HotJobs and Monster Turn Text to Display

Post written by Kate Kaye

Yahoo HotJobs and Monster each see promise in distributing recruitment listings via display ad units. Each firm today touted new offerings allowing employers to post job ads that will be seen beyond the standard text listings framework. Neither offering is entirely new, though they both indicate the current trend towards enabling any advertiser to easily create and run online display ad campaigns isn’t going anywhere.

Yahoo HotJobs has expanded its Smart Ads system for use by job advertisers. The “pilot program” generates display ads from recruitment listings, and targets them to job seekers, according to criteria including HotJobs registration information and behavioral data. Then it serves up those ads across Yahoo, according to a press release. The Smart Ads system, launched in July 2007, constructs display ads using creative assets and direct feeds of available offers provided by advertisers. The company today also unveiled a branded company profile product for recruitment advertisers.

Meanwhile, Monster has made its listings-turned-display ad product available through a new channel. The Career Ad Network product now is available through Monster’s self-service eCommerce channel. The Network distributes listings-based display ads “across diverse affiliated network websites,” according to the company.”

Both companies launched the new offerings in conjunction with the annual Society for Human Resource Management Conference in Chicago.

The DIY ad phenomenon is getting a lot of traction. Part of the goal is to tap into the pool of small and medium businesses that have yet to spend much online but have dabbled with other self-serve platforms like Google AdWords. Most likely, the display ad component is aimed at generating higher ad rates than standard text listings enable. Plus, by having Monster and Yahoo worry about the media placement and targeting end of things, small advertisers can get their ads out in more places beyond HotJobs, Monster and their distribution partner sites.

Speaking of partners, Yahoo’s relationship with the so-called newspaper consortium started as a HotJobs distribution play and has evolved for some of those partners to include a display ad cross-selling deal. I haven’t heard back yet from HotJobs on this, but I’d imagine the Smart Ads option may be available through Yahoo’s newspaper partners in the future.

Getting back to Monster, Classified Intelligence just reported (from the big HR convention) the company has signed deals with 11 new newspaper partners, and has “inked deals with several media companies to form distribution agreements that it says will offer employers ‘the option of easily extending the reach of their print ads to include Monster’s job-seekers.’ “