Dive Brief:

• CEO Marissa Mayer's turnaround effort at Yahoo is showing traction, with the site positioned to beat Twitter next year and become the third-biggest U.S. mobile advertising company.
• The development is a product of a challenge from the CEO to employees to come up with a new ad feature that would run across mobile devices and desktop personal computers.
• The technology laid the groundwork that's helping drive Yahoo's growth in digital promotions on smartphones and tablets.Yahoo's mobile-ad slice is projected to climb to 3.74% in 2015, and to 4.2% in 2016. While still small, it's enough to push Yahoo past current number three player Twitter, which is seen having 3.69% market share next year and 3.8% in 2016.

Dive Insight:

This is a major coup for Yahoo, given the massive growth mobile is seeing. While Google and  Facebook are expected to remain the biggest U.S. mobile-ad companies, with 35% and 17% shares next year respectively, Yahoo is now embarking on a key growth trajectory, in sync with growing use of smartphones and tablets. And don't expect the company to rest on its laurels. After all, up for grabs is a digital-advertising market projected to reach almost $60 billion in the U.S. in 2018, from $19 billion this year.