We have some exciting news coming to you live from 2008 Affiliate Summit in Las Vegas (where there was a great session we just attended this morning about the demand and effectiveness of video marketing!).

Introducing a new Ad Type on the AvantLink platform: Merchant Video Ads!

With the Video Ad Tool, merchants can now upload any video ad or product tutorial for their Affiliates using the following formats: .avi, .flv, .mov, or .mpg. Once loaded, the video ads will be available to Affiliates through the Affiliate tool center.

Affiliates, to access video ads follow these simple steps:

1. Login click ‘Tools’ from the main menu
2. Under Ad/Link Tools click on ‘Get Merchant Ads’
3. Select the merchant, then ‘Video’ on the Ad Type drop down

If the respective merchant has video ads configured, the campaign will be returned with a preview selection and the ability to get html. Video ads will be served through one line of JavaScript that should go on your web page(s) where you want the video to display.

See live Video Ad Tool examples below from the merchants who now offer this advanced campaign functionality for Affiliates:

Backcountry.com

Moosejaw.com

ToolKing.com

Here is a summary of our Video Ad Tool functionality:

• Merchants can upload their own videos (any .avi, .flv, .mov, or .mpg formats)
• The videos are then converted to Flash format and hosted on AvantLink’s servers
• Merchants can specify a banner image to be displayed prior to the video playing (or we default to their merchant logo if they don’t specify one)
• All of the standard ad attributes (title, destination URL, keywords, expiration dates, etc.) apply to Video Ads just as with any other AvantLink ad campaign
• Affiliates will be able to select a video ad and embed it into a page with a single line of JavaScript (just as they would an image ad, for example)
• While the video is playing, clicking on it will send the user to the ad destination URL and set the appropriate tracking information to give the affiliate credit for any subsequent sales
• When the video finishes it comes back to the merchant logo or banner. If/when the player is clicked at that point the end user will go to the merchant site as well

Please let us know if you have any questions or comments. As always, we welcome your feed back.