Ad Tech is an incredible resource not only for those looking to connect with old friends and those looking to lose a handful of business cards at networking events, but for nuggets like yesterday's session: The Silent Click: How Online Advertising Can Drive Brand Awareness and Preference.

These represent the few opportunities to get incredibly granular with advice, implementation, best practices and results with some of the best in the industry:

• Moderator: Pam Horan, President Online Publishers Association
• Panelist: Gordon McLeod, President, The Wall Street Journal Digital Network Dow Jones & Company
• Panelist: Thom Campbell, Senior Media Manager, Strategy, Intel Corporation
• Panelist: Christopher Actis, VP, Digital Director, MediaVest

The dynamic backgrounds of the panelists allowed for a diverse conversation around the role of branding from the bid retailer perspective Walmart), the IT perspective - Intel - and the publisher side - Wall Street Journal. 

Branding is essentially defined as building a relationship with a consumer over time whether on or offline. Pam, pointed out a key question:

When it comes to digital, is the click the correct metric to measure branding? Rather, 'pure' branding is building click engagement over time so the measurement gets much more difficult. The reality is this - one of the hardest things about branding is, and continues to be, the actual measurement of results.

When measured correctly, however, some impressive statistics are available when measuring brand's impact on the end result in terms of page views, time on site and the most important, sales (download the full study - PDF).

This data is based on the top 20 display advertisers online:

Display impacts search up to 4 weeks after exposure:

• 18% of those who were exposed to a brand campaign online, later went and researched the brand online
• 30% actually visited the website for that respective brand exposure

These visitors were also more engaged with the brand's website:

• The time on site increased 55%
• Page views increased 50%

What about sales?

• Those that WERE NOT exposed to a brand campaign spent on average $227
• Those that WERE exposed to a brand campaign saw a 7% increase in average order size

So what are the last key takaways when looking to stay ahead of the curve with branding online?

• Gordon - from the publisher perspective, the web is become very metric driven for brand publishers and yet
  both are needed - performance and brand. Our job is to make the sales process easier by creating more alternatives and options whether that be larger ads, more interactive, sponsorship takeovers etc. In other words our ability to work with the advertiser moving forward and to understand their goals will be key.
• Chris - Look for publishers that are a better partner. What that means simply, is look for those that will give you better insights into who their audiences are because behaviors tell a certain story. Each story is a human story not just an impression, so if we can marry stories with a client's business goals we can have a real impact, real measurement and real results.
• Thom - keep looking at video for this one reason - it can tell a story where a banner ad cannot. What's important t remember is size doesn't matter but the content it surrounds is key. Do your research around the content of the publisher with test campaigns then build videos around the context.

Check out more of our coverage of ad:tech New York 2009