Digital marketing is a separate business industry. So in order to make you feel confident in this industry, we will create a strong theory background.
History of digital marketing
The term digital marketing was first used in the 1990s, but digital marketing has roots in the mid-1980s, when the SoftAd Group, now ChannelNet, developed advertising campaigns for automobile companies: People sent in reader reply cards found in magazines and received in return floppy disks that contained multimedia content promoting various cars and free test drives.
In 2000 a survey in the United Kingdom found that most retailers had not registered their own domain address.
Digital marketing became more sophisticated in the 2000s and the 2010s, when the proliferation of devices’ capability to access digital media at almost any given time led to great growth. Statistics produced in 2012 and 2013 showed that digital marketing was still a growing field.
Digital marketing is often referred to as ‘online marketing’, ‘internet marketing’ or ‘web marketing’. The term digital marketing has grown in popularity over time, particularly in certain countries. In the USA online marketing is still prevalent. In Italy, digital marketing is referred to as web marketing. In the UK and worldwide, however, digital marketing has become the most common term, especially after the year 2013.
Digital media growth is estimated at 4.5 trillion online ads served annually with digital media spend 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 concern of consumer privacy and data protection.
Digital marketing as business industry
Digital marketing is a rapidly growing business industry. In 2016, global digital marketing industry grew more than 40% and now in the middle of 2017 experts are expecting even bigger growth this year. Imagine – Facebook and Google are built solely on the income from their digital marketing networks.
It took some time until digital marketing proved that it is far more effective marketing option than standard marketing. As a result, today digital marketing is an essential part for any company. Just like every company used to have an accountant and lawyer, now every company must have their digital marketer. So what is this digital marketing?
What is digital marketing?
Digital marketing is an umbrella term covering all forms of marketing on the internet. Businesses use digital channels such as Google search, social media, e-mail and their websites to connect with their existing and potential customers.
Marketing has always been about connecting with your audience in the right place and at the right time. Today that means that you need to meet them where they are spending time. The reality is, everyone is online now. We say it a lot, but the way people shop and buy has dramatically changed. So did the marketing – marketing is online too. And this marketing which is online is known as digital marketing. So digital marketing is any form of marketing that exists online.
What is digital marketing exactly?
Digital marketing covers a huge spectrum of 1) assets and 2) tactics, which helps to connect with the customers. Let’s start with digital marketing assets.