• Chief Marketer, Wednesday, October 1, 2008 2:30 PM

How do you choose the right keywords for your target if you don't know precisely who your target is? For example, a recent Forbes article found that there are many different kinds of sports moms -- each with different media consumption and product purchasing habits. Hockey moms are defined by their affluence, while many basketball moms live predominately indoor lifestyles. So should you not target the former with discount ads, or the latter with sunscreen ads?

According to Stuart Larkins, targeting and demographic research is good -- but sometimes it can get out of hand. And he suggests that some search campaigns become useless through over-targeting. "As entertaining as this story is and as interesting as these nuanced differences might be, American sports moms certainly must have more commonalities than differences," he says. "Regardless of whether their kids play hockey, soccer, football or Scrabble, marketers should remember some important facts about moms in general," Larkins says.

Such facts include stats like just over a third of moms spend three or more hours online per day, three-fourths of moms spend more than an hour a day online and watching TV, and nearly all moms (98%) said that they do the grocery shopping for their household. "Marketers should not over-think the obvious," Larkins says. "So long as marketers effectively prepare for their target customers' search queries with the right keywords, ads and information, they don't need to bother with any further targeting."

Read the whole story at Chief Marketer »