As we reported in Part I of our Special Report, online video ads are seen as the industry’s *next big thing*. But many marketers still need help in dipping their toes into the video advertising waters.

Here’s a list of vendors (in alpha order) who can help you create video ads that won’t bust your budget. From relatively inexpensive CNET-style, do-it-yourself videos to high-end campaigns that cost tens of thousands of dollars, firms are out there who can guide you every step of the way.

Plus, a glossary of advertising terms at the end.

BrightRoll Inc.
Web site: http://www.brightroll.com
Type of service provider: Video advertising network.
Number of active clients: In the hundreds.
Pricing details/structures: CPM.
Features or offers: Includes each kind of widely accepted video ad unit; ad serving, optimization and distribution; full campaign execution.
Creative services: None.
Campaign analytics offered: Full support for third-party ad servers; proprietary ad reporting dashboard and analytics.
Additional notes: They have served more than 800 million ads.

Centro
Web site: http://www.centro.net
Type of service provider: Local media platform.
Number of active clients: More than 300 small and large brands, including 150 in the Fortune 500, as well as more than 100 agencies.
Pricing details/structures: CPM.
Features or offers: Pre-roll, mid-roll and post-roll ads; branded entertainment; Flash/streaming banners, including leaderboards, skyscrapers and rectangles; unlimited multisite distribution across markets.
Creative services: Whatever is requested by the client, delivered on an agreed upon or customized basis.
Campaign analytics offered: All relevant campaign data is provided to the client.
Support/other services offered: Dedicated account representatives for both agency and publisher provided.
Additional notes: The company works with more than 6,000 local interactive publishers to facilitate the process of buying geographically targeted online media. They work with online newspapers from around the United States, as well as local TV and radio sites, alternative weeklies, business publications and Internet yellow pages.

EyeWonder Inc.
Web site: http://www.eyewonder.com
Type of service provider: Interactive digital advertising provider.
Number of active clients: 500.
Pricing details/structures: All of their standard consultation, creative, production, quality assurance and traffic services are included in a traditional CPM pricing model. Or, agencies can elect to use a direct-bill model.
Features or offers: Online media formats include their proprietary Instant Play video ads, self-select video ads, interactive digital media ads; ad formats include banners, expandable ads, floating ads, interstitials; in-stream ads including pre-roll, mid-roll and post-roll; video features include feature length, full-banner, full-screen, interactive video narrative.
Creative services: Flash-ad consultation, design and production; campaign consultation and management; their Flash component program enables marketers to design, build, preview, test and approve rich media and video ad units without leaving the Flash-from-Adobe environment.
Campaign analytics offered: Their real-time program, called AdWonder, includes analytics and reporting. Meanwhile, the metrics track all interactions from either video, rich media or other brand spots.
Additional notes: According to the company, a study by Dynamic Logic found that EyeWonder campaigns generated a 65% increase in aided brand awareness and a 34% increase in message association.

Innovate Ads
Web site: http://www.innovateads.com
Type of service provider: Online video production and delivery; video overlays.
Number of active clients: 122.
Pricing details/structures: Production and delivery fee for the videos are usually bundled together and built into the CPM of the ad/video. CPMs range from $3 to $8. Production costs, by customer choice, are sometimes paid upfront.
Features or offers: Online promotional videos with spokesperson talent services; their iAd system allows marketers to present an interactive Web site “spokesperson”; overlay technology available with streaming video; they enable the delivery of their programs to clients’ Web pages and publishers’ sites, while saving the clients' bandwidth along the way.
Creative services: Full-service video production and post-production or creative services for online videos and online video ads.
Campaign analytics offered: Tracking of each video, providing detailed reports on clickthroughs, CTR, conversions, user stops and other important data.
Additional notes: Upon request, they can also produce the videos, working with clients through the entire video development process, from production to delivery.

MindComet
Web site: http://www.mindcomet.com
Type of service provider: Digital agency.
Number of active clients: 35.
Pricing details/structures: CPA, CPC, CPM and sponsorship models available.
Features or offers: Pre-roll, mid-roll and post-roll ads; branded entertainment; Flash/streaming banners, including leaderboards, skyscrapers and rectangles; network distribution.
Creative services: Copywriting; video photography; post-production; talent services.
Campaign analytics offered: Standard and custom analytics are provided.
Support/other services offered: Support from dedicated account representatives.
Additional notes: Their strategies characteristically integrate input from their client companies’ internal and external sales, marketing, advertising, customer service and public relations teams in an effort to create individualized customer dialogues.

