• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, June 19, 2010

Promoting theatrical and DVD releases for Tim Burton's "Alice in Wonderland," Gaia Online scattered 37 million rabbit holes throughout the social media site. Avatars clicking on a rabbit hole fell down into a Flash environment where they drank a potion and shrank to fit through a door leading into Wonderland, where they could hang out and chat or participate in games.

Advertisers, marketers and their agencies have begun to request deeper interaction between the brand and site members, and to demand detailed reports and analytics to support return on investment (ROI) claims. "We are being asked to track everything, from how many clicks on those rabbit holes and trailers viewed, to engagement within the ad units and number of unique visitors to a particular part of the site," says Chris Davis, Gaia senior vice president of global sales.

Depending on the brand, advertisers require a variety of metrics. For Alice in Wonderland, Disney asked Gaia to measure how long people spend in the Wonderland Flash environment, how many people played the game where they mimicked Alice's expressions before being given Johnny Depp's Mad Hatter Hat from the movie, the quantity of hats that were distributed, and the click-through rate on banners.

That type of interaction does not go unnoticed. Experian Hitwise estimates that the time per site visitor spent on GaiaOnline.com in May 2010 averaged 34 minutes and 54 seconds.

Coke took notice. The soft drink maker will sponsor Gaia's summer event, Davis says. The summer camp-style virtual outing, where avatars will form teams and pull resources to accomplish tasks, begins in July and runs about four weeks. As part of the Coke campaign, Gaia will allow site visitors to vote on the Flash environment built on behalf of the soft drink brand. A home page announcement will ask people to vote on the promotion they want to see.

Gaiaonline.com, a social site for ages 13 to 24, also recently launched promotions for "SIMS 3" and "Toy Story 3." Advertisers and marketers want deeper integration than banner ads can provide.

Engagement at Gaia gets data through third-party tags that partners or agencies provide, as well as internal proprietary platforms. Tags in pages and cookies in browsers tell the social site when someone enters and exits a specific space on the site, how much time they spend, and the time they interact with the sponsor.

Gaia relies on a proprietary analytic system, as well as DoubleClick Dart for Publishers (DFP) and Omniture, to monitor traffic.

Davis says many of the site's members have grown up with the social network. Kids must be age 13 to register, but Gaia has been around for about seven years. Not a ton of traffic comes from search engines, he says, but originates through bookmarked browsers, which suggests social networks are fast becoming the first site many people sign on to when visiting the Internet.