Auditude Now Managing Ads for All MTV Sites

Auditude this week announced that it is powering video ads for MTV Networks’ various sites, including MTV, Comedy Central and Nickelodeon, as well as the company’s syndicated content on Dailymotion, Comcast and others. Previously Auditude had a deal with MTV to serve ads alongside its content (both official and unauthorized uploads) on just one site — MySpace — so this is an expansion of that relationship.

Auditude’s Connect ad platform was initially built to digitize the process by which ads are matched with inventory — a pretty complicated task in the world of super-syndicated video. These days, the startup is doing just about everything it can to make video ads more complex and flexible (in a good way). It targets ads based on content, user and context; it also brings a variety of e-commerce opportunities into content, including MP3s, DVDs, tickets and ringtones. The company has recently had success with creating “ad pods” for online video, in the vein of TV commercial breaks, in which it strings together four ads into one unit. For the Paramount series Circle of Eight on MySpace (which we just reviewed, but the way), it shows each user a spaced-out package of pre-roll, overlay and mid-roll.

One of Auditude’s other big deals is to help Yahoo serve ads onto MLB.tv, and it also works with Warner Bros. The Palo Alto, Calif.-based company raised $10.5 million in March from Redpoint Ventures and Greylock Partners, for a total of $23 million in funding.