Digital marketing
Digital marketing is a component of marketing that uses digital technologies such as desktop computers, mobile phones, and other digital media platforms to promote products and services.
Overview
Digital marketing is a component of marketing that uses digital technologies such as desktop computers, mobile phones, and other digital media platforms to promote products and services. It has significantly changed how brands and businesses use technology for marketing since the 1990s and 2000s. As digital platforms became increasingly incorporated into marketing plans and everyday life, and as people increasingly used digital devices instead of visiting physical shops, digital marketing campaigns became increasingly common, employing combinations of methods. These methods include search engine optimization (SEO), search engine marketing (SEM), content marketing, influencer marketing, content automation, campaign marketing, data-driven marketing, e-commerce marketing, social media marketing, social media optimization, e-mail direct marketing, display advertising, e-books, optical disks and games. Digital marketing also extends to non-Internet channels that provide digital media, such as television, mobile phones (SMS and MMS), callbacks, and on-hold mobile ringtones. This extension to non-Internet channels differentiates digital marketing from online marketing.
Origins
During the 1980s, the storage capacity of computers was already large enough to store large volumes of customer information. As a result, companies started choosing online techniques such as database marketing rather than relying on limited list brokers. These databases allowed companies to track customers' information more effectively, changing the relationship between buyers and sellers. A 2023 study credits the SoftAd Group (later ChannelNet) with coining the term digital marketing. Founded by Paula Tompkins in 1985, SoftAd was an early company in using computers to deliver marketing content directly to consumers. Its marketing campaigns were first distributed on floppy disk and later on CD-ROM and the Web. The term digital marketing came into general use in the 1990s. Search engines also emerged during the decade with the first search engine for FTP sites, Archie, being developed at McGill University. The first clickable banner ad, the "You Will" campaign by AT&T was launched in 1994. Within the first four months, 44% of all people who viewed the advertisement clicked on it. Early digital marketing efforts focused primarily on simple HTML websites and the growing practice of email marketing, which enabled direct communication with consumers.
2000s
In the 2000s, with increasing numbers of Internet users and the introduction of the iPhone, customers began searching for products and making decisions online instead of consulting a salesperson, which created a new problem for the marketing department of a company. A survey conducted in the United Kingdom in 2000 found that most retailers had not yet registered their own domain names. These challenges encouraged marketers to explore new ways to integrate digital technology into marketing strategies. At the same time, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, introduced by Google AdWords in 2000, allowed businesses to target specific keywords, making digital marketing more measurable and cost-effective. The mid-2000s saw the emergence of social media platforms such as Facebook (2004), YouTube (2005), and Twitter (2006). These platforms enabled companies to talk to their customers, and customers to talk directly to one another about products and the companies that provide them. In 2007, marketing automation was introduced as a response to the rapidly changing marketing climate. Marketing automation is the process by which software is used to automate conventional marketing processes. It helps companies to segment customers, launch multichannel marketing campaigns, and provide personalized information for customers based on their specific activities. In this way, users' activity (or lack thereof) triggers a personal message that is customized to the user in their preferred platform. However, not all companies implement marketing automation successfully.
2010s
Digital marketing became increasingly sophisticated during the 2010s, as the proliferation of devices capable of accessing digital media led to sudden growth. Statistics produced in 2012 and 2013 showed that digital marketing continued to grow significantly. With the development of social media in the 2000s, such as LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter, consumers became highly dependent on digital electronics in their daily lives. Therefore, they expected a seamless user experience across different channels for searching product information. The change in customer behavior improved the diversification of marketing technology. Digital media growth was estimated at 4.5 trillion online ads served annually with digital media spending at 48% growth in 2010. An increasing portion of advertising stems from businesses employing Online Behavioural Advertising (OBA) to tailor advertising for internet users, but OBA raises concerns about consumer privacy and data protection.
2020s
In the 2020s, AI-generated responses began to be offered as a replacement for simple search engine results. Digital marketers developed methods known as generative engine optimization (GEO) or answer engine optimization (AEO) to market via these tools.
Brand awareness
One of the key objectives of modern digital marketing is to raise brand awareness, the extent to which customers and the public are familiar with and recognize a particular brand. Enhancing brand awareness is important in digital marketing, and marketing in general, because of its impact on brand perception and consumer decision-making.
Channels
Digital marketing channels are systems based on the Internet that create, accelerate, and transmit product value from producers to consumers through digital networks. Digital marketing is facilitated by multiple channels, as an advertiser's core objective is to find channels which result in maximum two-way communication and a better overall ROI for the brand. There are many digital marketing channels available. Digital marketing allows consumers to give back feedback to the firm on a community-based site or straight directly to the firm via email. Firms seeking this long-term communication relationship use multiple promotional strategies related to their target consumer as well as word-of-mouth marketing.
Affiliate marketing
Affiliate marketing is perceived to not be considered a safe, reliable, and easy means of marketing through online platforms due to a lack of reliability in terms of affiliates that can produce the demanded number of new customers. As a result of this risk and bad affiliates, brands are left prone to exploitation in terms of claiming commission that is not honestly acquired. Legal means may offer some protection against this, yet there are limitations in recovering any losses or investment. Despite this, affiliate marketing allows brands to market towards smaller publishers and websites with smaller traffic.
Display advertising
As the term implies, online display advertising deals with showcasing promotional messages or ideas to the consumer on the internet. This includes a wide range of advertisements like advertising blogs, networks, interstitial ads, contextual data, ads on search engines, classified or dynamic advertisements, etc. The method can target specific audience tuning in from different types of locals to view a particular advertisement, the variations can be found as the most productive element of this method.
Email marketing
Email marketing is considered cheap compared to other forms of digital marketing. It is also a way to rapidly communicate a message such as their value proposition to existing or potential customers. Yet this channel of communication may be perceived by recipients to be bothersome and irritating, especially to new or potential customers, therefore the success of email marketing is reliant on the language and visual appeal applied. In terms of visual appeal, there are indications that using graphics/visuals that are relevant to the message—yet less visual graphics to be applied with initial emails—are more effective, in-turn creating a relatively personal feel to the email. In terms of language, the style is the main factor in determining how captivating the email is. Using a casual tone invokes a warmer, gentler and more inviting feel to the email, compared to a more formal tone.
Search engine marketing
Search engine marketing (SEM) is a form of Internet marketing that involves the promotion of websites by increasing their visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs) primarily through paid advertising. SEM may incorporate Search engine optimization, which adjusts or rewrites website content and site architecture to achieve a higher ranking in search engine results pages to enhance pay per click (PPC) listings.
Social media marketing
The term 'digital marketing' has a number of marketing facets, as it supports different channels, social media being among these. Social media marketing involve the use of social media channels (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, Google+, etc.) to market products or services. It is a procedure wherein strategies are made and executed to draw in traffic for a website or to gain the attention of buyers over the web using different social media platforms. A social networking service is an online platform which people use to build social networks or social relations with other people who share similar personal or career interests, activities, backgrounds or real-life connections.
Wikipedia contributors · Digital marketing · revision 1382056883 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Plain text extracted and formatting adapted; tags derived from linked topics.