What Is Digital Marketing?
The use of digital channels that a business or corporation uses to advertise or promote its products or services to customers is known as digital marketing. Many mobile and web-based websites, the internet, social networks, and other channels are utilized to promote digital marketing.
How Successful is Digital Marketing?
Since the advent of digitalization, It has been noticed that the crowds of shoppers in the market have decreased, and it’s now observed that more shoppers purchase online for themselves as well as their family members. Therefore, there are numerous benefits of advertising your company online, as you’re trying to target the right people and that audience is online.
Benefits of Digital Marketing
You can reach a wider audience within a smaller period. Technology advancements have led to significant loss of customers of traditional departments and agencies. Customers have shifted to phones, tablets and computers, which are the areas in which digital marketers have made significant progress.
History of Digital Marketing
“Digital Marketing” Digital Marketing was first used in the late 1990s. The digital age exploded due to the rise of the web and the advent of the Web 1.0 platform. It was the Web 1.0 platform allowed users to search for the information they needed, but it did not permit them to make this information available on the internet. In the beginning, marketers across the world were not sure about the online platform. They weren’t sure whether their strategies would be successful as the internet had not yet been widely used.
In 1993 the very first banner that could be clicked became live and, following that, HotWired bought some banner ads to use in their advertisements. This was the beginning of the transition to a digital age of marketing. Due to this gradual change that year saw new technologies emerge in the market of digital. That exact year, Yahoo was established.
Also known under the name “Jerry’s Guide to the World Wide Web” following the founding founder Jerry Yang, Yahoo received more than 1 million hits in its first year. The result was a radical shift in the world of digital marketing and saw companies optimize their websites in order to gain better rankings in search engines. 1996 saw the introduction of several additional search engines and tools such as HotBot, LookSmart, and Alexa.
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1998 was the year in 1998 the birth of Google. Microsoft introduced in 1998 the MSN search engine in 1998 and Yahoo was the first to launch Yahoo internet search. Then, two years later, the Internet bubble burst, and the small search engines were abandoned or destroyed, leaving room for the huge players in the market. The world of digital marketing experienced its first major surge in 2006, when searches on search engines were reported to have increased to 6.4 billion in one month. Never one to be out of the game, Microsoft put MSN on the back burner and introduced Live Search to compete with Google and Yahoo.
It was followed by Web 2.0, where people became more active participants than being passive users. Web 2.0 allows users to communicate with each other and businesses. Labels such as’super information highway were first applied for the Internet. In the end, the amount of information flow – which includes channels that are used by digital marketers have increased exponentially in 2004, and by 2004 marketing and advertising on the internet across the US alone had brought in approximately $2.9 billion.
Eventually, social networking websites started to appear. MySpace is the very first social media site to be launched, and was soon being followed shortly by Facebook. A lot of companies realized that the new websites that were appearing began to open up new opportunities for them to advertise their brands and products. This opened up new possibilities for business and ushered in the new era of business. With the new tools and new strategies, businesses needed to find new ways to market their brands and take advantage of the social networking platform.
The cookie was another important milestone in the digital marketing business. Advertisers were beginning to explore other methods to make use of the emerging technology. One of these methods was to observe the typical web browsing habits and patterns of usage of users who frequent the internet to make marketing and promotions more personalized to their needs. The first cookie was created to keep track of user behavior. The purpose of cookies has evolved through the years, and now, cookies are designed to provide marketers with a range of ways to collect user information.
Digitally-marketed products are now accessible to customers 24/7. The data gathered from Marketingtechblog for 2014 Marketingtechblog for 2014 indicate that social media posts is the most popular activity online for businesses in the US. A typical American uses 37 minutes per day using social media. 99% of digital marketers use Facebook to market, 97% use Twitter, 69% use Pinterest and 59% use Instagram. 70 percent of B2C marketers have gotten customers via Facebook. 67 percent of Twitter users are much more likely to purchase from brands they follow on Twitter. 83.8 percent of luxury brands are on Pinterest. Top three network websites that marketers use comprise LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook.
Evolution of Digital Marketing – The Timeline
The 90s
Archie was the initial search engine was launched in the 1990s’ early years and marked the beginning of the search industry. SEO, which stands for Search Engine Optimization was soon was soon.
The first clickable banners on the internet were released in 1994. The first publicly identifiable social media website was launched in 1997, boasting 3.5 million registered users. In the 90s several websites that are still active were identified which included Google and Yahoo’s Web Search that both launched in 1998.
The Millennial Generation
A massive bubble in the economy grew during the 2000s. However, the peak and then its burst in the years 2000-2002 was a disaster for numerous companies. A number of new websites were created in the late 2000s, as the economy rebounded from the recession and the rise of LinkedIn in 2002, Myspace and WordPress in 2003, and Facebook in 2004. In the 2000s, mobile text messaging for marketing began to become more popular.
The Mobile Era
The second part of the decade witnessed more sales and marketing. Amazon’s sales on e-commerce surpassed $10 billion. In the coming years, the popularity of mobile apps increased thanks to the introduction of Whatsapp, Instagram, and Snapchat to the world of digital.
The Present
Today, around 65 percent of a person’s media time is used on a mobile device. The market for digital advertising is currently valued at $200 billion in the United States, with Google Ad Words accounting for 96 percent of its revenues. With an estimated 3.1 billion people, online social networks have led the way to a digital marketing revolution. The growth of bloggers and Instagram has led to a market worth $1 billion for influencers, and is expected to expand. Digital marketing is predicted to increase in the next years, as there are numerous new developments and shifts in this exciting field.