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Sourcery · 3 min · Oct 19, 2026

Yahoo's logged-in audience adds value for advertisers

Jim Lanzone

CEO, Yahoo

Leads Yahoo since 2021, running its turnaround under Apollo; previously CEO of Tinder and CBS Interactive.

  • Molly O'SheaHost · Founder, Sourcery

    Ex-Upfront Ventures investor; has interviewed Alex Karp and Palmer Luckey.

About this segment

Lanzone points to direct visits, logged-in users and strong ad results as Yahoo's assets. He says audience loyalty and first-party data support the company's value.

From “Apollo’s Yahoo Playbook, 5 Years After the $5B Deal”, Oct 19, 2026. Watch the full episode

“We get SEO traffic, but 75% of our users are coming directly to Yahoo. That's one of the highest percentages on the internet.”
Jim Lanzoneat 41:01 · Sourcery41:01

Takeaways

  1. 75% of users come directly to Yahoo.
  2. About 75% of users are logged in each day.
  3. Yahoo's DSP won nine of ten head-to-head tests.
Watch 2:32 from 40:24

In this episode

Full episode
  1. 16:57Yahoo cut ad tech costs and unlocked better ad yield2:52
  2. 30:18Yahoo Scout grounds answers in its own data3:32
  3. 9:26Yahoo gave each brand its own entrepreneurial GM3:07

  4. 40:24Yahoo's logged-in audience adds value for advertisers2:32

  5. 21:15Yahoo had to fix its core products before launching new ones3:46Up next
  6. 25:01Yahoo balances product data with judgment, not endless tests3:02
  7. 12:31Yahoo outsourced search when it was treated as a cost center2:41
  8. 33:57Yahoo chose personal-life products over enterprise software3:31

Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

  1. 40:30

    So what do you think is going to surprise people most when you go public? Well, I think the goal, I would say it a little differently, which is, and it's weird to think about Yahoo this way because it's like the OG, but we're the same as any later stage pre-IPO Silicon Valley company. If we have created a lot of value, and I think we're still actually one of the most undervalued assets out there, an audience this big. Something I didn't mention is we're not like in one of these companies where our traffic is SEO. We get SEO traffic, but 75% of our users are coming directly to Yahoo. That's one of the highest percentages on the internet. Every given day, most of our users, also around 75%, are logged in. So this is just a very loyal, dedicated audience that the other benefit of that is that we are incredibly effective for advertisers.

  2. 41:30

    So we're not a place to just throw random money at. We actually provide outcomes and performance at levels that other people don't, which is why like the DSP, which is an entrepreneurial venture here, we went nine out of 10 head-to-head tests and that's because of our data. That's because of our first party data with our audience. So we have these incredible assets that I just don't think grow on trees And so I think that's very valuable.

  3. 41:59

    I think that's very valuable to a lot of other companies. But, you know, if you are venture backed or you are private equity backed, I think an outcome is what your investors expect and not just to be a standalone private company forever. So that's how I would think about it. What will be most surprising? um i don't know i think weirdly i don't i don't know how surprising to be we've been pretty open you know i think understanding our audience and our assets is pretty open when they hear our revenue and our profitability it's you know they're really they're both really good and i think they'll probably be in a range that might be relatively expected so um so but just maybe how healthy we are and growing the rate at which we are growing you know which is really healthy growth especially for a 30 year old brand what do you think the biggest mistakes are companies make