BrightRoll passes Google in video ads BrightRoll, a San Francisco company that helps marketers place video ads on websites, has surpassed Google when ranked by number of online video ads in two of the last three months, according to researcher ComScore Inc. Google makes money from selling slots for commercials that run before users view clips on YouTube, which it owns and operates. BrightRoll has kept up the pressure by offering advertisers a network of more than 6,000 mobile applications and websites to target a wider audience, and also offers tools to help them measure the effectiveness of their campaigns. About 5 percent of large television advertisers' media budgets are going into Web videos, and the percentage is higher for industries such as cars, according to Tod Sacerdoti, chief executive officer of BrightRoll. After trailing BrightRoll in October and November, Google took back the lead in December by serving 2 billion video ads on personal computers in the United States, versus 1.83 billion for BrightRoll, ComScore said. The partnership lets AdMob offer its clients a wider pool of video providers to advertise on mobile devices, an emerging area of online advertising.