Google AdSense changes allow direct ad sales, Yahoo! buys mobile advertising start-up

Google has announced a series of changes to AdSense aimed at the direct ad sales market, as rival Yahoo! announced the takeover of mobile advertising start-up Sparq.

The new Google feature, known as AdSense Direct, allows website owners to manage directly sold ad inventory from their AdSense account.

Under the program, small businesses will be able to directly input the details of their advertising details with their advertisers, including advertisers who don’t use AdWords.

Once it rolls out, the new ‘direct campaigns’ feature will appear in the My Ads tab under ‘content’ in the left-hand navigation menu.

Upon entering their details, Google will send the advertiser a link where they’ll be able to upload their ad creative and pay for the deal using Google Wallet.

Upon approving the ad creative, the ad will automatically begin running on the website owner’s website for the duration of the campaign, and then revert to AdSense afterwards.

Google has also announced it will take a 15% revenue cut of all direct ad sales managed through the service.

In a statement, AdSense product manager Matt Goodridge highlights saving time and revenue maximisation as key benefits of the service.

“You’ll never miss an opportunity to earn revenue as your ad space will automatically revert back to showing AdSense ads as soon as a direct deal ends.

“There’s no need to create contracts for every direct deal, as both parties contract with Google. Invoicing and payments are also handled automatically; your earnings from these deals will be included in your monthly AdSense payments cycle.”

News of the new service comes as Yahoo! announced the takeover of mobile advertising start-up Sparq, a service that allows advertisers to link to content in different apps on mobile devices.

In a statement, founder Jesse Chor announced the termination of all existing services as part of the takeover deal.

“We will be terminating our current service, and are reaching out to existing customers with support details.”

News of the takeover comes after the company announced a raft of new advertising products, including Yahoo Audience Ads, Yahoo Ad Manager and Yahoo Ad Exchange, as part of its International CES keynote.