• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, June 22, 2009

Expanding the reach of its newfangled ad units, rich media creator VideoEgg on Monday is expected to announce a partnership with blog network Six Apart. Under the terms of the deal, Six Apart will offer VideoEgg's AdFrames ad units as part of its ad program, so bloggers will integrate the ads into their TypePad blogs. As part of the collaboration, Six Apart bloggers can now try Twig, a recently launched AdFrames unit that lives either on the top or bottom of a user's Web browser -- at least until they choose to close it.

"We developed Twig for long-form content pages like blogs where engagement rates were under-performing because readers quickly scroll away from ads," said Brian Birtwistle, vice president of Audience Network at VideoEgg.

Like all of VideoEgg's AdFrames ad units, Twig offers an opt-in full page expansion, which users initiate after sitting through a 3-2-1 countdown. And, as with the other AdFrames ad units, Twig is offered with VideoEgg's cost-per-engagement model, which only bills advertisers after users sit through the countdown, and the expanded ad unit has initiated. Since Twig first launched two months ago, it has demonstrated a twofold improvement in publishers' ad returns compared to standard in-page ad units, according to Birtwistle.

The partnership also expands the reach of VideoEgg's ad network, adding access to thousands of additional blogs and Web sites, along with the company's reach into the online blogging community. Launch partners include Orbitcast, Jake Ludington's MediaBlab, Geeks are Sexy, Make Use Of and Blog Net News.

Birtwistle would not discuss CPE rates, but VideoEgg was reportedly charging advertisers up to $1-per-interaction for AdFrames ad units last year.

Advertisers such as Puma, Unilever and BMW use VideoEgg to increase the amount of time users spend with their brand content.

The VideoEgg network is composed of over 100 million uniques across some 600 video, gaming and social network sites, as well as social and mobile applications. Founded in 2005, VideoEgg is largely credited with popularizing interactive ad overlays in online video content. The privately held company is backed by August Capital, First Round Capital, Maveron, WPP and Focus Ventures.