Consumers connect with brands throughout the customer life cycle — they discover, explore, buy, and engage using a multitude of touchpoints. In the explore phase, consumers use a variety of information sources and channels to research the products and services they discover. But some sources are more effective than others at driving consumers to the buy phase and have a stronger influence on the price they ultimately pay for their purchase. This document is part of a four-report series of Forrester reports on how consumers progress through each phase of the customer life cycle. It examines consumers' most influential research sources for their purchase and the premium they pay, using our touchpoint-analysis framework.