Getting the Most from your Online Ad Money

In K@W:  Reconsidering the 'last touch'.

" ... Advertisers often use multiple publishers for their online campaigns, but may not use the best metrics to decide which ones they should compensate. Should companies compensate the publisher who showed the last ad to a consumer before a purchase? Or, should they pay publishers every time they show the ads to prospective consumers?

Research by Wharton marketing professor Ron Berman finds that the “last touch” or “last click” method advertisers typically employ to compensate publishers is the wrong way to go about it. Berman’s research shows that the “last click” method entails a moral hazard in driving “adverse selection,” where publishers show ads to consumers who would buy the product anyway.... "