What are Digital Marketing and E-commerce?
The term “e-commerce” describes the online purchasing and selling of products and services. The four main kinds of e-commerce transactions are: digital products (like ebooks or online courses), physical products (like books or home goods), services (like holidays or doctor visits), and software (like word processing or photo editing tools).
While some retailers still maintain brick-and-mortar stores alongside their e-commerce websites, many others operate entirely online. The e-commerce space quickly became crowded and competitive.
Businesses started using digital marketing, or promoting their goods and services online, to stand out from the competition and draw clients.
What is Digital Marketing?
Reaching people online through a variety of digital platforms with the intention of turning them into customers is known as digital marketing. Websites, search engines, email, and social media platforms are some of these channels that give businesses several ways to communicate with their target market.
If online sales of goods and services constitute e-commerce, then digital marketing plays a key role in enabling these transactions by fostering consumer loyalty, brand awareness, and trust-building.
Advantages of Digital Marketing
- Cost-Effectiveness: Digital marketing enables companies to maximize their advertising expenditures. Digital marketers can precisely target specific audiences with online ads, ensuring that the appropriate people see the right messages at the right time. Online ads are also frequently less expensive than print, radio, or TV ads.
- Wider Reach: Digital marketing has the ability to reach a worldwide audience, in contrast to traditional efforts that are restricted to regional media outlets like radio stations and newspapers. It helps companies grow and draw in clients from various geographic areas by establishing brand recognition in new markets.
- Speed and Engagement: When compared to conventional techniques, digital marketing can produce results more quickly. Instead of depending on memory to take action later, buyers may act instantly with internet ads—whether it be by making a purchase or interacting with the brand. Direct and tailored communication is another feature of channels like social media and email that helps firms forge closer bonds with their clients.
Businesses use omnichannel marketing, which is the synchronization of content across several channels. This raises the minimum quantity of content needed. Marketing expenses across all platforms mount up rapidly. Additionally, marketers need to be aware of and abide by all global laws pertaining to data sharing and consumer privacy. Additionally, tracking the source of sales becomes more challenging with omnichannel marketing. To do it, marketers need to rely more on analytics technologies. Even when advertisers are targeting the correct people, it can be challenging for their advertising to stand out in the cluttered digital landscape.
Four distinct models within e-commerce
Business-to-consumer (B2C) e-commerce
This is how companies sell goods or services to customers directly through the internet. You may put your expertise in digital marketing to use in very particular ways with B2C marketing. Also referred to as engagement marketing, experiential marketing pushes customers to not just buy a product or brand but also to use it. Campaigns using experiential marketing elicit strong feelings from their target audiences. Social media marketing produces material for various social media networks in an effort to increase interaction and advertise a brand or product. Influencer marketing is the process of getting well-known individuals to recommend or discuss a product or business to their social media following.
Consumer-to-consumer (C2C) e-commerce
With consumer-to-consumer (C2C) e-commerce, individuals offer items or services to other individuals. Put differently, buyers purchase goods from one another. Since most C2C consumers find them other through blogs and social media posts, search engine optimization (SEO), content production, and social media skills are prioritized in digital marketing for C2C businesses. Their common interests result in C2C exchanges of goods and services.
Business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce
B2B, or business-to-business Businesses can sell goods and services to other businesses through e-commerce. B2B e-commerce has accelerated due to the rise of services, especially software services. Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) is the term for this category of services. Focusing on strategy to ensure delivering an instant benefit to potential clients is necessary when selling to businesses. As a result, B2B enterprises typically use more planned digital marketing. There might be more focus on marketing analytics and data and less opportunity to specialize in one area of marketing, such as social media marketing.
Consumer-to-business (C2B) e-commerce
Consumers sell their goods or services to businesses through C2B e-commerce. These online transactions also have a demand that is met by specialized platforms. Influencer consumers may also be included in this type of e-commerce since they may offer their services in exchange for a company’s merchandise.
The customer journey and journey maps
A really effective marketing strategy starts with learning about customers needs and pain points. Pain points are the specific problems customers and potential customers want to solve. Instead of asking, “How do we sell more products?”, the most successful businesses want to know, “How do we help customers address their pain points or achieve their goals?” One is about the company’s goals, the other is about the customer journey.
What is a customer journey? The path you take from learning about that product to getting your questions answered to making a purchase is your customer journey.
Each interaction with the brand during this purchase journey is called a touchpoint. From the search to the customer reviews, online ad, trial subscription, live chat, and follow-up email, every touchpoint had the potential to help or hurt your impression of the brand and its product. A bad experience at any point can mean an abandoned journey, so it’s in a company’s best interests to make sure you get information and answers you need along the way. With enough customer research, marketers can use these touch points to create a customer journey map.
