Those free iPhone apps will soon be filled with ads. VideoEgg is the latest ad network to extend its ads to the iPhone. The company is known for its video and social-app ads that entice people to click on them to open up a Flash window filled with videos, maps, or apps that let consumers learn more about a brand. VideoEgg only charges if a consumer engages with the ad.
It is taking the same approach with the iPhone, offering ads that can appear as a small banner at the top of the screen for any given app. When you click on the ad, a video could play or something that looks like a mini Webpage could pop up with more information about the brand. Why switch to mobile now? VideoEgg’s chief marketing officer Troy Young tells me:
The reason we are interested in it now is because it is becoming a media consumption platform. The things people are doing on the iPhone are more like media consumption so we think that we can get people to spend time with brands.
VideoEgg’s ads on the Web are seen more than one billion times a month by 80 million people, says Young. He says the “engagement rate” (how often someone interacts with an ad) on the Web is a little more than one percent. But so far in beta testing, the engagement rates on the same ads on the iPhone have been between 2 to 3 percent. These rates will no doubt come down as iPhone ad impressions scale up and they no longer seem like such a novelty, but even if they remain at par with the Web that would be a victory.
Mobile ads tend to perform extremely poorly, except for on the iPhone. Mobile ad network AdMob has seen similar success on the iPhone.
When I bring up AdMob, Young says derisively that the iPhone “saved them” and characterizes their ads as mostly direct response, not the high-falutin “brand engagement” ads that VideoEgg serves up. Direct response ads, like search ads, tend to do better, but never mind. Young seems to think that “direct response ads are going to have a hard time.” I don’t really see the difference. AdMob could serve up brand ads just as easily as direct response ads. And their ads work pretty much the same way. You click on them and they open up to a bigger window. It’s really not that big a deal.
The real difference between AdMob and VideoEgg is that VideoEgg won’t sell iPhone ads by themselves. For any given campaign, it will place 5 to 10 percent of the ads on the iPhone for advertisers who want to go mobile. VideoEgg will charge the same for mobile ads as it does for Web ads, at least until the numbers prove what they are really worth.
First!
Off topic, but your site has crashed for the last week with e.nvero.net. Multiple times per day.
“Mobile ads tend to perform extremely poorly, except for on the iPhone”
No doubt the engagement on the iphone is great, but ads on most devices currently are performing in the 2-5% range (depending on publisher)!
I think a bigger problem is ROI.
I may look at an ad on my iPhone, but no ad will ever get me to place an order. At least not until a streamlined payment system is in palce.
I cant imagine enter my CC info into the iPhone web browser. HA
Just what iPhone users paid hundreds of dollars for – ads.
I wonder what the avg rev share is for the app creators. This certainly gives them another viable option of getting cash.
Meh, wish there was a way to pay videoegg a small fee and not have to see any of those ads ever again (in all apps)
If the revenue is shared with the App creators then its great otherwise it just ruining the app experience on iPhone
If the app developers aren’t getting any revenue from the ads why would they embed them in their app? Use your brain
I’ve been a fan of videoegg for quite some time, and it’s exciting to see more companies getting involved in mobile advertising with the introduction of the iPhone.
I would just clarify that as you point out Erick, not only can we sell brand engagement ads, but we already do, and we’ve delivered 16 successful brand campaigns across hundreds of iPhone apps and millions of unique iPhones in the last month alone. As was discussed, we do sell performance advertising as well.
I know I’m probably supposed to respond with something negative about videoegg and start some sort of silicon valley echo chamber fight, but actually, I’d be happy to figure out how we could work with them and other companies interested in this market to leverage AdMob’s significant footprint and grow it for everyone. I just think that it’s high time for all of us in silicon valley to figure out how to work together a bit more rather than trying to take shots.
Omar,
Thanks for taking the high road. In this economy, the last thing any company based on ad revenue needs, is to be elitist about what type of ads they serve.
I don’t understand why VE’s chief marketing officer needs to open his mouth and badmouth the competition. Completely unecessary. Makes him and his company look bad.
Go AdMob!
Omar is bsing…he doesnt want to work with anyone else. I know companies who have come to him and his team trying to work on joint campaigns. All they do is run their mouth and give you lip service – they dont produce. I have also heard app developers dropping from admob because of poor service and the low quality advertisers.
VE has a few elitists that keeps them all in a constant state of bash the other dude as often as possible. Unfortunately, their business model went from Video uploads to mobile advertising. Nice try, but you’d have better luck selling diapers.
I also wonder about the whole “mobile ads tend to perform poorly” part. WAP ads tend to perform 10x as well as their online ad counterparts, and countless studies have shown strong results both for branding and direct response. Meanwhile, many companies have developed creative and practical advertising vehicles for consumers who aren’t on any kind of smartphone, including Virgin Mobile, 4INFO, and Jingle Networks – and, yes, AdMob as well.