Indeed, the number of people who click on display ads in a month has fallen, from 32% of Web users in July 2007 to only 16% in March 2009. Worse still, an even smaller core of consumers -- representing just 8% of the Internet user base -- accounts for the vast majority, or 85%, of all clicks.

"Marketers who attempt to optimize their advertising campaigns solely around the click are assigning no value to the 84 percent of Internet users who don't click on an ad," said Linda Anderson, comScore VP of marketing solutions and author of the "Natural Born Clickers" study. "That's precisely the wrong thing to do."

Rather, as comScore research has shown, marketers need to embrace the fact that non-clicked ads can also have a significant impact on consumers.