Yahoo has unveiled a new ad-targeting format dubbed SmartAds, which allows for more real-time adjustment and greater behavioral targeting, reports MediaPost.

SmartAds work by allowing advertisers to create a group of creative assets that sit in the Yahoo database until they're triggered by user behavior. By analyzing previous online behavior, the SmartAds system then converts an ad on-the-fly into one more relevant to the user.

Yahoo uses both member data as well as the cookies on a user's computer to trigger the ad combinations.

Right now travel advertisers are the only ones playing with SmartAds but Yahoo expects to roll the system out to other verticals later this year. That would most likely include introductions to auto and retail advertisers.

Initial tests by Yahoo show higher click-through rates on the SmartAds. The ads are running on Yahoo's own sites as well as Yahoo Publisher Network sites.