Splintering of the Consumer Market

The most fundamental direct marketing principle at play here is to go where your customers are. In a splintered media world, that means contextual targeting, behavioral targeting, social media targeting and mobile marketing.

Contextual targeting has been around for a while. Google and other networks enable advertisers to target advertising based on keywords throughout the web. Advertisers can reach important segments of the splintered market based on the content of an article, blog or other web page. Contextual advertising has become more sophisticated over time as marketers move beyond text ads to include imaging, rich media and other types of targeting techniques (e.g., local targeting).