One of the reasons in-text has such strong appeal among users is because it's seen more as information than marketing. Here's why.

There has been a fair amount of interest surrounding in-text advertising as of late, and Vibrant Media has taken the pole position in the space.

In-text advertising -- for those of you who aren't familiar with it -- is essentially advertising that is embedded within the text of a page of online content. This is beyond simple editorial adjacency for display advertising. It is actually having an ad unit married to a word or phrase on a page, within editorial. The way it works is this: I'm an advertiser of, say, soap. I approach an in-text advertising provider and tell them I want to own the words "soap," "shower," and "clean."

The executed buy will be these words in articles or within content on sites the in-text advertising provider has relationships with all across the web, underlined and highlighted. Every time a visitor to a page -- with these highlighted words or phrases -- mouses over the highlighted text, my soap advertisement will show, popping up in a sort of "talk bubble," like those seen in pop-up video or a comic book.

Some providers of this sort of advertising, like ContentLink, do text advertisements. Others, like Vibrant, will actually run video.

Vibrant Media is the largest provider of this kind of advertising, with more than 120 million unique users world-wide, and a third of those users in the United States, and almost half in the U.K. and Germany. What makes Vibrant different from others in the space is not only its significant reach and first-mover advantage, but its technology and the quality of video that can be shown in the small pop-up window that is its ad unit.

In-text advertising is not really new. Interactive Imaginations, Inc. was doing something similar with its Riddler.com site and the Commonwealth Network back in the mid-1990s, before merging with Petry and Katz Millennium to become 24/7. They "hyper-linked" a word on a page that, when clicked, would take a visitor to the advertiser's page. But in-text has come a long way since then, and its impact on users has changed dramatically as the environment has changed.

Frank Magid Associates' research has revealed that most users said their opinion of a site was enhanced by Vibrant's ad unit being on it. They also ranked a Vibrant-delivered video ad first in order of preference and likelihood to click and recall the brand, versus other online advertising formats.

The reason in-text has such strong appeal among regular users of the web is, I think, similar to why search results work so well. The advertising isn't really seen so much as marketing as it is information. Most advertising stands in your way and insists on its presence before you. In-text is part of what you are already doing, an aspect of your existing experience. Curiosity leads you to mouse over the link, relevance gets you to read the ad or watch the video, resulting in heightened interest.

The strong appeal in-text should have among advertisers is also clear. There are quantifiable successes. According to a case study presented at the iMedia Breakthrough Summit during Vibrant's Spotlight presentation, Vibrant produced a 9 percent average CTR and a conversion rate of 11 percent, with more than 100,000 brand introductions of a new vehicle. The exposure and awareness comes free -- you only pay for the response.

Media Strategies Editor Jim Meskauskas is vice president and director of online media for ICON International, Inc., an Omnicom Company. Read full bio.