A customer journey map is a visualization of the touch points a typical customer encounters along their purchase journey. You can even have multiple journey maps based on the patterns and behaviors of different types of customers. Of course, it’s impossible to know exactly what route each person will take. But journey maps aren’t about predicting the future. They help you understand how and why customers are interacting with your business.
When you know how customers are finding you, how they’re learning about you, and what problems they want to solve, you can work to make their experiences better. Better customer experiences ultimately mean greater success for your business.
Touchpoints are important to monitor because they reveal the kinds of decisions customers are making during their customer journey to purchase your product or service. Touchpoints occur when a customer engages with your website or mobile app. But they also include customer interactions on all media channels before a customer discovers your website
Touchpoints relate to a specific context or need:
When you identify touchpoints, you may be tempted to list social media or display ads. But think about how the interaction might satisfy a customer need. Example; the context was curiosity, and the need was saving money.
Touchpoints are customer-centric
If increasing sales is a business goal, touchpoints can easily become part of a rolling calculation, like a ratio of touchpoints to purchases.
Digital marketing funnel
Funnel with Awareness and Engagement, Consideration, Remarketing, Conversion, and Retention as downward-progressing stages of the funnel.
Desirable outcomes for a digital marketing funnel, like the one shown in the graphic, might be:
- Awareness and engagement (ToFU): The customer has a general awareness of your brand, product, or service, and engages in online activity to learn more.
- Consideration (MoFU): Your brand, product, or service comes up as a top choice after the customer has engaged.
- Remarketing (MoFU): The customer who didn’t convert is re-engaged to consider your brand, product, or service again.
- Conversion (BoFU): The customer purchases your brand, product, or service for the first time.
- Retention (BoFU): The customer makes regular purchases and a customer relationship is established.
Other marketing funnel variations
E-commerce marketing funnel: Awareness- Consideration- Differentiation- Purchase- Brand readiness (repurchase)
Social media marketing funnel: Awareness- Consideration- Action- Engagement- Advocacy (recommend)
Content marketing funnel: Awareness- Evaluation- Conversion (webinar, success stories)
The top of the funnel: Awareness and consideration
| Stage | Description | Tactics | Goal |
| Awareness | This is the first encounter potential customers have with your brand. The goal is to introduce the brand and make sure it reaches the right audience. | Research audience, optimize SEO, use digital ads, and form promotional partnerships. | Get the brand in front of the right audience and ensure they remember it. |
| Consideration | This is the stage where potential customers explore the business further and compare it to competitors, with the aim of moving closer to making a purchase. | Provide engaging content (blog posts, newsletters), offer free trials, educate about products, and build trust. | Convince potential customers to engage more deeply and consider making a purchase. |
Measuring success at the top of the funnel
| Stage | Goal | Key Metrics | Measurement Tools | Challenges |
| Awareness | Increase brand visibility by getting ads in front of the right people. | Impressions (total number of ad views), Reach (unique viewers), Frequency (how often each person sees the ad). | Analytics tools to track impressions, reach, and frequency. | Ensuring ads reach the right people at the right time; refining the strategy if goals aren’t met. |
| Consideration | Boost engagement by encouraging potential customers to interact with the content. | Website engagement (page visits, time spent, pages per visit), email sign-ups, customer contact information. | Analytics tools to track website interactions, email engagement, and user behavior. | Evaluating whether more engagement is beneficial or if website layout needs improvement. |
The bottom of the funnel: Conversion and loyalty
| Stage | Goal | Tactics | Key Focus | Challenges |
| Conversion | Turn potential customers into buyers by providing clear value and a smooth purchase experience. | Provide clear product descriptions, a smooth checkout process, well-placed ads, and a clear returns policy. | Make it easy for leads to make a decision and purchase by answering questions and reducing friction. | Ensuring potential customers feel confident in their decision to buy and minimizing drop-offs during checkout. |
| Loyalty | Encourage repeat purchases and foster long-term customer relationships through post-purchase engagement. | Use follow-up emails, rewards programs, social media engagement, and personalized offers to build relationships. | Create a positive post-purchase experience to encourage future sales and build customer loyalty. | Maintaining customer interest and satisfaction post-purchase to encourage long-term loyalty. |
Measuring success at the bottom of the funnel
| Stage | Key Metrics | Insights | Challenges |
| Conversion | Number of conversions, time to conversion, cost per conversion, average order size, cart abandonment rate. | Helps address issues like cart abandonment and refine the purchase process to increase conversions. | Identifying points of customer drop-off during the checkout process and minimizing friction to boost conversion rates. |
| Loyalty | Rate of repeat purchases, time between purchases, number of orders per customer, account activation rate, engagement with rewards programs. | Allows businesses to assess strategies for customer retention, boost long-term sales, and improve customer relationship management. | Maintaining long-term customer interest and optimizing loyalty programs to encourage consistent repeat business. |
The elements of a digital marketing strategy
A digital marketing strategy is a structured plan designed to achieve specific business goals through online channels. It aligns with broader business objectives and outlines how to use digital platforms effectively.
