The problem with yahoo was never quality of the traffic. They have the most coveted audiences cornered. Their problem is the lack of good ad units. They have banners... That's unacceptable in 2016.
Yahoo does a lot more than banners, they have all the major formats today covered, however their quality of traffic is a massive problem and likely 50% fraud or long-tail junk that doesn't work.
The yahoo.com homepage used to command some of the highest ad rates on the entire internet, but now you can buy their crappy inventory for a few cents/click, some of the lowest in the industry, even amongst other junk like taboola and outbrain.
They have banners, search ads, content ads, and native advertising. Some of their inventory is served by bing, so if you use both bing adcenter and yahoo/gemini, you may be competing against yourself.
But I just launched a yahoo/gemini campaign 2 weeks ago, for leadgen on web. They definitely have more than banners.
(Also, I've found banner ads can refer to either the format [728x90 graphic] or the model [pay per view/CPM/CPV]. They offer the gamut just like everyone else, even the small shady players.
To say that yahoo just has banners is very incorrect.
Called "native ads" in the mobile space, which are all over Yahoo!'s mobile apps (see Yahoo! Weather for a simple, relevant example), and offered to other publishers through their Yahoo! Gemini platform.
So not only does Yahoo! run the currently "hot" ad unit (they also do rewarded video), they own it.
