Content Optimization at Yahoo! Todd Beaupré

#1: 34 MM #1: 19 MM #1: 97 MM Re #1: 45 MM #1: 33 MM #1: 20 MM #1: 22 MM #1: 31 MM #1: 17.3 MM

Re “I think our clear strength is ‘relevance’ – whether that means knowing what weather to give you or serving up headlines you’ll be interested in. It’s all about really getting you and we have more work to do in that area.” Carol Bartz CEO, Yahoo! Inc.

Content Optimization Mission Make Yahoo! the most relevant experience on the Web by recommending the right content and products to the right user at the right time Every pixel should be there for a reason Combine human editorial voice with science in scalable way Enable real-time insights feedback loop across properties Preserve user trust

Relevance at Yahoo! Important Editors Popular Y! Buzz Content Optimization 1.0 Personal / Social Content Optimization 2.0 People 10s of Items Science Millions of Items

Ranking Most Popular Most engaging overall based on objective metrics Related Items Behavioral Affinity: People who did X, did Y Deep Personalization Most relevant to me based on my deep interests XY Real-time Dashboard Voice and Business Rules Light Personalization More relevant to me based on my age, gender and property usage Most Popular + Per User History Engaging overall, and aware of what I’ve already seen

Data Flow Content Optimization Engine Content feed with biz rules Explore ~1% Exploit ~99% Real-time Feedback Content Metadata Dashboard Optimized Module Real-time Insights Business Rules Engine

Yahoo! Homepage +160% CTR vs. pre-optimization baseline (Light personalization) +79% vs. random +53% vs. editorial (Light Personalization) +43% Clicks vs. editorial baseline (Most popular)

US News +40% CTR vs. Editorial Baseline (Most popular + user history) +69% CTR vs. Editorial Baseline (Most popular + user history) News Home News Article

Editors’ Dashboard

Thank ou. P.S. I’m hiring product managers