Karsten Weide, an analyst with IDC, said that the dashboard launch shows Yahoo is muscling into the growing field of small and medium-sized business doing digital marketing.

"It's a very, very nice interface," Weide said. "Once you're in there, I think it's really straightforward to book your campaign and track it afterwards."

"It's certainly going to help boost [Yahoo's] SMB revenue," he said.

Also on Wednesday, Yahoo issued a letter to shareholders urging them to vote for its slate of board candidates rather than the alternative slate by activist shareholder Daniel Loeb, who leads the hedge fund Third Point LLC, which owns more than 5 percent of Yahoo's outstanding shares.

The letter said Yahoo's candidates "have strong records of significant accomplishment at the highest levels of media, advertising, marketing, Internet, technology, and finance, including corporate finance and restructuring, and insight into customers' perspectives."