Live From DMD New York: Yahoo to Send E-mails Based on Search Engine Activity

Yahoo Inc. announced today that it will debut a service that will let direct marketers send targeted e-mails to consumers based on their search engine activity.

The service, Yahoo Impulse Mail, tracks Yahoo e-mail users’ search engine activity on Yahoo.com. It categorizes a few thousand words and 200 search categories, and matches that search information with the e-mail user’s opt-in data. A marketer selling something that relates to that search can then send a targeted e-mail to the user.

It will take about two days before the e-mail is sent out because it takes that long to look at search behavior and check who is opted-in to get offers, said Juan Vargas, data-mining producer at the Sunnyvale, CA office, who was at the Yahoo booth.

“We think by having a highly relevant delivery method, we can get high clickthroughs,” Vargas said.

Only people with Yahoo e-mail accounts who have opted in to receive third-party offers will receive marketing e-mails based on their search activity.

“The key thing is that people have opted in and signed onto their e-mail account before doing the search,” said Alan Thompson, senior producer. “We’re being very conservative about privacy.”

Yahoo has 70 million users signed up for free e-mail accounts around the world. Some 30 million of them are in the U.S.

Yahoo asks e-mail account users to fill out an extensive profile when they sign up for a Yahoo e-mail account.

Plans call for Yahoo Impulse Mail to go on the market in September. The service is currently being tested.

A similiar service, Impulse Banners, has been on the market for about a year and a half, according to Vargas.

When visitors to the Yahoo site click on a certain banner, they are then served another targeted banner. There is an 80% to 120% lift on these banners, Vargas said.

The Direct Marketing Days in New York conference at the Javits Center ends today.