Why you need the content network

[europeforvisitors]

In the Ecommerce Forum, Brett Tabke posted information on a DoubleClick study about "research before the purchase." The study showed that about half of all Internet purchases are preceded by research in a search engine (75% in the case of travel).

Just as important, most buyers complete their research two weeks or more before they actually buy. (In the travel sector, for example, only 23.8% of buyers make a purchase during a research session.)

This data shows why content ads matter to advertisers: Most buyers aren't ready to make a purchase when they look up "widgets" or "Shelbyville hotels" in Google, so AdSense ads provide a second chance to reach those prospects as they learn more about the products or services that they're interested in buying.

[Disclosure statement: I'm an AdSense publisher, so I have a vested interest in your use of content ads. :-)]

[dertyfern]

Excellent post. I read a similar statement about a year ago and since then have not only been using content ads, but feel comfortable increasing advertising spend from time to time knowing that it will take a few weeks of low ROI (sometimes even losses) to yield the eventual benefits.

[running scared]

I can't disagree that brand awareness is not accounted for in most ROI tracking