Adobe Taps Yahoo To Serve Ads In PDF Files

Adobe has tapped Yahoo to launch a new contextual ad service for PDF files, giving publishers the option of monetizing their white papers, case studies and other documents with dynamic ads.

Called "Ads for Adobe PDF Powered by Yahoo," publishers can participate in the beta program for free starting Thursday, while advertisers will be able to buy PDF inventory as part of routine Yahoo Publisher Network buys.

The text ads are dynamically targeted to each page of PDF content, and appear in a skyscraper-sized panel that runs on the right side of the document so as not to disrupt the viewing experience. Publishers register for the service, upload their PDF content and then Adobe enables it for ad-insertion.

According to Kurt Garbe, Adobe's entrepreneur-in-residence for advertising, the turnaround time is relatively instantaneous. "Most publishers will have the PDF back well before they're ready to distribute it--and probably even before they log out of the content submission portal," he says.

Both advertisers and publishers can monitor ad performance through detailed reports, and media providers like Meredith Corporation, Reed Elsevier and CondéNet's Wired have already signed on as part of the beta.

Garbe says that "Ads for Adobe PDF Powered by Yahoo" program took less than a year to collaborate, and Adobe choose to work with the Web giant because the two companies had a deep partnership (stemming from a 2004 agreement to serve a Yahoo search toolbar in Adobe's Flash and Reader products).

San Jose-based Adobe decided to jump into the advertising pool as a way to help publishers who'd been having a "hard time figuring out how to monetize this kind of long-term content," Garbe says.

According to Katharine Dempsey, director of online media planning and management at Pepperjam, the offering has appeal for B2B marketers--provided that there's not a widespread consumer backlash, or a proposal to pack disruptive rich media or video ads into the PDFs.

"I think this makes sense for B2B clients," Dempsey says. "Sometimes we have a hard time getting ad placements for them in particular markets, so the option to contextually match them with a particular white paper or report would be really beneficial."

As far as structuring PDF buys, Dempsey says that Yahoo's proposal of integrated packages seems advertiser-friendly for both price and experimentation.

"We'd need to test them and see how they perform, and PDF-only buys would probably come at a high premium," Dempsey says. "Bundling them in with other contextual-based ads gives it a better price point."

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