Before diving into tasks like ad campaigns or social media outreach, it’s crucial to first research your audience and set clear, measurable goals. This research helps you understand who your target audience is and what you want to achieve. With this foundation, you can craft a strategy that guides potential customers through each stage of the digital marketing funnel, using the most effective tactics and media mix. The media mix refers to the combination of digital channels you’ll use to achieve your goals and how your budget is distributed across those channels. To select the right mix, start by reviewing your existing content to identify gaps. From there, decide which channels to focus on, what type of content and campaigns to run on each, and how to allocate your resources.
Once your strategy is set, the next step is creating the content you’ll need for your campaigns. This includes everything from email templates and video animations to ad copy and banner images. Lastly, it’s essential to develop a plan to measure and analyze your results. Regular evaluation ensures you can refine your approach and make improvements over time, maximizing your success.
Find your audience and understand your customers
Knowing your audience involves learning details about their lives, such as their geographic location, interests, online activities, and preferences. It’s important to understand what content your audience likes and how they like to consume it.
Customer personas represent a group of similar people in a desirable audience. Demographics of the customer, Identifiers of the customer, Background of the customer, Challenges the customer faces, Goals the customer has, What our product/ service can do for them. Marketing automation tools like HubSpot, Xtensio, and Up Close & Persona have persona generators built in.
Define your marketing goals
Setting marketing goals is essential for aligning digital marketing efforts with broader business objectives. While business goals are long-term, overarching aims like increasing profits or expanding customer bases, marketing goals are more targeted and focused on specific marketing activities such as raising brand awareness or generating leads.
To ensure alignment, both types of goals need to be specific and measurable. For example, if a business goal is to grow the customer base by 25% over two years, a related marketing goal could be increasing lead generation by 40% through targeted ads and budget adjustments.
Here are some types of media:
| Media Type | Paid Media | Owned Media | Earned Media |
| Definition | Digital promotion a brand pays for, such as banner ads, video ads, and social media ads. | Content fully controlled by the brand, including website content, blogs, social media posts, eBooks, and case studies. | Positive digital exposure generated by customers through reviews, social media mentions, or press coverage, not paid for by the company. |
| Examples | Banner ads, social media ads, pop-ups, shopping ads. | Website content, blogs, eBooks, whitepapers, social media content. | Customer reviews, social media mentions, blog posts, product profiles, positive press. |
| Advantages | Produces quick results and can drive traffic to owned and earned media. | Persuasive and informative, provides value to customers, helps retain traffic from paid media. | Builds trust and reputation, extends brand reach through authentic customer endorsements. |
| Challenges | Results stop as soon as you stop paying; can be costly over time. | Can’t generate traffic on its own; relies on paid media or strong search engine rankings. | Not controlled by the company, relies on customer perception and can’t be directly influenced. |
Introduction to SEO and SEM:
| Aspect | SEO (Search Engine Optimization) | SEM (Search Engine Marketing) |
| Purpose | Improve organic search rankings to drive more and better-quality traffic. | Generate traffic through paid ads displayed in search engine results pages (SERPs). |
| Key Practices/Model | Keyword research, quality content creation, and well-structured website. | Pay-per-click (PPC) model with bidding on keywords and ad placement. |
| Traffic Type | Organic traffic from search engines. | Paid traffic from search engines. |
| Time to See Results | Takes time to see results as rankings build gradually. | Provides immediate results once ads are live. |
| Cost | No direct costs but requires ongoing investment in content and optimization. | Costs are associated with each click (CPC) based on bid and competition. |
| Control | Limited control over placement; relies on search algorithms. | Full control over ad placement and landing pages. |
| Longevity of Impact | Long-lasting impact once high rankings are achieved. | Short-term impact; ads disappear once you stop paying. |
| Remarketing | No direct remarketing capabilities. | Allows remarketing to previous visitors through targeted ads across different sites. |
Display advertising
Display advertising refers to visual ad formats, such as images, text, videos, or GIFs, that are placed on webpages or apps to promote a brand, product, or service. These ads are distributed through display networks, which consist of a group of websites, videos, and apps. Marketers use these networks, like the Google Display Network, to target specific audiences based on factors such as context and location.
