Coming off the heels of their new partnership with Yahoo, NeoEdge Networks has announced that they will be offering guaranteed ad campaign engagement results from today forward. This is an excellent accountability move by NeoEdge and will only strengthen the viability of, and trust of in-game advertising as a competitor against traditional media channels.

NeoEdge has now added themselves to the list of in-game advertising companies which have made efforts this year to validate the business model with marketing and advertising professionals.

Their press release:

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA–(Marketwire - July 24, 2008) - Starting July 24, NeoEdge Networks, Inc., a leading advertising network focused on providing television quality advertising inside online casual games, will be the first in the industry to offer benchmarked, guaranteed ad campaign engagement results.

NeoEdge is adding a guarantee to its online advertising network that no other company in the Internet video ad space is offering. NeoEdge advertisers will be secure knowing that their campaigns are delivering the desired ROI, with assured Viewer Engagement (Time Spent Watching) and Click-Through Rates (CTR). NeoEdge benchmarks advertising goals for each vertical market, and will offer a guaranteed number of impressions. The benchmark for each vertical varies based on consumers’ prior behavior.

Traditionally, online advertising is purchased on a Cost Per Thousand (CPM) impression basis. Advertisers pay for a contracted number of impressions, regardless of whether a consumer actually reads the ad, clicks on it, or performs some other kind of action like visiting a web site and making a purchase or signing up for a new service. By introducing more rigorous metrics and guarantees, NeoEdge is bringing online video game-based advertising closer to parity in effectiveness and accountability with the traditional forms of television and other advertising mediums.

“Good creative will always drive metrics, but for advertisers who are looking to make the jump into online video advertising we take the risk out of the decision with guaranteed results,” said Ty Levine, VP Marketing NeoEdge. “We can look at a vertical category in which advertising has run on our network and determine a baseline expectation of click-through and time spent watching the advertisement. By looking at this data, we can provide the advertiser with a realistic and guaranteed expectation of results. If the ads do not perform, NeoEdge will assess the results, absorb the risk and provide additional impressions free of charge.”

The guarantee enhances NeoEdge’s offering to channel partners, like National Cable Communications (NCC), the largest seller of targeted cable advertising in the world, and Engage In-Game Advertising, an independent video game advertising company, offering in-game planning & execution across console, PC and mobile game platforms. These NeoEdge ad sales and marketing partners agree that the new guarantee is crucial for enabling online advertisers to ensure the same kinds of results they currently enjoy through traditional broadcast & online advertising.

“This will help differentiate our offerings from traditional online ad buys and make it easier for our sales’ partners NCC and Engage to penetrate the marketplace, and take online video advertising to the next level,” added Levine.

“Engage delivers in-game advertising strategies that takes advantage of the unique demographics & behavior of gamers,” said David Smith, President, Engage In-Game Advertising. “NeoEdge is the first casual game network to provide the tools and metrics to make this a truly accountable medium for advertisers. We can now offer our clients broadcast-grade, in-game advertising with guaranteed results.”

Greg Schaefer, President, NCC added, “NeoEdge is unique in its strategy to bring the discipline and metrics of television advertising to the world of online video ads. We’re excited about offering this kind of guarantee to our clients, many of whom are entering the online video ad space and expect assurances in their media initiatives.”

This strategic direction comes on the heels of NeoEdge’s recent partnership with Yahoo! Games. Through this partnership, NeoEdge delivers an end-to-end advertising solution with pre, mid and post roll ad slots that integrates easily and unobtrusively with the Yahoo! Games site and extensive game catalog. NeoEdge’s NeoARM™ ad enabling technology does not require source code to ad-enable the games. With Yahoo! Games and The NeoAds™ advertising network, advertisers now have an online video-based advertising network with the scale, reach and efficiency to reach the key female demographic and tens of millions of engaged casual game players across the U.S.

Yahoo has had a rough couple of months, what with everyone and their mother trying their hardest to tear them limb from limb, buy them, break them up, or generally cause trouble for them. But with all that going on, they appear to have still been trying to run a company and not just sitting under their desks rocking in the fetal position. It was announced today that Yahoo is shifting the business model of its game offerings to an ad supported one. Currently Yahoo offers both browser based and downloadable games which have a fee associated with them if a user wishes to use the full game.

They are going to be partnering with in-game advertising agencies Double Fusion and NeoEdge Networks to provide the technology and advertisers to prop this new model up. Utilizing two agencies is helping Yahoo to both diversify the ad types which can be utilized, as well as helping keep the pricing competitive for potential advertisers.

Yahoo revealed in its press release that the core group using Yahoo’s games currently are females from 35 to 54 years old. Great news for advertisers looking to reach that group, and also great news for Yahoo which may see an increase in the use of their games upon cutting the cost to the user.

Publishers with titles being utilized in the launch of this new venture will be Alawar Entertainment, Anarchy, Big Fish Games, eGames, Floodgate, Freeze Tag, FreshGames, Funkitron, Gogii Games, GameHouse, Gamemill Publishing, HipSoft, I-Play, iWin, Last Day of Work, Legacy Interactive, Ludia, MumboJumbo, pixelStorm, PlayFirst, Playrix Entertainment, PopCap, Reflexive Entertainment, Sandlot Games, Sugar Games, TellTale Games, TikGames, uclick, Worldwide Biggies and Zero G Games. Yahoo intends to have a library of over 400 ad supported games available by the end of this year.