AOL will guarantee audience delivery for online video marketing campaigns across AOL’s properties, said Charles Gabriel, VP of sales at AOL Video.
AOL’s offering, powered by Nielsen Online Campaign Ratings (NOCR), has already launched with 10 brands. Gabriel declined to reveal the brands.
When advertisers purchase video ads aimed at a specific demographic, AOL guarantees 100% of the segment will be targeted. For a premium of the service’s base price—between 20% to 50% depending on the desired target or more for a particularly niche segment—AOL validates the percentage of the audience actually hit and the advertiser only pays for the segment that was hit, Gabriel said.
“Lots of companies say they deliver audiences, but they’re lucky if they hit 50%—yet they’re still charging advertisers and saying it’s a guarantee,” Gabriel said. “We’re putting our money where our mouth is by guaranteeing [audiences] and if they don’t hit the targeted audience, they don’t pay for it.”
Additionally, if the campaign only hits 50% of the targeted audience that Nielsen validates, advertisers will get the reach of the other 50% of impressions free of charge.
Rather than traditional online measurements, such as clicks and impressions, Gabriel said NOCR uses gross rating point (GRP) measurement, which is a reach and frequency calculation based on how many unique users are reached and the frequency with which they are hit.
Gabriel said AOL chose Nielsen because it is the standard measuring company for television so it would translate easier for buyers making digital media purchases.
Additionally, Gabriel said online companies, such as Google, Yahoo! and YouTube, are making a big play for content and are starting to tell advertisers that their audiences are bigger than monthly television or cable viewership.
