• by Daisy Whitney , Op-Ed Contributor, February 21, 2012

Every time I watch a TV show on Hulu and the question pops up - ‘Is this ad relevant to you?’ - my first instinct is not to answer. It could be inertia or simply the fact that most of us just aren’t clickers. We don’t always want to pick which ad experience we prefer, and we don’t often want to tell the marketer if we liked the ad. Sometimes, we just want to enjoy the show, and maybe the ad.

That’s where Eyeview Digital comes in. The online video technology company delivers video ads including dynamic and personalized ones, and has racked up some strong results for marketers. It’s sort of like Visible World, which serves up targeted TV spots based on geography or demography, but for the Web.

Eyeview Digital has delivered ads for Ace Hardware and Volvo that are customized with different creative to reflect the region of the country. Videos can also be customized according to categories on a publisher site for instance, perhaps music or news on those type of sites, or even tailored on a geo-local basis, like a local tune-in information for the TV Land show “Hot in Cleveland.”

T-Mobile too has localized its national spots with market-specific offers online.

Results so far have been promising from campaigns in the fourth quarter. Alfa Romeo saw a 49% lift in brand awareness and a 41% increase in clicks when it geo-targeted car spots with information on local dealers. Hotels.com saw a 42% lift in purchase intent compared to its TV spots when using personalized ads. It also generated a sales lift — a more than 30% bump in bookings on hotels.com as a result of the ads.

“This is in-stream video advertising for the 99% of us who aren’t clickers,” said Corey Kronengold, Eyeview Digital’s Director of Marketing.

In January, Eyeview raised $5.2 million in a round of funding led by Nauta Capital.