• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, December 8, 2009

YouTube has been unprofitable since Google bought it for $1.76 billion three years ago -- but Chad Hurley, the company's co-founder, recently speaking at a launch ceremony for the launch of Israeli President Shimon Peres' personal YouTube channel revealed that the company had "two spectacular quarters." He also confirmed the site gets more than a billion views daily, according to reports.

Googlerers supporting the advertising technology aimed at driving revenue through YouTube say the integration of DoubleClick and Google has begun to pay off. The company has begun to share statistics from ads running on YouTube in hopes that advertisers and agencies will take notice of the possibilities to generate revenue from ads running on YouTube and in videos.

Sharing stats from Harley-Davidson and Volvo ads that recently ran on YouTube, Ari Paparo, group product manager for DoubleClick Rich Media, says ads have begun to perform well. He attributes the integration of DoubleClick and Google technologies to the uptick. "It's not about new features, but more about quality," he says. "Today, consumers gain interest with the ad and then interact with it."

Paparo explains that the integration of technology from DoubleClick and Google allows YouTube's ads to report back more than 100 interactions, such as what the person did and how they did it, so marketers can analyze the data and how the ad's message impacts consumer behavior.

In the Volvo New Moon ad to promote the movie "Twilight," 51% of people who clicked on "Enter Sweepstakes" actually followed through to submit the form. DoubleClick tracked the interaction rate at 11.66%. Volvo initially used DoubleClick Rich Media for the XC60 launch at the New York Auto Show in April. They were the first to use a live Twitter feed in the ad.

The Harley-Davidson ad, created by the agency Overdrive, became one of the first DoubleClick Rich media ads to integrate a Facebook Share button. It enabled people to send a pin-up photo in a postcard to the troops deployed abroad. The ad relied on Facebook share technology to send information with friends.

The ad ran on Veteran's Day. DoubleClick tracked the interaction rate for Harley-Davidson at 12.07% in the United States. The average length of the 'Behind the Scenes' video clocked in at 19.82 seconds, with an average view length of 18.78 seconds. About 18,267 people clicked on 'Send a Tribute to our Troops;" 8,293 people clicked on 'Visit Harley-Davidson.com'; and 282,013 watched the 'Behind the Scenes' Video.

"While you're reaching people emotionally, you need to measure it in a more scientific way," Paparo says. "Display advertising will become more active and measurable in that way."