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Displaying ads over multiple locations increases the likelihood of gaining a conversion from the Internet audience. Repetition of a message makes it more familiar to the viewer, and raises the potential for a person to click through and complete a marketer's desired action.

The Google CPG blog cited a study by aQuantive's Atlas Institute about the value of overlapping ads. By running ads in multiple points of contact - publishers, portals, and ad networks - Atlas found 67 percent of people who took action did so after encountering multiple ad placements.

Google's Emma McKeithen noted how they do this for Google's CPG clients, and gave an example of how a given person might navigate the Internet on a typical day:

During the course of a day, a user might visit a sports site, a social network, a photo-sharing site, check Gmail (perhaps repeatedly) in addition to going elsewhere online. The goal of overlapping campaigns is to maximize these touchpoints without increasing frequency to the point where an ad placement no longer delivers returns for the marketer.

Atlas did caution that overlap's impact on conversions will "differ greatly from advertiser to advertiser as there is no consistent correlation between reach and conversion overlap."

By Atlas' notes, overlap seems to work best for branding, and requires a targeted reach to be most effective. A danger exists for overexposure of the brand through such overlap, which means advertisers will want to watch for opportunities to swap overlap for superior demographic reach.