TheDial Tracks, Verifies Streaming Ads

TheDial, a producer and publisher of streaming media content, Tuesday announced the availability of real-time audio ad verification services for its advertisers. The new technology from the company tracks each stream as an advertisement plays, and sends a “ping” to the ad agency’s server to record the activity.

Because ping technology tracks audio advertising with verifiable data, advertisers, ad agencies and ad networks can measure the cost-effectiveness of streaming media ads by the same cost-per-thousand standard used by other Internet advertising methods. Agencies that have been reluctant to add streamed audio to their media mix can now rely on such data to show impressions and performance. The company didn’t say whether its technology also works for streaming video.

“So many advertising agencies have stood by waiting for the ‘ping’ to be incorporated in the streaming solution,” said Graham Keenan, president of Interep New Media. “TheDial’s ability to solve this dilemma will go a long way to capturing CPM revenues from these shops.”

TheDial initially launched the technology in October, providing ping data to customers such as Hewlett Packard and uBid. Traditional brick-and-mortar companies including Sears, Folgers and NextCard VISA are also among theDial’s advertisers.

“We take advertisers one step closer to knowing exactly when their ad was heard by one of their target audiences,” said Ed Bruno, vice president of ad sales for theDial. “Ping technology brings credibility to online audio advertising as a whole and positions theDial as a clear leader in the industry.”

Thinking Media (alternatively known as Sonata), a rich media and wireless advertising company, offers a similar technology for banner advertisements, which improves the accuracy of reporting because it counted views of ads cached on a user’s hard drive. The tracking and verification of online advertising has long been an issue as the technology is still somewhat limited, and the growth of streaming media ads has brought the problems into sharper focus.