PixelFish Inc.
Web site: http://www.pixelfish.com
Type of service provider: Video production services (video ad creation & delivery).
Number of active clients: 210.
Pricing details/structures: They offer a variety of digital solutions and price packages, including: customizable pre-produced video ads starting at $249 per video; original video ads that typically range from 10 seconds to 30 seconds and start at $699; original video profiles (1 minute to 2 minutes long) starting at $1,299.
Features or offers: Video creation for video ads, such as corporate overviews, product demos, training videos, local business profiles, among others; styles include montage, documentary and classic.
Creative services: Creative development; scriptwriting; visual sequence development; casting; field production (video capture) and post-production (editing, music, graphics, and professional voiceover).
Campaign analytics offered: Their PixelStream video delivery and tracking technology lets advertisers access a password-protected online report that shows the viewing history of their video, including the numbers of times viewed and average length of time viewed.
Support/other services offered: They also offer video distribution services.
Additional notes: Their operational processes enable a timely turnaround. Delivery is available via Flash video file, Beta SP, CD and DVD.

Podaddies Inc.
Web site: http://www.podaddies.com
Type of service provider: Web video advertising network and technology.
Number of active clients: More than 10.
Pricing details/structures: Their pricing follows industry standards for Web publishers and advertisers and allows for sharing of revenues for content creators.
Features or offers: Their in-stream technology inserts video ads into video content, whether pre-roll, mid-roll, post-roll or any combination, in real time as the video is viewed; it serves ads both inside and outside the firm’s network of sites without the need for plug-ins or other client software.
Creative services: The firm relies on creative services partners, but does offer creative support to customers.
Campaign analytics offered: Tracking and reporting of ad views, including post-download viewing and sharing, whether on a Web page, P2P/social network, blog, email or downloaded for podcast offline. They offer other standard online advertising metrics as well.
Support/other services offered: They can help clients wanting to target ads based on: demographic and behavioral or psychographic information; location; time of day; OS and browser version.
Additional notes: The company’s network runs on user-generated content video sites, such as blip.tv and Guba.com.

PointRoll
Web site: http://www.pointroll.com
Type of service provider: Develops rich media technology solutions.
Number of active clients: 1,800.
Pricing details/structures: CPM.
Features or offers: Rich media online ad units, platform and consulting; brand development, execution and ad serving.
Creative services: Various offerings for online advertising, such as placing Web site ads, freshening offline marketing with online components and promoting brands through Internet campaigns.
Campaign analytics offered: Full support for third-party ad servers; proprietary ad reporting and analytics.
Support/other services offered: Their program, called AdPortal, is designed to let agencies and advertisers create rich media ads and have them served through PointRoll’s platform (enables measurement of more than 100 metrics for each campaign).
Additional notes: Part of the service they provide is the development of all kinds of rich media –- from graphics to video to audio to animation. Also, last year, according to the firm, they served 70% of all rich media ads.

Questus
Web site: http://www.questus.com
Type of service provider: Interactive agency.
Number of active clients: 35.
Pricing details/structures: Sponsorships and CPM-based models. They also enable bespoke streaming of UGC and other sponsored content.
Features or offers: In addition to the enabling of UGC and other content, they provide: pre-roll, mid-roll and post-roll ads; branded entertainment; Flash/streaming banners, including leaderboards, skyscrapers and rectangles; network distribution.
Creative services: Creative is executed and managed in-house, including: copywriting; video photography; post-production; talent services.
Campaign analytics offered: A full range of analytics can be orchestrated by their in-house team.
Support/other services offered: Dedicated representatives provide support on each account.
Additional notes: Focusing on consumer experience, behavior and feedback, their aim is to develop innovative and strategic, data-driven designs.

Rovion
Web site: http://www.rovion.com
Type of service provider: Rich media for Web publishers, advertisers and media organizations.
Number of active clients: 150.
Pricing details/structures: CPM model for major campaigns and flat rate for smaller ones. Production costs, if needed, priced separately.
Features or offers: Variable-size streaming Flash video; a video “spokesperson” technology that appears to walk across screen and is compatible with standard operating systems and Web browsers; also, they can host and serve all videos.
Creative services: They can produce videos from scratch (i.e., scripting, casting, shooting, editing, encoding and hosting). They can also simply encode if client has already produced the ad.
Campaign analytics offered: Real-time analytics with various metrics, such as time spent viewing, click-through rate, etc.
Support/other services offered: They have relationships with an extensive network of Web publishers, allowing major advertisers the needed digital “inventory” to support large campaigns.

