• by Keith Richman , March 25, 2008

If famed bank robber Willie Sutton had been a marketer, and the question was "Why do you target online?" his answer surely would have been: "Because that's where the guys are."

Research indicates that millions of men--30% of the total online population--are spending nearly 24 hours a week online, outstripping the time women spend interacting with the Web. But just as a bank robber can have a hard time cracking the safe once he's found it, marketers today struggle with how to reach the crucial demographic of 18- to-34-year-old men.

Some advertisers employ the shotgun approach: Pick as many sites as possible and blast out a message, hoping that it somehow reaches young men and that they happen to engage with the ad. In an era in which advertising accountability and ROI are paramount, this is likely the most inefficient use of dollars. Marketers spent $20 billion on online advertising in 2007, and they walked away with an empty feeling.

Some advertisers try a rifle approach to reach men, and narrow down their target sites. For example, men ages 25-29 spend 55% of their time online looking at news, 47% banking, 38% sports, 23% stock info and 15% playing games, according to Simmons Research. That's all well and good, but there is a massive long tail of those sites that get between 300,000 and 2 million visitors a month. Do marketers and agencies have time to play pin-the-tail-on-the-long-tail-sites and hope for the best?

Similarly, we know that if men are looking for video entertainment, they're predominantly drawn to user-generated content versus network TV online, according to a Nielsen survey. Finally, some advertisers try to reach men under the cover of an ad network, which buys up inventory on hundreds of mid-tail and long-tail sites. The solution is not as effective as it sounds. You might get reach, but there's no transparency or consistency among the sites and little brand protection.

These approaches variously are complicated, inefficient, risky and frustrating.

Brand advertisers want a targeted audience--the ability to reach broadly and narrowly at the same time and to get individuals to interact with their brands in environments that prevent the brand from being next to objectionable content.

When looking at the young male demographic, the best way to accomplish this is by creating integrated campaigns that can run on a network of branded Web media properties. In this fashion, a marketer can target certain network sites and audience slices or the entire network to reach large numbers of viewers with a single buy. The key is to focus on a network with branded properties--sites that have loyal audiences have demonstrated an ability to keep the audience engaged and can help you engage their audiences as well.

A smart network is carefully composed of quality sites, as well as tools for isolating content that guys like and associating the advertiser with that content.

Young men will visit many sites to seek out the content they enjoy, both because there is a lot of content out there and because new sites emerge frequently. In order to reach this audience effectively, marketers need to be on a number of sites. A focused, branded network offers targeting and reach across sites built specifically for men. Meanwhile, the network does all the hard work of integrating the campaign across multiple properties and works with the publishing side to protect the brand by monitoring content.

This formula is crucial for brand advertisers. For them it's not about click-throughs on the ads but about engagement, and compelling content enables engagement among 18- to-34-year-old men.