Learn how to balance behavioral, contextual and demographic buying strategies to get in front of the user you're really after.

"Who took the scissors?" was the shout I awoke to most Sunday mornings of my childhood. It was my dad hollering because inevitably one of us kids had taken the scissors for some school project and he had an important Sunday morning project of his own -- cutting the newspaper insert coupons. Every week he pored over the Sunday paper grocery flyers, planning where we'd shop that week and gathering up all the coupons for pasta sauces he wanted to try or new low-sugar cereal options. Dad was the family chef. After the groceries were figured out, he could spend the rest of the day relaxing (although it always seems rather stressful to me) watching football.

So what do lost scissors and football have to do with online media?

Media buyers back in the '80s had a limited number of ways to reach someone like my dad, and unless he returned a coupon, filled out a reply card or called an 800-number, they had no idea if he ever saw their ads or what impact they had on him.

Since the projected demographics for football didn't include many women, it wasn't considered an effective way to reach men who liked to cook (like my dad). He would never be caught dead reading Women's Day, so he didn't see the brand ads there. His only exposure to new consumer product brands was through price breaks in the form of coupons or isle displays in the store.

More to the point, mass media was bought on some generalized targeting assumptions (like men or women, or elderly), and it failed utterly to find those who didn't fit into those predetermined audience demos (and I assure you "Dads Who Cook," wasn't one of them.)

Thankfully today, through online media, buyers have the chance to reach their most avid consumers, like the football-loving family chef, through a combination of online planning strategies. But how do you blend all these strategies together to find the real person who will buy your product?

Let's walk through an example:

Author notes: Anne Hunter is vice president, Platform-A Strategic Advertising Solutions at AOL. Read full bio.