Additionally, ad exchanges act as digital marketplaces where advertisers bid in real-time to purchase ad space across multiple networks, with tools like demand-side platforms helping them manage the bidding process.
Types of display ads include:
- Image ads: Static or animated visuals to engage customers.
- Text ads: Simple text-based ads on websites.
- Responsive ads: Ads that automatically adjust to fit available space, often blending in as native content.
- App promotion ads: Ads designed to drive app downloads by linking directly to app stores.
Display ads help businesses visually engage with their target audience across a variety of platforms.
Introduction to social media and email marketing
| Channel | Reach | Strengths | Challenges | Collaboration |
| Social Media Marketing | Broad reach; effective for finding new audiences and generating engagement on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. | Great for reaching large audiences, running ads, and generating earned media through viral content. | Businesses can’t control social media platforms; algorithm changes or platform shutdowns can impact reach. | Social media can help grow email lists by driving sign-ups through ads and interactive content. |
| Email Marketing | More targeted; focuses on nurturing existing customer relationships and driving engagement through direct communication. | Highly cost-effective, with an average return of over $40 for every dollar spent, and offers full control over content. | Limited reach compared to social media, as it focuses on customers who have already expressed interest. | Email marketing nurtures relationships with customers gained through social media, ensuring long-term engagement. |
Choose the right social media platforms for your target audience
| Goal | Recommended Platform | Key Strategy | Pro Tip |
| Build Connections | Twitter (interactive, conversation-based platform) | Engage users through frequent, authentic interactions and provide responsive customer service. | Be proactive in initiating authentic connections with your community. |
| Target New Customers | Instagram (visual storytelling and influencer marketing) | Leverage influencer marketing and use dynamic visuals to tell your brand’s story. | Ensure influencers you collaborate with have audiences interested in your product. |
| Drive Traffic to Website | Facebook (link sharing, articles, reviews, and products) | Share fresh, informative content with links back to your landing page to drive traffic. | Couple brand voice and visuals cohesively to encourage website visitors. |
Email marketing is a strategy where brands send messages to a list of subscribers to share relevant content, drive sales, or build a community. Unlike spam, which is unsolicited and often irrelevant, email marketing targets subscribers who have opted in to receive communications. Effective email marketing helps brands maintain relationships with customers through segmentation and personalization.
- Segmentation involves dividing the subscriber list into smaller groups based on factors like interests or purchase history, allowing brands to send more relevant content.
- Personalization customizes emails for individual subscribers, such as addressing recipients by name, sending promotions based on events like birthdays, or following up on past interactions.
Together, segmentation and personalization help ensure that brands send the right content to the right people at the right time, building stronger customer relationships.
Types of email campaigns
| Email Campaign Type | Purpose | Marketing Funnel Stage |
| Acquisition Emails | Acquire new customers before they consider the brand, offering something for free like guides or trials. | Awareness |
| Welcome Emails | Engage new customers or subscribers, encouraging deeper interaction with the brand. | Consideration |
| Newsletters | Provide news and updates relevant to subscribers, fitting into various funnel stages like consideration, conversion, and loyalty. | Consideration, Conversion, Loyalty |
| Promotional Emails | Promote new or existing products and services, encouraging action from subscribers. | Consideration, Loyalty |
| Retention Emails | Maintain and nurture relationships with current customers, ensuring continued loyalty. | Loyalty |
Measure progress with performance marketing
In digital marketing, there are numerous ways to assess the success of your tactics and campaigns. Performance marketing is the process of using concrete data about customer behaviors to plan, refine, and optimize marketing strategies, focusing on measurable outcomes such as clicks, conversions, and revenue.
Performance marketers set specific, measurable goals and track key metrics to evaluate success. Common performance metrics include impressions, cost per click (CPC), customer lifetime value (CLV), and return on ad spend (ROAS). For example, ROAS measures the revenue generated from an ad compared to the cost of running it. If you spend $100 on an ad and earn $150 in return, your ROAS is 150%. By analyzing these metrics, marketers can identify areas for improvement or further strengthen successful strategies.
Introduction to metrics
A metric is a quantifiable measurement that is used to track and assess a business objective. Metrics help determine the success of marketing initiatives and campaigns.
Tracking metrics helps digital marketers gauge how close they are to meeting goals. Each metric measures something specific, and therefore each metric tells a marketer something different about their campaign. Metrics can reveal important information about marketing campaigns, such as return on investment (ROI), return on ad spend (ROAS), cost per sale, and online and sales revenue.
