September 24, 2008, www.imediaconnection.com A few minutes into his late-morning session on in-text marketing at the iMedia Brand Summit in San Diego, Calif., Vibrant Media's Jay Seideman made a simple yet bold declaration. He had already briefly reviewed the need for relevancy within online advertising, along with the importance of ensuring that any creative is both entertaining and discoverable. At which point, he let loose his pitch: "Vibrant is to hyperlinks what Google is to search."

Such assertions certainly aren't unknown in the online marketing arena, particularly from the VP of a firm whose bread and butter comes from selling in-text hyperlink solutions. However, Seideman presented such a compelling argument that there may be some truth to his claim.

He began by pointing out the results of an independent February 2008 study that revealed that along with search, "link-following continues to be the most common navigation action, accounting for about 45 percent of all page transitions." He then outlined how Vibrant capitalizes on that fact, creating in-text ads that offer the consumer informative and genuinely useful content. One specific instance he cited was a branded Yellow Pages tool that, when key phrases such as movie theaters, plumbers, or steakhouse were scrolled over, delivered a utilitarian yet smartly designed ad that helped locate the appropriate service via a hyperlink back to the Yellowpages.com site.

To further drive home his point, he introduced Ask.com Senior Marketing Manager Stephanie Falkenstein, who explained how their company used Vibrant's in-text solutions to successfully drive consumers to Ask.com for celebrity information. Their campaign resulted in 750,000 queries within the first month, an AdView CTR of 7.5 percent, and – most importantly – a significant number of consumers performing subsequent searches on the site.

Following a few other examples showcasing different clients, Seideman, joined by Vibrant Senior VP John Sedlak, summarized additional specifics of working with the firm, including average reveal rates, how the company avoids brand-damaging associations via a negative keyword list, and recommended frequency of in-text ads per page.

In every instance, the two consistently emphasized that the secret to the firm's success was to offer an advertising solution that was comparatively unobtrusive yet at the same time relevant and engaging to the audience, all the while ensuring the client's content was, via hyperlink, eminently discoverable.

As for Seideman's hyperbolic declaration, given Google's overwhelming market share, it may be some time before Vibrant can rightfully claim they are the Google of hyperlinks. Still, with a solution that reaches more than 120 million unique users per month across more than 3,500 publishers, there's clearly enough substance to make Vibrant worthy of consideration in most advertising plans.

Courtesy of www.imediaconnection.com