[mst]

Absolutely -a company that actively wants to pay for me to see their existence when I'm searching for somthing is a company that actively wants me to buy it there; that's often a valuable indicator that they're worth considering as a supplier.

I'd say when I search for something I'm intending to buy on google, somewhere between a quarter and a third of the time I buy it via an adsense link rather than an organic search link. Anecdata worth every penny you paid for it, as always, but I've said this conversationally to a fair few people and the majority have said something more like "yeah, me too" than "people really do that?"

[brk]

Just as another anecdata point, I'm in the 'people really do that.' group.

When I'm researching something to buy, I will usually do searches on google for broad scope brands/products, then move to Amazon as my first option for purchase, provided the item is available there and within a few % of the lowest online price I've seen elsewhere.

My research may include reading blogs/forums, and possible asking questions there. If its not something too esoteric, I might ask my FB friends for an opinion or suggestion.

At no point in my normal buying processes does FB ads, or 'Likes' play any role.

My wife follows roughly the same pattern, but may be partially influenced by my approach, though I will say her methods differ slightly enough that they are her own.

[iaskwhy]

My brain algo is something like this:

If I know exactly what I want I search in Google and might or might not click on the first result (the ad) since sometimes the ad is exactly the same as the first organic result (and sometimes with a discount because you go to a landing page instead of, say, the home page of that company's site).

If I want something but have no idea which company I want to buy from I usually do look into the ads first and click on those that seem directed at me (because, as you said, they actively want me to buy from them).