As the shift to online marketing continues there has been a proliferation of electronic channels that has lead to more meaningful and targeted ways to engage a customer. These advances have added pressure to the marketer’s role as it has become more challenging to deliver a compelling message to each consumer, at the right time, through the right channel, across inbound, outbound, on and offline and traditional and emerging platforms. Never before has there been such a need for online advertising integration as there is now. But what is integrated marketing?

IBM defines integrated marketing as an approach that “assembles all customer communications into one centralized command system that is continually informed in real-time data and intelligence”. In a recent study “State of Marketing 2011” over 87% of senior marketing executives surveyed expressed a desire for integrated marketing solutions but only 10% actually said they were having success at achieving it. Apparently organizational structure, culture, lack of in-house skills, and poor support from IT departments is to blame.

Online advertising integration is imperative in this day and age as it is the way to reach today’s new consumer.  Technology has had a drastic effect on consumer behavior. Take for example the ways we can source news that goes beyond newspaper, radio or television. We have online sites, search engines and social media, Facebook, LinkedIn groups, blogs and wikis, just to name a few. The variety of channel choices allows consumers the opportunity to immediately switch between channels before making a purchase decision.  This means that in order to have our products or services selected we need to be where consumers are.

It is interesting that in the emerging media like Social Media, North Americans outpace Europeans by over 30% in adoption rates. Activities are still limited to participation on 3^rd party networks like Facebook, and Linked In but nevertheless the Social Media channel is not being ignored. In fact 50% of marketers are using social media despite the fact the bright light that has shone on this channel is dimming under the scrutiny for ROI.

As we move towards the adoption of more integrated cross-channel marketing strategies and their implementation there will be a greater emphasis placed on ROI and analytics that can predict outcomes.  This is where the rubber meets the road in the drive to define next generation marketing excellence. However, if you thought Facebook’s Beacon was an infringement of privacy “you aint seen nothing yet, baby”.