Adgregate Markets Lets Consumers Shop Within Banner Ads

http://www.beet.tv/2008/09/adgregate-marke.html

Last Monday, Adgregate Markets launched ShopAds, a banner advertising widget where consumers can purchase products without being navigated away from the page. The credit card purchases within the transactional banner ads are secure, even if the sites they are placed on are not, CEO Henry Wong told me after his presentation last Monday at TechCrunch50.

VideoEgg also has a shop function that allows consumers to browse multiple products within an ad, but directs them to the site of the retailer to purchase. Transactions within Adgregate Markets' ads are self-contained, and retailers sign an agreement to let them manage transactions through their independent system.

The product will open up the online advertising space from a few billion dollar market to $130 billion market, Wong told the TechCrunch50 audience Monday, according to a report in VentureBeat.

The one possible stumbling block for transactional banner ads, Sarah Clark at InternetRetailing points out, is that scammers could create lookalike ads to dupe consumers into giving out personal information.

--Kelsey Blodget, Associate Producer