DoubleClick and iBEAM Partner to Promote Streaming Ads

DoubleClick (www.doubleclick.com) and iBEAM Broadcasting ( www.ibeam.com) have announced a partnership to deliver targeted streaming advertising solutions. As part of the agreement, iBEAM has integrated DoubleClick's ad management platform, DART, into its advertising agent intelligent advertising insertion solution.

According to Ed Keshavarz, VP product development at DoubleClick, the integration of the two solutions is beneficial to customers because DoubleClick's DART software has been designed to make the results and click-through rates for streaming ads as reportable as traditional banner ads. Keshavarz also adds that while DoubleClick is working with other CDN's for the delivery of its streaming ad platform, iBEAM is the first formalized relationship.

Keshavarz states that DoubleClick and iBEAM have worked together to test and optimize the quality of delivery all the way through to the end-user, and he believes that this partnership should help iBEAM gain more clients.

"Streaming is just another example of a tool that lets advertisers have a more powerful message," adds Keshavarz, but noted that while several of DoubleClick's clients are beginning to make money using streaming ad insertion, the adoption of streaming advertising is still in its infancy.

A spokeswoman for iBEAM however, says that streaming ads are seeing a much higher click-through rate then traditional banner ads, adding that on entertainment only sites the click-through rate has been as high as 16 percent.

According to DoubleClick, the Windows Media format does not currently offer clickable video, but the capability should be released by the end of the year. The Real format does allow clickable video, but advertisers can choose to set up an accompanying banner ad so that their bases are covered. DoubleClick says that WWF.com and iNEXTV.com are two customers that are currently using its DART solution to monetize their content.

"A couple of years ago everything was a gif file, but, as technologies got adopted, advertiser's perspectives have begun to change. It takes a while for a medium to be accepted," says Keshavarz regarding the adoption of streaming advertising. Keshavarz also noted that Macromedia's flash has found its way into the design of nearly 95 percent of all Web advertising these days.