My TargetWeekly lets Target shoppers customize ads

Target (TGT) is about to seriously personalize the way it tells digital and mobile customers about hot deals.

The retail giant, with 1,743 stores in 49 states, on Friday will announce "My TargetWeekly," a fully customizable version of its weekly ad. The ad now appears on Target.com, where it draws more than 1.2 million visitors weekly, and in Sunday newspapers, where it is seen by 100 million consumers each week.

The new version takes the digital ad and lets consumers create customized views, as well as deal alerts for when favorite brands or products are on sale. It aims at the smaller number of hard-to-reach, digitally savvy shoppers — who tend to spend more than others.

They'll decide what they want to know about items relevant to them and get the information online — or on their mobile phones.

"We're taking a vehicle that's been static for years and bringing new innovation to it," says Steve Eastman, president of Target.com.

Like many retailers, Target is going where the money is and where more and more consumers want to be. Fast as the Internet has grown, mobile use is growing faster, to 1.2 billion people globally by 2013, says researcher International Data...