Smart marketers can sometimes be pretty secretive. After all, in the competitive online marketing industry, why would these savvy marketers want to share their recipes for success? And when it comes to the subject of targeted online advertising, you might be surprised at what some of the world's best marketers are doing.

Buying online media has changed considerably over the past two years. It's no longer a buyer's market. We find ourselves at a time when online marketing dollars are increasing dramatically while agencies are not paying close enough attention to the resulting media waste. Demand for placements on well branded sites has outpaced supply, leading to the dual effect of higher CPMs and sold-out inventory (sometimes months in advance). Call up Yahoo! and ask for their home page box unit, and you will see what I mean. In response, I espouse three targeting tactics that when adopted widely will have a …

Last week, Ted Shergalis' Behavioral Insider article made the analogy between behavioral tracking via cookies and barcodes, basically outlining that consumers have faced data tracking in the past and that acceptance boils down to value, i.e.: "What's in it for the consumer?" I couldn't agree with Ted's point more. Certainly there will always be a portion of the population that distrusts and avoids any type of observation. However, for many, the value side of the equation must simply outweigh the privacy concerns.

In the ever-increasing dialogue surrounding cookies and consumer habits or attitudes towards them, many individuals have declared their end is near. Granted, most of these are self-serving proclamations designed to grab headlines and introduce new products, but I would argue, along with my other levelheaded compatriots, that the sky is not falling. Cookies are not dead, they are only evolving.

Is the online apocalypse upon us? Recently, Jupiter published survey results suggesting many online surfers purportedly delete their cookies on a regular basis. Since cookies have emerged as the standard of online measurement and the platform for many targeting variables, it stands to reason that an increase in cookie death would undermine the efficacy and interest in online segmentation and targeting. Is it time to panic? Hardly.