Tumblr is bringing its sponsored posts to the Web. This does not signal a big change in strategy nor a sign of Yahoo’s new power over the blogging site since acquiring it for $1.1 billion nearly two weeks ago. This is an extension of the native ad unit Tumblr rolled out on its mobile apps for iOS and Android at the end of April and said they would be bringing to the Web.
Several outlets report that seven advertisers are participating in the initial flight: Ford, Viacom, Universal Pictures, Capital One, Purina, Denny’s and AT&T.
As with the mobile ad units, users will see a maximum of four sponsored posts per day, and the units are denoted with a dollar sign in the upper right corner. Despite some outcry about bringing ads to Tumblr, the slow introduction to ads, so far, does not seem to have spooked Tumblr’s young audience of 300 million monthly users into leaving. The company introduced Radar, a sponsored ad section on the Tumblr dashboard, a year ago, and the company says that sponsors have earned more than 10 million likes and reblogs.
In March, the company said it would reach profitability this year based on the average advertising buy of just under six figures. Yahoo is certainly betting on it.
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