Yahoo to Buy Dapper, Dynamic Display Ad Platform

Yahoo has reached a deal to buy Dapper, a platform for dynamic display advertising and optimization. The acquisition will allow Yahoo to push dynamically created ads to areas of the site that didn't have it previously, in particular the homepage and log-in page.

The transaction price was approximately $55 million, Israeli publication Globes reports and a ClickZ source confirms.

According to Frank Weishaupt, VP, North America ad marketplaces at Yahoo, the company does not allow third parties to serve ads onto those pages since many cannot support the ad volume the placements generate. By bringing Dapper's technology in-house, Yahoo can begin to serve those ads and capitalize on growing interest in the dynamic display ads.

"It gives us the ability to more quickly get advertiser adoption of this technology, so they can see continued improved performance across our network," he said.

Dapper has been an official partner of Yahoo's Smart Ads dynamic ad program, which was created in 2007. The Sunnyvale, CA-based Internet giant embraced third parties last year, since marketers often worked with preferred vendors and it didn't want to turn away their business. Tumri and Google-owned Teracent were among the first to join the partner program, which will carry on after the Dapper deal closes in Q4.

"We will continue to invest in the partner program," Weishaupt said "We still want to make this about advertiser and marketer choice."

Yahoo wouldn't discuss what it paid, and other terms of the deal were not disclosed. Dapper will retain offices in San Francisco and Israel.

Dynamic display advertising works by using behavioral data from Web sites to serve custom offers to users who have already expressed purchase intent - usually without employing a creative team to assemble the ads. The approach is heavily used by the travel, finance, automotive, and e-commerce verticals.

This story has been updated with the information on the price of the transaction.