• Fortune, Monday, February 9, 2009 11:48 AM

Online advertising growth may be slowing overall, but in-text ads are picking up steam, Fortune reports. In-text ads are those double underlined keywords found inside texts that are often mistaken for normal hyperlinks. When you mouse over them, a box with an ad appears. When you click on them, the ads direct you to the marketer's Web site. You can find these ads on sites like Fox News, MSNBC, and iVillage.

Vibrant Media, one of the area's leading providers, declined to reveal 2008 revenues, but said they're now selling twice as many in-text as they did this time last year. Vibrant's 2007 revenues were $87.8 million, up from $41.6 million the year before. Part of the reason for growth, says company CEO Doug Stevenson, is that people have become more comfortable with the format. In-text ads debuted several years ago to negative reviews from critics, who complained that the ads, which look like hyperlinks, were too confusing for consumers. Stevenson argues that in-text ads offer better accountability than display ads, because advertisers pick keywords and are then charged per click (usually between $1 and $5).

"(Vibrant) probably is in a good space right now given the economy and the pressure that agencies are getting from their clients to make sure their media's as accountable as possible," says Kevin Hartbarger, group planning director at Mediaedge:cia, which has buys in-text ads from Vibrant Media. "They live in this nice middle ground between display and search where they can be accountable as performance media but in more premium-type placement."

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