• by Liz Tascio , December 29, 2006

A new offering from Atlas, In-Stream Video, promises to give advertisers better control over video ads and make it easier to get more specific metrics.

In-Stream acts as a single command center, a dashboard designed to let agencies and advertisers manage ad campaigns across multiple sites and formats, says Scott Ferris, Atlas senior vice president and general manager.

Today, publishers “hard-code” an ad into a video, making it indistinguishable from the rest of the content — hard to measure, and hard to manage, Ferris says.

“Whereas with Atlas In-Stream, what’s happening is the publisher is reserving a digital marker or a break,” Ferris says. At the moment the user requests the content, “the publisher turns to Atlas and says, ‘What ad should I put in here?’ ”

In-Stream measures impressions, conversions, and interaction with related banner ads.