In fact, 55 percent of follow up to online ads appears to occur up to 30 days after the ad has appeared, according to "Beyond the Click, Maximizing Advertising ROI in B2B E-Newsletters," a new online advertising study by the electronic media group of the American Institute of Certified Public and Accountants and Bay Street Group LLC.

The study found that financial professionals online were almost as likely as the direct clickers to save the ads for future reference (30 percent versus 34 percent). And they were actually more likely (19 percent versus 14 percent) than those who clicked on the ads to forward the advertising information to their colleagues or to make or recommend a purchase based on those ads. When targeting finance professionals, marketers seem to be misunderstanding the power of the "latent response."

The research also found that readers who were exposed to e-newsletter ads, but who did not click on them, could recall the ads almost as frequently as readers who did click on the ads (22 percent versus 28 percent).

"Content-driven e-newsletters for financial professionals seem to have much longer shelf lives and reader acceptance levels than email blasts and pop-up banner ads," said Hank Berkowitz, AICPA director, Online Publishing & Business Development.

The executive summary, which includes additional notes on the research and the "Top 10 Recommendations to Marketers," can be viewed at http://www.aicpalearning.org/profdev_news.asp?id=10360.