Super Low Cost Web Video Ads

Both Jivox and TurnHere were featured in an August 2008 article in the Wall Street Journal on low cost video online ads. If you can't access the article online, it's available at the Jivox web site (pdf).

Reading the article and looking at the ads below gives you a good idea of what to expect from various vendors who offer different pricing and placement options.

See the ads:



TURNHERE

The first ad you'll see below is from TurnHere

Chris Smith, president of Cresco Equipment Rentals, an equipment-rental company based in Livermore, Calif.. He paid TurnHere a flat rate plus a monthly fee of $100 to $1,000. A camera person videotaped Cresco products, local customers and local employees.

The videos appeared on Cresco's Web sites and in search-engine listings, increasing soared web traffic from 14,500 hits a month from 4,000 in less than a year.

JIVOX

Jivox lets customers create commercials at no cost, but charges about $5 to $20 per 1,000 views of the video. You can make your own ad, using stock footage.

A bed and breakfast owner, Mr. Boruta targeted California, Nevada and Washington viewers looking at local television and newspaper Web sites on Wednesday and Thursday nights, when he suspected they were making weekend plans. Once his ads launched, he saw dramatic and verifiable results.

"Our Web traffic tripled instantly, from 10 hits a day to 30," and soon "all of our rooms were booked solid," Mr. Boruta says. The cost of running the ad for 40,000 views (measured as how many times a user watched the video through the end): $500.

Mr. Boruta says 85% of customers brought in the online coupon, so he knew the ad was working. "We're a small bed and breakfast, so tripling the visits to our Web site and having to actually turn customers away is a big deal," he says.