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Google conducted a joint test with Levi's and found that paid search ads raised consumer awareness of the Levi's brand, regardless of whether or not they were clicked. In the test, 53% of "in-market" consumers named Levi's when asked which brand of jeans came to mind when a Levi's search ad was in the top sponsored position.

That seems pretty likely anyway, but only 30% named Levi's when there was no Levi's search ad on the page. You can't deny that 23% is a pretty significant increase.

"Better yet, when Levi's 'non-customers' (people who hadn't bought Levi's jeans in the past 6 months) were asked the same question, 45% named Levi's when the ad was in the top sponsored position, versus 23% who named Levi's when there was no ad in the search results," says Sara Kleinberg of Google's Retail team.

"With search being central to the consumer shopping cycle, search should be part of your strategy to not only drives sales, but also build your brand awareness as consumers are considering what gifts to buy for the holidays," says Kleinberg.

An interesting article from Mike Shaw of comScore earlier this week talked about the dwindling importance of the click, and how the view-through impact of online display ads can have the same impact on sales as what has traditionally been ascribed to TV ads.

Perhaps the view-through metric is should not only inspire thoughts of display advertising. Search ads are technically displayed too.

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