Disqus, a blog comment hosting service used by sites such as The Atlantic, Rolling Stone and ABC News, is rolling out advertising in the UK and US, Adweek reports.
The San Francisco-based company is partnering WPP's programmatic ad platform Xaxis to let brands place ads against Disqus comments. The ads, which will be labeled as "sponsored," will be shown at the top of comment threads. They can feature text, images, video and can be discussed to a particular audience, the topic being discussed, or both.
Publishers, advertisers, and Disqus will not receive any personally identifiable information about the users brands are targeting. Instead Disqus will create anonymous profiles, with its general manager of advertising David Fleck telling Adweek: "We have the largest and deepest audience profiles on the web."
From the brand perspective, comment threads will be closely monitored to ensure ads are not delivered against any topics deemed "unsafe."
Disqus would not confirm to Adweek which publishers will be the first to carry the ads.