• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, June 17, 2010

Video ad network BrightRoll Thursday rolled out a new suite of analytics tools from third-party research firms including comScore, Nielsen and InsightExpress. Among them, the firms will track campaign performance in five areas: validation, awareness, impact, effectiveness and optimization.

The idea is to go beyond standard metrics delivered by BrightRoll, like views and unique viewers, to offer more in-depth reporting to advertisers that are still skeptical about the medium's efficacy. BrightRoll CEO Tod Sacerdoti explained the company put together the group of analytics partners after surveys it conducted with agencies last year. "The thing that jumped out to me was that no one has any idea if online video advertising is working," he said.

To help close the knowledge gap, and provide greater verification of video ad campaigns, Sacerdoti enlisted different online research vendors across the five reporting categories established by BrightRoll:

Awareness -- Measures the attitudinal impact of a campaign by gauging factors such as message association, brand favorability, brand recall and purchase intent using InsightExpress surveys.

Impact - Uses Nielsen's NetEffect tool to measure the impact of online video ad exposure on offline consumer purchase behavior. Validation - Powered by comScore's Campaign Essentials data, reports on actual delivery on every campaign including reach, frequency, GRPs / TRPs (Targeted Ratings Points) and demographics of those exposed to the advertising.

Effectiveness -- Uses comScore's Action Lift product to quantify the lift for online behavior and engagement, including site visitation and engagement, share of voice and search behavior.

Optimization -- Tracks brand funnel metrics in real-time using Vizu's Ad Catalyst platform, allowing advertisers to monitor and optimize brand lift by creative, exposure frequency, and targeting segment. Advertisers will have access to the range of data in relation to the size of campaigns on BrightRoll's network. The minimum ad buy of $25,000 provides access to the validation report, while marketers running campaigns of $500,000 or more would be eligible to get the full analytics suite.

Sacerdoti said BrightRoll expects to spend millions this year to pay for the research provided by its online research partners. "We think it will be a cost in the beginning but a huge revenue generator in the long term," he said. BrightRoll's connection to comScore was bolstered when Daryl McNutt, formerly vice president of comScore marketing solutions, joined the company last year as head of marketing.

Online video was among the fastest-growing types of Internet advertising last year, with spending growing 39% to $1 billion, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau. Market research firm predicts the segment will grow another 50% this year to $1.5 billion. But that's still only 6% of the estimated $25.1 billion in online ad spending in 2010.

Among the biggest trends this year is video advertising to monetize free, non-video content such as games and applications, according to Sacerdoti. The growth of in-game and in-app video ads was also highlighted earlier this week in research presented at OMMA Video by TubeMogul on video advertising on Facebook.