ScanScout
Web site: http://www.scanscout.com
Type of service provider: Video advertising technology.
Number of active clients: Numerous national and international brands employ their technology in online video ads.
Pricing details/structures: CPC, CPM and CPA.
Features or offers: They specialize in the contextual delivery of in-stream video ad units; overlay and other ads are served throughout the stream of online video content.
Creative services: Overlay or “ticker” ad unit assembly provided as part of service.
Campaign analytics offered: Performance metrics provided as part of service.
Support/other services offered: Supported 24/7 by quality-assurance reps.
Additional notes: How their video ads work: Interested viewers click the ad, which automatically pauses the video content and launches the video ad. At that point, the viewer can either return to the original content or continue the ad by clicking through to the advertiser’s site. For brands without video content, the firm can take the viewer from the ad unit click directly to their site.

Transpera
Web site: http://www.transpera.com/
Type of service provider: They specialize in mobile video that is designed to help marketers bridge the gap between online and mobile experiences, offering video sharing, social networking, targeted advertising capabilities and carrier grade delivery systems.
Number of active clients: Declined to share.
Pricing details/structures: Declined to share.
Features or offers: Their program, called Bridge System, is designed to let marketers publish, share and create mobile video for viewing on phones and on the Web with subscription, pay-per-view and advertising revenue models. Their Transpera Advertising Platform (TAP) marries that inventory with targeted advertising availables.
Creative services Their goal is to provide ways to complement existing online video and mobile video services with experiences and features that consumers will watch, reuse and share.
Campaign analytics offered: N/A.

ValueClick Media
Web site: http://www.valueclickmedia.com
Type of service provider: Online advertising network.
Number of active clients: Declined to share.
Pricing details/structures: CPM and CPC.
Features or offers:In-stream video including pre-roll or post-roll placements; companion banners that appear alongside in-stream ads and remain on the page for the entire video; video, rich media, or standard .gif/.jpg formats up to 30 seconds; behavioral, geographic, demographic and content targeting; compression.
Creative services: Video encoding, asset storage and ad serving capabilities.
Campaign analytics offered: Targeted metrics options include: geographic (country, state, DMA, city, ZIP); operating system; Internet service provider, day part; connection speed, age; gender; household income; children in household; household size; education level; race.
Support/other services offered: Display advertising; lead generation; behavioral targeting.
Additional notes: Their in-banner videos include ability to make creative compatible with all third-party rich media vendors. And according to the firm, their display network has reached 133 million unique users in the United States, is made up of 13,500 sites and has 34 billion available ad impressions per month.

XLNTads
Web site: http://www.xlntads.com/
Type of service provider: Marketer-friendly destination for consumer-generated advertising campaigns.
Pricing details/structures: Minimum three-month contract required at $25,000 per month. Brand pays $20,000 directly to consumer for full rights of video, if they decide to purchase CGA.
Features or offers: Up to 15 brands in one place; cumulative site traffic; monitored, secure, brand-friendly environment; access to qualified videographer community (more than 500 qualified creators) and new creative; submit-and-go user experience; brand unique opportunities for prizes or commercial runs on network TV.
Creative services: Customizable campaign pages; flexibility to set own guidelines and specifications; brand-consumer creative collaboration; featuring Brightcove (http://brightcove.com)
commercial video technology.
Campaign analytics offered: While an unorthodox way to measure, they rate the top 10 videos for each brand-sponsored campaign and deliver results to the brand; the creators on the site can also vote for their favorite for each contest; the firm will summarize highest-rated on the site, most viewed, etc., to aid in the brand’s analysis of the effort.
Support/other services offered: Ad creators will be provided with approved brand assets and guidelines; brands provide a brief that explains their positioning, their desired objectives for the ad, their target audience and other criteria.
Additional notes: Their UGA platform facilitates the ability for large brand marketers to access independent creative talent for collaborations that wouldn’t normally take place.

Note: If you are an online video ads vendor and would like to be considered for inclusion in this listing, email the following information to Senior Reporter Chris Heine at chrish(at)marketingsherpa(dot)com

Glossary of Terms:
CTR: clickthrough ratio. The number of possible clicks on a Web page divided by the actual number of times a link on that same page is clicked.
CPA: cost per action. Advertisers are only charged when a click results in a desired action like a purchase or a survey completion from the online user.
CPC: cost per click. Advertisers are charged for each click an ad receives.
CMA: cost per thousand impressions. An advertiser is charged for every one-thousand times an ad is displayed regardless of the number of clicks or actions that result.
CGA: consumer-generated advertising.

Useful links related to this article

Special Report: Online Video Ads - Types, Creative Tips & Success Stories:
http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article.html?ident=30178