Here’s a groundbreaking study: Eyeblaster, Microsoft Advertising and comScore have found that the longer people stare at an ad, the more likely they are to search for brand-related terms. Eyeblaster also found that “ad dwellers” are more likely to buy, too. Somehow, I don’t think that means we’re supposed to make all our creative into a “Where’s Waldo” type quest.

Reports MediaPost:

The results of the study indicate consumers who were exposed to campaigns that typically get people to linger longer are more likely to search for brand-related keywords as compared to users who were exposed to campaigns with a low dwell times. The research found that consumers who were exposed to campaigns with low dwell times increased brand related keyword searches by 12%, while consumers exposed to campaigns with high dwell times increased brand-related keyword search by 39%. This suggests that campaigns with high dwell times are three times more effective at driving search than campaigns with low dwell times.

According to the 2010 Display Advertising Study conducted by Advertiser Perceptions (for Collective Media), advertisers love to target audiences—and know what they’re getting—with site-specific ad buys. But buying targeted ad space on a site-by-site basis is time consuming—and buying on ad networks may see some increase, especially with advertisers with larger budgets.

Most advertisers still prefer site-specific ad buys and plan to continue that tactic. 74% list targeting as the primary benefit. On the other hand, ad networks’ primary benefit is reach—but only 8% (up from 3% last year) of advertisers said that reach is what differentiate ad networks. The most popular answer there was again targeting.