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DoubleClick's Touchpoints IV survey results revealed that influencers consider online advertising a key factor in their shopping process, second only to websites, as a source of further learning about purchase decisions.

Among influencers, 19 percent cited web advertising as a source of information when they were researching a purchase, compared with 8 percent among the remainder of the study sample. Moreover, influencers clearly rely more on the web than non-influencers, with 40 percent citing websites for purchase research versus 31 percent of non-influencers.

The research identified "influencers" among active networkers, subject matter experts, bloggers, and online community participants and examined how they reach purchase decisions. The study, "Influencing the Influencers: How Online Advertising and Media Impact Word of Mouth," centered on determining how companies can focus marketing investments to impact "word of mouth" in purchase decisions.

Influencers are active consumers of all media, especially the internet. Some 23 percent of non-influencers said that they spent five or more hours a day online, compared with 39 percent of influencers.

Influencers embrace emerging media: 57 percent of influencers say they watch video online, compared with 40 percent of non-influencers; 44 percent read blogs, compared with 28 percent of non-influencers; 36 percent access the web on handheld devices, compared with 21 percent of non-influencers

Influencers also pay close attention to advertising, in positive and negative ways. They are more likely to control their exposure to ads, such as via the use of digital video recorders to fast-forward through TV ads or pop-up blockers to control their web experience. However, 76 percent agree that they are likely to pay attention to advertising when they are shopping for relevant products, compared with 63 percent of non-influencers.

Influencers were also much more likely do internet research as a result of ads they saw in traditional media, to talk about ads of interest to their friends, and to acknowledge that ads often contain valuable product information, among other attitudes.

According to Rick Bruner, DoubleClick's director of research and industry relations, "if the question is how can companies spend their marketing dollars to impact word of mouth, the answer is to reach those influencers though advertising. Influencers are media gurus and they pay attention to advertising, especially online and in emerging media platforms."

The DoubleClick Touchpoints IV survey also examined how influencers arrived at purchase decisions for various product categories.

Overall, car buyers consider websites the most valuable source of further learning during the shopping process, ahead even of the dealership. However, influencers were more likely to cite websites as a factor by eight percentage points compared with non-influencers.

Among air travelers, considerably more influencers cited the importance of web ads (24 percent) than TV ads (13 percent). For non-influencers, it was the opposite, with more citing the importance to TV ads (21 percent) than web ads (19 percent).