MySpace Monetizing Music Videos With Overlays

TechCrunch writes about MySpace putting overlays with links to commerce on top of music videos with help from Auditude, which identifies content and then serves up the relevant ad.  Not surprisingly, the click-through rate for these units, 1.2%, is much higher than that of banner ads (though less, in my experience, than pre-roll video ads).  The effective CPM is probably on the low side:  let's assume 1.2% CTR and that 5% of clicks convert to a $10 sale.  That equals $6 for a thousand videos.  But this is high because it doesn't factor in cost-of-sale (ie the $10 in revenues is a gross number that goes to Amazon), not to mention any cut that Auditude might take.  But, while this won't be a silver bullet, it's something that the labels should embrace as another part of their video P&L, especially to monetize viral videos that have been embedded throughout the Web but are harder to monetize with CPM-based brand advertising.