I keep saying that newspapers need to be very careful with offering free branding to advertisers. CPC ads cheat the publisher, and they need to be largely obliterated from the online publishing industry.
New study info from Specific Media:
According to 12 months of proprietary Specific Media Ad Effectiveness data, by comScore, display advertising significantly lifts Online search activity. The study demonstrates that consumers exposed to display advertising were more likely to search for brand terms (i.e. automotive manufacturer), and segment terms (i.e. vehicle class), than unexposed consumers.
Hmmm…better charge per impression then, hadn’t we?
Eat Sleep Publish is a Seattle-based blog that explores the difficulties and opportunities currently facing the publishing industry. 
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Did you see the LA Times article about online ad revenue? There’s a link to it at http://www.spjwash.org. Very interesting. Finally something positive about our industry.
The problem with these metrics is that they’re not explicit to agency/advertisers. Not to mention that Specific Media is a large ad network whose biz model is display ads. When you have 20 different campaigns going on in different forms of media with different ad models how are you to know that the box ad you ran was the sole reason your search queries went up. Yes, there is cookie tracking technology but not everyone has the access to or knowledge of this technology. I don’t disagree with the study, I’m just saying times are rough and people are scared of risks and learning curves right now.