.

While digital ad spend is down…

… amid recession fears, Yahoo CEO Jim Lanzone believes it has “huge wind” behind it in the long term.

The two companies anticipate $1B in annual revenue from their partnership — and they do have a lot of eyeballs.

• Yahoo gets ~900m monthly active users across its properties (e.g., AOL, TechCrunch, Engadget, etc.)
• Taboola has partnered with 9k publishers and reaches 500m people daily

Plus, Taboola CEO Adam Singolda has promised to help Yahoo advertisers target consumers more effectively, including those on Apple devices.

Yahoo’s making moves

In 2021, Verizon sold its media businesses, including Yahoo and AOL, to Apollo Global Management for $5B. Apollo sold off some of Yahoo’s assets, and is now focusing on some interesting endeavors, per Axios, such as:

• Adding betting to Yahoo Sports. It already offers a paid subscription for people who are really into fantasy sports
• Building a “Bloomberg for retail trading” into Yahoo Finance with a suite of tools for buying and selling stock

Lanzone said Yahoo may also expand its subscription biz, which includes its premium email; invest in ecommerce; or pursue other acquisitions or partnerships.

BTW: Remember when Yahoo had TV? We miss that “Other Space” show.