In tough economic times, it's only natural that media buyers would be looking for more return on their investment. As a whole, digital is often touted as a more efficient advertising option than traditional media, but one segment within digital -- ad networks -- is getting a lot of attention from today's frugal media buyers, according to The New York Times.

With a slew of ad networks to choose from, finding a more effective way to buy media isn't as simple as running a campaign across a handful of networks, especially given the fact that many networks don't disclose their publisher lists. Instead, many buyers are choosing to work with multiple ad networks at the expense of portals like Yahoo and AOL.

But despite an increasing perception that media buyers are looking for better deals, there doesn't seem to be any indication that ad dollars will stop flowing into digital. Late last week, Google shrugged off signs of a weakening U.S. economy when it rebounded from what had been a nagging paid clicks controversy.