Supercharged Niche Marketing. Ad targeting shows social networks and behavior tracking are powerful new tools

eMarketer: US. Selling to consumers through blogs, chat rooms and social networking sites is emerging as an effective targeting technique.

Calls this word-of-mouth marketing engagement targeting and says that 50% of marketers are currently using it, with another 21% planning to.

Fabulously popular with online users, sites with consumer-generated content are attracting more and more visitors. Online postings on blogs, for example climbed from 25 million in 2003 to 250 million by 2005.

The key for marketers testing engagement targeting will be to entice opinion leaders—or influentials—on these social sites and encourage them to share their knowledge with others. They tend to have a wide circle of influence and can efficiently spread your word to huge numbers of interested parties.

Surprisingly, these opinion leaders aren't necessarily kids—which suggests that they may be responsive to mainstream products. eMarketer points out that 49% of blog visitors are between 35 and 54 years old, while 18 to 34 year olds comprise just 32% of blog visitors.

The report identifies and describes eight methods of targeting. It points out that the other increasingly popular targeting technique is behavioral targeting—delivering ads based on user actions observed on a single publisher's site or across a network of sites. Behavioral targeting is predicted by eMarketer to draw $2.1 billion in online ad spending in 2008—up from $1.2 million this year.

Online Ad Targeting: Engaging the Audience

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