Blip.tv Slips QuickTime Ads Into iTunes Videos

Downloaded video content got a monetization boost today, with blip.tv's announcement that it will begin streaming dynamic ads to iTunes' videos.

While online video can stream a variety of ads, downloaded podcasts are often a loss leader for publishers, who sacrifice income for popularity. Free downloads are obviously more popular than paid downloads, but getting effective ads into that content has proved difficult until now.

Today at the Beet.TV Online Video Summit, blip.tv announced that their new ad format will replace static ads with DoubleClick's DART fully support click-through tracking system. Now advertisers will be able to gauge the effectiveness of prerolls, postrolls and overlays for downloaded podcasts in real time.

"For the first time," says Mike Hudack, CEO of blip.tv, "advertisers who purchase ads in Quicktime can track their effectiveness at the time the impressions are served."

Advertisers will be able to better track ad content and can insert new ad campaigns to podcasts at their convenience, regardless of when a video has been downloaded in iTunes, upping the relevance of ads served to that content.

Tracking the effectiveness of ads on this content is key to the success of digital video, according to Hudack:

"The most important thing to remember is that for serialized content, probably 15 to 20 percent of inventory in video is in podcast, downloadable form. Previously there was no way to serve ads that can be tracked with third party metrics. You have to have that, it’s essential."

Though videos served to portable devices also connect to the Internet, dynamic ads on content downloaded to the iPod, iPhone and AppleTV will be a harder nut to crack, according to Hudack: "Some of the Quicktime features aren't available on the portable devices yet. We’ll get there, it’s just a matter of time."