Metrics in the marketing funnel
| Marketing Funnel Stage | Key Metrics |
| Awareness | Audience data, user personas. |
| Consideration | Cost of acquisition, click-through rates (CTR). |
| Conversion | Sales conversion rates, average order values, cart abandonment rates. |
| Loyalty | Customer retention rate, customer lifetime value (CLV). |
Working with data
Performance marketing generates a large amount of data, from impressions and clicks at the top of the funnel to conversion and sales metrics at the bottom. This data is essential for the entire marketing and sales cycle. By analyzing marketing data, businesses can plan campaigns, predict future behaviors, and assess whether they are meeting their Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). KPIs, such as ROAS (Return on Ad Spend), measure how successfully a business is reaching its goals.
If a business isn’t meeting its KPIs, it may need to prioritize different metrics. This is where data analytics comes in—a crucial skill in digital marketing. It involves monitoring and evaluating data to gain actionable insights.
Key responsibilities in data analytics include:
- Data pulling: Collecting data from various sources (like Facebook, Google, etc.) and organizing it into spreadsheets or databases for easier access and comparison.
- Data reporting: Summarizing and organizing data to track performance and spot trends, making it easier to interpret results.
- Data analysis: Examining data to draw conclusions, predict trends, and make decisions. It explains the “why” behind the results and suggests next steps for optimizing strategies.
In summary, working with data is vital for understanding how well marketing strategies are performing and for making informed decisions. Data analytics helps you assess whether you’re meeting goals, predict customer behavior, and refine future strategies.
Attribution models for digital marketing
Attribution in digital marketing is the process of determining which marketing touchpoints contribute to customer actions like conversions, sign-ups, or purchases. With multiple touchpoints influencing a customer’s journey, it’s crucial to identify which efforts are most effective. This allows businesses to allocate resources efficiently.
| Attribution Model | Description | Key Advantage |
| Data-Driven Attribution | Analyzes customer interactions across channels and assigns credit to touchpoints based on their likelihood to lead to conversions. | Uses real customer data for a more accurate view of touchpoint effectiveness. |
| First-Click Attribution | Gives full credit to the first touchpoint in the customer journey that led to a conversion. | Highlights the importance of initial interactions in the customer journey. |
| Last-Click Attribution | Assigns all the credit to the last touchpoint before the customer takes action or makes a purchase. | Focuses on the last action that leads directly to a conversion or purchase. |
| Linear Attribution | Distributes credit equally among all touchpoints in the customer journey, recognizing each interaction’s influence. | Provides a balanced view of the entire customer journey, crediting all touchpoints. |
Data storytelling basics
Data storytelling is about turning raw data into a compelling narrative that drives action. While data provides valuable insights, it’s the story built around it that helps explain why something happened and why it’s important. A strong data story can influence decisions and engage key stakeholders.
A data story has three key components:
- Data: Think of data points as characters. You need to highlight the most important ones (lead characters) while supporting them with others that add value. Focus on the data that answers specific questions, like comparing the return on ad spend (ROAS) of a campaign.
- Narrative: This is the plot of the story—how you connect the data points to explain what’s happening. The narrative should show why the insights matter and how they can guide future actions.
- Visualizations: These are the graphic elements like charts, graphs, or infographics that help clarify trends and relationships between data points. Visualizations make the story clearer and easier to understand, much like costumes and stage sets in a play.
By combining data, narrative, and visualizations, data storytelling turns complex insights into persuasive, actionable stories. It’s a vital tool in digital marketing for communicating key findings and influencing decisions.
Story structure
Data Story Structure is essential for turning data insights into a compelling narrative in digital marketing. A well-structured data story consists of three key elements: Context, Complication, and Resolution.
Here’s how each part works, along with an example for a social media campaign:
- Context: This is the background or framing of your data. For example, your social media campaign’s goal was to increase both brand awareness and engagement. Last year, engagement rates were low, and the goal this year was to grow your follower base and improve interaction.
- Complication: The complication is the challenge or change revealed by the data. While your data shows that engagement on your social media posts has increased (likes, shares, comments), your follower count remains stagnant. This discrepancy highlights that while existing followers are interacting, the campaign isn’t attracting new ones.
- Resolution: The resolution suggests the action or solution based on the data insights. In this case, your team might adjust the strategy to focus more on paid promotions or influencer partnerships to attract new followers. You could also optimize content for a wider audience by using trending hashtags or running targeted ads.
In summary, data storytelling combines context, complication, and resolution to clearly explain what the data reveals and what actions should be taken. This approach helps turn raw data into actionable insights for digital marketing campaigns.