If you’re looking to increase the click-through rates of your company’s B2B advertisements, you may be looking for the wrong result, according to a new Forrester survey asking B2B decision-makers about their advertising attitudes and behaviors. When we asked B2B buyers which actions they had taken in the past six months in response to advertisements they have seen or heard, clicking on a display advertisement was only the sixth-most-popular action taken.

B2B marketers in charge of paid media have long been under pressure to drive up their advertising click-through rates. And that drives bad advertising behaviors, because measuring clicks can ignore the influence of advertising impressions on buyer attitudes and behaviors.

The most popular B2B buyer response to advertising, taken by over 92% of the respondents in the past six months according to the survey, is using a search engine to research the company, solution, or topic featured in the ad. The number two and number three B2B buyer responses to advertising are visiting the advertised website without clicking on the ad and sharing the main message from the advertisement with colleagues who may be interested.

B2B marketers in charge of paid media need to make sure their advertising strategies take buyer behavior into consideration and measure the right lagging indicators. It’s also important to make sure internal resources are coordinated and able to measure and report on advertising incrementality — the lift or change in a specific audience based on a selected performance metric tied to that audience.

If you’re a B2B marketer in charge of paid media, stay tuned to Forrester as we expand our B2B advertising research this year to help our B2B clients with advertising vision, strategy, and execution.