The Chartered Institute of Marketing have informed marketers that the world wide web might not be the best place to go looking when attracting new customers to a brand.

The organization say that instead, online shoppers are in the habit of visiting less than ten websites, they are well familiar with.

These established groups of sites have been dubbed 'digital villages' by the CIM, should be identified and targeted by digital campaigns, from now on.

Head of research, Mark Stuart says that it was a myth that web users explore the virtual world in front of them.

This means that ecommerce must try to exist within the online spaces that customers visit.

The CIM say that they have found a good example of Waitrose making a good job of this, while American Apparel made use of online simulation Second Life, with limited success.