Interactive marketers know that video ads are engaging. But engagement is a slippery metric, and so far it’s been a tough one to plug into the value equation of rich-media advertising.
VideoEgg, a leading video advertising network, has released what it said is a solution to the problem, AdFrames, a video-placement program with pricing based on viewer engagement, rather than mere impressions.
“Advertisers need to move beyond the metrics of eyeballs and evolve from ‘how many’ to ‘how good,’ VideoEgg chief marketing officer Troy Young said in a statement.
In the traditional CPM structure, advertisers pay a fee for every 1,000 views their placements net. VideoEgg’s AdFrames places a small rich-media spot on a publisher’s site, set to expand into an overlay and launch the video when a viewer mouses over it. That action triggers engagement, defined as a “deliberate user action to interact with the ad unit.”
[cob:Related_Articles]A three-second countdown begins once the user mouses over the spot to prevent the video from launching inadvertently, creating a false positive.
Under the new model, advertisers will pay between 20 cents and $1 per interaction, VideoEgg said. The model is similar to the cost-per-action pricing arrangement in search advertising.
VideoEgg also offers a dynamic formatting option, so that publishers can resize placements and integrate them into their content pages without disrupting the layout.
Wednesday’s release announcement came with news of a big-name client already on board. Microsoft is distributing video ads for its Office software through VideoEgg’s engagement model. The long-format spots feature comedian Amy Sedaris, and will appear on the social sites and applications served by VideoEgg’s distribution network.
According to the company, its Eggnetwork reaches more than 200 video and gaming sites, social networks and widgets, including Facebook and Meebo.
“We see tremendous opportunity to use pages, games and widgets to deliver video experiences inside of a brand-focused performance-based ad solution,” VideoEgg CEO Matt Sanchez said in a statement. “Video is the richest, most effective way to deliver brand messages.”
The service will continue to offer video ad placement through its conventional CPM agreements.