VideoEgg Joins Trend With 'Scrolling' Ad Unit

VideoEgg today became the latest network to debut a scrolling ad unit — one that stays in place on the screen as the user roves up and down the page — in a bid to appeal to increasingly ROI-conscious advertisers.

VideoEgg’s new unit, which it calls “Twig,” appears as a link bar at the top or bottom of the screen that stays still as the user scrolls through the page. Users can click the bar to see the ad, or click an “x” to remove it from the screen.

The idea behind the new unit is to draw ad dollars during a time of tightened spending, but also to accommodate sites like blogs that stack their content vertically, leaving static ad units at the top of the page mostly out of site.

“The biggest problem you have with blogs is that they’re all designed around scrolling,” Troy Young, VideoEgg CMO, said. “People used to always want 728x90s, but that’s the worst size. You scroll away from that instantly. This ad, you can scroll the entire page and it will always be there.”

Like all VideoEgg ad units, Twig is sold on a cost-per-engagement basis, meaning advertisers only pay when a user clicks on the bar to see the ad itself. Those ads are displayed in the network’s AdFrames format, which allows advertisers to display several screens of video, maps, polls, and other interactive elements.

“We have a ton of functionality in the ad unit already, and we are realizing new functionality all the time,” Young said.

VideoEgg’s network claims more than 400 sites with upwards of 100 million total unique users. The new ad units will initially appear on blogs including Twitpic, Buzznet and Powerline.

Last month, the Online Publishers Association unveiled three new ad units with greater functionality, all of which were designed to stay on the page as the user scrolled through. Last week, Premium Access Media, debuted “The Anchor Ad,” which “delivers a guaranteed impression” by staying anchored to the bottom of the user’s screen.