Video Site OVGuide Dives Into Advertising
ADOTAS – New kid on the block OVGuide is swiftly forging alliances and making its mark on the online video world. Officially launched a year ago, the hybrid online video search engine/video site directory organized by verticals, currently boasts about 10 million unique users a month.
Confident in its strong user base, the company is ready to start monetizing its product through a new technology platform it has dubbed Relevis. Currently in beta, Relevis aims to perfect a user’s search results and deliver highly accurate contextual advertisements. (The company is experimenting with formats, but there will be no pre-roll ads. Most likely, the site will boast several forms of display ads).
OVGuide was founded by Dale Bock. A year ago the co-founder of GeoCities, David Bohnett, stepped in to fund the company and take over as CEO. The wait to unleash Relevis was strategic – Bohnett wanted a hardcore fan base in all of OVGuide’s categories (covering everything from food & wine to guns & ammo) before attempting to hit users with ads – relevant or not.
“Our user base is growing, but people keep coming back because we remove the problem of knowing sources for videos people want to see,” Chad Cooper, director of marketing and editorial at OVGuide, told ADOTAS. “People may know the category or the keyword or the name of the show they’re looking for, but they don’t know what network site to go to to find it.”
Networks and “traditional” online video sites are eager to work with the OVGuide – Hulu alone got traffic of about 1 million users from the OVGuide, Cooper said. And NBC is planning to launch an ad campaign for “Heroes” on OVGuide shortly.
Advertisers are excited to see an equal male/female demographic that covers the 18 to 55 range – an aberration in the online video world.
“We’re still in beta, but we’re already working with Time Warner Cable, Virgin America and a ton of agencies,” Cooper said. “They see our loyal users, our ability to target users in a variety of ways and click-through rates of between 0.5% and more than 3%.”
One of the reasons users keep coming back, is that OVGuide doesn’t just rely on technology. Human eyes are crawling sites, gathering cool videos and loading them, Cooper said. “We’ve solved a great pain in the industry by taking the source out of the equation. We send our users to the source.”
As Relevis comes out of beta, the company will likely hire additional ad sales staffers. And if all goes well, the company plans to open offices in London and New York. Currently, the site is developing a guide in Chinese.
Reader Comments.
No comments yet
Leave a Comment
Article Sponsor
More News
Spotlight
Mobile to the RescueADOTAS EXCLUSIVE — The industry is still wary about mobile advertising — does it work, how significant is the ROI [...] more...
Latest News
- Layoffs: A Holiday To Remember December 4th 2008 ADOTAS — A lot of unhappy people will be hitting [...] more »
- Credit Card Free Fall December 4th 2008 ADOTAS — The Internet will end as we know it [...] more »
- Marketers Not Poking Facebook December 4th 2008 ADOTAS — Top marketing people still don’t view social networking [...] more »
- The Rich Still Have More Fun December 4th 2008 ADOTAS — As everyone drowns in the economic tsunami, the [...] more »
- Microsoft buys Yahoo talent December 4th 2008 ADOTAS — By the time Yahoo has a CEO, it [...] more »
- Suing The (Ad) Messenger December 4th 2008 ADOTAS — First it was the media’s fault. Now it’s [...] more »
- Reality Bites Google December 3rd 2008 ADOTAS – Google’s era of open-handedness is screeching to a [...] more »
Features
- Small Business Survival: Geographical Targeting, Audience & Intent December 4th 2008
- Down Year Will Bring Opportunities December 3rd 2008
- Mobile to the Rescue December 2nd 2008
- Ideas On Effective Management December 2nd 2008
- Quality Video: DIY (Cheap) or Else December 1st 2008
Reader Favorites
Classifieds
Recent Comments
- Edward: Ivan, I appreciate your post. I think we do a good job, especially in our
- Ivan: I'm getting tired of all these negative articles. Why not focus on how to make
- Sid Blair: I was laid off several months ago from my agency and while I haven't found
- Hudey: This article doesn't mention our technology, but it's as if this article was written about
