In the wake of our coverage of VideoEgg's new "per engagement" pricing strategy, I heard from an old school engagement player: Ultramercial.
In an e-mail, company rep Lori Jones pointed out that every person who sees Ultramercial's "Day Pass" interstitial unit "engages" with the ad, and she indicated it charges CPMs of $50 and up for its publishers.
"If the 75 cents cost-per-engagement quoted by VideoEgg is accurate they’re going to do very well," she wrote. "As a comparison, Ultramercial charges our advertisers on a CPM basis for our full-screen premium access ad. This works out to be about 5 cents to 25 cents per engagement, which lasts on average 50 seconds."
For the uninitiated, Ultramercial's trademarked unit lets publishers like Salon and TheStreet offer ordinarily paid content for free by requiring site visitors to click through the ad experience. Just a reminder that some ad formats are inherently sold on engagement.
Attend SES New York March 19-23 to learn the latest in social media marketing, integrated marketing, SEO, PPC, and more.
Managing Editor Zach Rodgers oversees ClickZ's award-winning coverage of news and trends in digital marketing. As a journalist he has reported on the rise of web companies, data markets, ad technologies, and government Internet policy, among other subjects. His stories have appeared in Mashable, Search Engine Watch and Kauffman publications, among others, and he has been cited by government and advocacy groups such as the Center for Digital Democracy, U.S. PIRG, the U.K. Independent. He previously held editorial roles at TurboAds, WirelessAdWatch, Internet Advertising Report, ChannelSeven.com, and Datamation. He can be found on Twitter at @zachrodgers.

February 15, 2012
1:00pm EST / 10:00am PST
February 22, 2012
1:00pm EST / 10:00am PST
COMMENTSCommenting policy