To be totally honest. I have used Ask.com in the past and saw terrible results. I would look to Yahoo or Google if i were you. Most of the ads on Ask.com are from Google adwords anyways except for the top ad. So you end up bidding and competiting for those certain spots for your terms and end up spending too much for nothing.
What niche were you advertising in ask.com? Note: I'm no longer advertising in Google, so i was thinking it could help if i advertise to ask.com directly.
Real Estate is my niche. So I do have a ton of competition, which might have lead to me having a terrible time managing it. I still just didnt like the set up because it seems like a term could make you or break you. The bidding for the top spot over the adwords ads just seemed unreasonable to me. I saw myself bidding less in adwords for a postiton, where as in ASK.com i would have to bid a fortune against tons of competitors. All in all, that is from my experience using it with a niche as big as real estate.