Thursday, July 3, 2008

A recent Compete survey on segment-driven marketing found that marketers are focusing their segmentation efforts in online and search engine marketing activities, and while only 39% of US marketers surveyed believe segment-driven marketing is very important in their organization today, 84% indicate that it will be more important three years from now.

Additional highlights from the survey include:

• 92% of respondents say they are using segments to manage their online advertising and/or search marketing
• 76% of respondents say that their segment-driven strategy will be ahead of their competitors in three years
• 77% of respondents are having trouble demonstrating real business results from segment-driven marketing
• 27% of respondents aren't seeing improved marketing results from their segment-driven marketing efforts
• Among the respondents, the most consistent obstacle to successful segment-driven marketing has been identifying the right segments

But, says eMarketer in an overview of the study, "...this is precisely where behavioral targeting promises to help, since the "right segments" are created by the users and their actions, not imposed on them."

And according to Compete, online advertising, including behavioral targeting, is the type of advertising most US marketers use to reach specific customer segments, according to the Compete survey.