"Know thy customer" is or should be the mantra of any advertiser committed to longevity in the digital age. Unfortunately, all too often what advertisers THINK they know is based on static, quickly obsolescent models both of who customers are, and what their behavior says about who they are. Phil Kaplan, co-founder of AdBrite ad network, outlines how behavioral and demographic profiles can be dynamically related, to add currency and vital context to both.

In the car branding world, it is all about getting into the consideration set, that handful of models a car shopper actively compares before purchasing. Endmunds.com got famous years ago by posting model invoice pricing online, and so it had a lucrative place among dealerships at the bottom of the decision funnel. President Jeremy Anwyl watches 12 million unique users pass through his 13-year-old auto information hub. He tells us how he wants to use behavioral data in different ways to shape campaigns, customize messaging and even show precisely how and where brand advertising impacts behavior.

The raw IQ power of search marketing has expanded exponentially over the past several years. Yet the goal of truly personalized targeting of search users cannot be based on algorithm alone, Brad Bostic, co-founder of next-generation search firm ChaCha argues. Instead, such targeting requires a new emphasis on the human side of the search interaction.

While most behavioral targeting networks are trying to expand their scale, Active Athlete is also about deepening the passions. Founded by Tacoda veteran Robert Tas, Active Athlete Media, Inc. represents exclusively over 75 properties for athletes that are comprised of 80% user-generated content. Tas not only tags their passions but their passionate discussions about their passions. But how does a verticalized BT network of 7 million users handle issues of scale that plague networks with 20 times the audience? Tas, the company's president and CEO, explains.

Like many other innovators before them, behavioral marketers risk becoming fixated on their own techniques, losing sight of the strategic vision, the end to which targeting is the means. In the conversation below, GoTo CEO Lee Hancock offers a reality check on the state of mobile targeting, reminding us that ultimately mobile content is all about the end-user experience.

Veterans of the BT space will recall Omar Tawakol as a fixture at digital ad conferences in the early 2000s. As the CMO for Revenue Science he was a perennial panelist explaining the technology and virtues of behavioral approaches. Now, as chief advertising officer at mobile search firm Medio, Omar is still pursuing the BT model but, "in reverse," he says. Medio powers various types of on-deck search for T-Mobile, Verizon, and Amp'd. The range and depth of data that mobile can deliver about consumers generally may be more valuable to marketers than the basic act of segmenting and ad …

One of the ongoing challenges of online advertising has been to live up to its potential for uniquely precise micro-targeting on a big enough scale to make a real difference for advertisers. For the emerging mobile ad space, as Tom Burgess, CEO of Third Screen Media explains, the issues as well as the opportunities of scaling targeting are even more pronounced.

Behavioral targeting works well enough when you hit interested customers with generic ads for your brand. But how much better does it convert in-market viewers when the creative itself addresses very specific details of those users' recent online behavior? Greg Smith, CEO of EchoTarget, Inc., says his hotel and travel clients can see a 200% to 400% lift in transactions when the behavioral network sends the right destination-specific creative to targets.

In contrast to the online space -- where behavioral data is abundant, but truly meaningful customer data remains a challenge -- mobile operators and publishers have an incredible wealth of highly personalized subscriber data to start with. Their challenge, as Nick Lim, product management director of Enpocket, explains, is learning how to relate all the rich demographic, usage and other kinds of information at their disposal to transform it into real-time intelligence.

Advertisers continue to be shy about putting their brands into the mosh pit of user-generated media and social networking, because you never really know where (and next to what) your ad will show up. By applying behavioral targeting techniques to the unique activities of social media, a brand can segment audience more precisely and advertise to them in social settings with greater confidence, according to Andy Monfried, president/founder, Lotame.