Yahoo has announced that its Panama search advertising platform is open to third-party developers via the new Yahoo Search Marketing Commercial API Program, giving businesses and individual developers access to a series of application program interfaces so they can modify the Panama platform to suit their needs. The program offers three levels of partnership: a free Basic deal for small advertising agencies and technology companies as well as Advanced and Elite levels with varying subscription rates. All participants have access to technical support, while advanced partners receive account management support and a listing in Yahoo"s partner directory.
Elite partners, according to a Yahoo statement, can "leverage the Panama platform, resources and brand via regular business review, product council, road map coordination and joint marketing activities." Early participants in the Elite tier include Efficient Frontier, Omniture, SearchIgnite and The Search Agency. Panama"s ad ranking system, which surfaces sponsored search results based on click rate in addition to how much advertisers pay, is an improvement from Yahoo"s prior system, which surfaced ads based solely on price paid in auction. Panama, which Yahoo hopes will help it catch-up to Google, also allows advertisers to target ads geographically.