— Agencies remain resistant: Even before Wall St.‘s meltdown the other day, Nielsen Online this week found a 27 percent decline in display ad spending by financial services companies drove a 6 percent year-over-year decrease in overall display dollars in the first half of 2008. The number of display impressions decreased by 9 percent during the same period. And earlier this month, JP Morgan revised its ‘08 U.S. display market estimate downward to $8.2 billion from $8.6 billion— or 14 percent year-over-year growth from its previous call for a 20 percent increase. Looking ahead, marketers are expected to rely more on search ads over display, because of the former’s better accountability. This week at the OMMA conference, several online ad execs said displays lacks a strong ROI component.

SEE ALSO: Financial Services Pullback Drives Display Ad Spend Down 6 Percent In H108: Nielsen

—Banner blindness: Furthermore, WSJ cites other skeptics who say advertisers’ reluctance rests on display’s poor click-through rates and to “banner blindness”—or, users’ tendency to ignore banner ads. Still, agencies say they’ll try to keep an open mind about Atlas’ research, although the data is limited to sites the Microsoft unit serves, as opposed to a broader look at the display universe. “Obviously, Microsoft has a motive to shift dollars from search to display advertising because it is getting creamed in the search space,” Ben Winkler, a director of interactive media at IPG’s The Martin Agency, tells WSJ. “But this does help us get a much better picture of how our online advertising is working.”