Yahoo: Renovated programmatic ad platform with boosted speed and capacity within 9 months
SENLA helps modernize and update the automated advertising solution for #1 media publisher.
Meet our client
Yahoo emerged in 1994 as one of the pioneers of the early Internet era. Now they're a massive-scale web services provider and #1 news & media publisher in the United States. They focus on informing, connecting, and entertaining nearly 1 Billion people daily across 85+ countries through various brands and channels.
These include a news, sports, entertainment, and finance platform yahoo.com plus a range of apps and sites like Yahoo Mail, Yahoo Shopping, and Yahoo Advertising among many others.
The extensive reach and large audience help Yahoo capitalize on the rapidly growing programmatic advertising market, forging successful collaborations between both publishers and suppliers.
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What is programmatic advertising?
Programmatic advertising is the fully automated process of buying and selling digital advertising space.
In it, publishers with ad space to sell and advertisers with campaigns to run come together in a seamless, automated dance, which only takes 100 milliseconds to go full cycle.
When an advertiser wants to launch a digital campaign, they contact their programmatic ad agency, powered by a demand-side platform (DSP). The DSP allows for buying ad space on various websites and delivering the campaign to users in the form of banners, videos, etc. DSP also ensures the ads target the right viewers based on the factors like location, demographics, and online activity.
As users land on a website, the supply-side platform (SSP) comes into play, running an auction among possible advertisers to sell ad impressions. Next, using lightning-fast data evaluation, DSP matches the ad with the user’s target parameters, sets a bidding price for the impression, and participates in real-time bidding. The highest bidder displays the ad on the supplier’s webpage.
The process is repeated every time a user enters the website or hits the refresh button, ensuring non-stop ad exposure.
The Reserved Ad Server solution
To stay competitive and continue tapping into its vast experience in programmatic advertising, Yahoo faced the necessity to update and renovate their Reserved Ad Server to version 2.0.
Reserved Ad Server, which combines the functions of both a DSP and an SSP, is a platform managing the entire scope of automated advertising efforts: from media campaign planning and targeting to delivering and reporting.
Think of it as a complicated loom that holds together all the colorful threads (campaigns) and sets in motion the intricate creation of ornate tapestries, carpets, doilies, or cozy jumpers and snoods (targeted ads) tailored to the users they are meant for. It represents the magic of connecting the audience to the content they love in the modern digital universe.
Yahoo’s RAS platform consists of various parts, such as:
- Adserver which receives ad requests originating from various sources, gathers information about the users, and then delivers relevant ads to them across any screen.
- UI/API side which is the identity and authentication service for the publishers and the front-end solution used to set up and target ad campaigns.
- Forecasting and reservation modules used to analyze the metrics of the campaigns and calculate required capacities.
- Logging and reporting systems, etc.
Understanding the challenge
Yahoo recognized their Reserved Ad Server as a powerful programmatic ad solution that could already work on an impressive scale with 300K campaigns and 5M placements garnering 10+B impressions daily.
But it featured numerous deprecated modules and outdated legacy code and also was in need of a scalability and capacity boost. The platform required retrofitting, expansion of the supported ad formats, and enhanced security.
To go forward, Yahoo needed to make sure the foundation they were basing their effort on was solid, streamlined, and future-proof. For that matter, they had a sharply defined and detailed vision of the necessary changes and their prioritization.
Yahoo were seeking to:
- Replace the monolithic architecture of the server with microservices to improve the holistic foundation of the system.
- Renew and expand the DSP of managing advertisements and the SSP of publication on Yahoo’s resources and those of their partners.
- Expand functionality for the Ads Manager panel for publishers.
That's where SENLA stepped on the scene, as our task was to provide a stellar technical team to support the defined road map and become Yahoo’s trustworthy long-time software partner.
It’s all about the people
“I remember the challenge we faced at that time. SENLA has an extensive history of successful work with numerous clients in Мedia & Telecom, such as We4G, SES, Verizon UK, to name a few. But as soon as word spread that we had an upcoming project with Yahoo, our developers formed a long line ready to take on the job, and I was faced with the hard yet pleasant task of gathering a team”.
Based on the project’s scope, we realized our collaboration with Yahoo was going to be long-term. Forging a lasting and committed alliance with the partner is always SENLA’s #1 priority on any project. Our overwhelming 90% rate of repeat business and Clients' testimonials are the best proof of that.
This aspiration derives from the key cornerstones of our system of beliefs.
SENLA’s philosophy
⦿ Our Goal: Generate revenue for both the client and our company. Revenue is what allows us to develop, evolve, and recognize our efforts and results as meaningful and wholesome.
⦿ Our Codex: Take care of our experts while supporting their initiatives and providing them with constant opportunities to grow.
⦿ Our Pursuit: Deliver the results on time striking the perfect balance between the quality and speed of performance.
Our developers underwent 2 to 3 interviews and a 1-month onboarding process to better familiarize themselves with the project’s scope and comply with all the security protocols. After that, they went straight to work, delivering new features and updates on a customary 2-week basis.
The value: Continous improvement
The Reserved Ad Server project is an ongoing effort that's still in full swing after we initially partnered with Yahoo around 1 year ago. The project has so far resulted in the steady and progressive modernization of the platform, its significantly boosted speed and capacity, and a slew of new features.
SENLA’s team is currently engaged in numerous tasks within the RAS modernization project, aiming to:
- Facilitate modularization of the outdated legacy architecture.
- Retrofit backend integrations and forecasting systems.
- Modernize the ad campaign management and publication on the API side.
- Enhance security processes, e.g. introduce a solution for more secure storage of passwords and sensitive data.
- Update libraries, implement new technologies and solutions, etc.
Yahoo constantly strives to increase the performance and revenue of its programmatic ad solution. And SENLA is a partner that'll accompany Yahoo on this road as long as we can help achieve these goals. Contact us if you need a similar solution.