What Is Digital Marketing?
Digital marketing is the promotion of products, services or ideas through digital channels. It includes search engines, websites, social media, email, online video, apps and digital ads. If a customer can see it on a screen, it can be part of digital marketing.
The goal is the same as any marketing: to reach the right people, earn their trust and persuade them to act. What changes is the method. Digital channels let businesses target specific audiences, test ideas quickly and measure results in detail.
Online shopping keeps growing as a share of what people buy. The US Census Bureau tracks e-commerce sales each quarter, and they now make up a significant and rising share of total US retail sales.1 Even businesses that sell offline rely on digital channels, because many customers research online before they visit or call.
Digital vs Traditional Marketing
Traditional marketing uses offline media such as TV, radio, print and billboards, while digital marketing uses online channels. Most businesses use some of both.
| Feature | Traditional | Digital |
|---|---|---|
| Examples | TV ads, radio, newspapers, flyers, billboards | Search, social media, email, online ads, content |
| Targeting | Broad, by region or audience type | Precise, by interests, behavior, search terms or location |
| Measurement | Estimates, surveys and indirect signals | Clicks, sign-ups and sales tracked directly |
| Cost to start | Often high minimum spend | Can start small or free |
| Speed to change | Slow: print and broadcast take time | Fast: ads and pages can change in minutes |
| Two-way contact | Mostly one-way | Comments, replies and messages |
Digital marketing is not automatically better. A local TV ad can still work well for some businesses. The strength of digital is that you can test cheaply, learn quickly and put more money behind what works.
The Main Types of Digital Marketing
Digital marketing is a set of channels, and each one suits different goals.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
SEO improves your website so it appears in unpaid search results. People who search are already looking for something, so the traffic is often high in intent. Results take time, but a well-ranked page can bring visitors for years. Our explainer on SEO covers how it works.
Search Engine Marketing (Paid Search)
Paid search places ads above or beside search results. You usually pay when someone clicks, which is called pay-per-click (PPC). It brings traffic quickly, but stops when you stop paying. Paid and unpaid search often work together.
Content Marketing
Content marketing creates useful articles, videos, guides and tools that attract and help your audience. It builds trust before people buy. Our explainer on content marketing goes deeper.
Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing uses platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn, YouTube and X. It includes regular posts, community management, creator partnerships and paid social ads. Each platform has its own audience and style.
Email Marketing
Email marketing sends messages to people who have agreed to hear from you. Because you own the list, no platform can take your audience away. Our explainer on email marketing explains how to do it well.
Display and Video Advertising
Display ads are banners and images shown on websites and apps. Video ads run on platforms such as YouTube and streaming services. They are often used to build awareness and to remind past visitors about you.
Affiliate and Influencer Marketing
Affiliate marketing pays partners a commission when they send you a sale. Influencer marketing pays or gifts creators to feature your product. Both depend on honest disclosure, which US law requires, as covered below.
Local and Mobile Marketing
Local marketing helps nearby customers find you through maps, local search and reviews. Our explainer on local SEO covers it. Mobile marketing includes text messages, apps and mobile-first design.
Owned, Earned and Paid Media
A simple way to organize digital marketing is by who controls the channel: owned, earned or paid.
| Type | What it is | Examples | Strength |
|---|---|---|---|
| Owned | Channels you control | Website, blog, email list, app | Low ongoing cost, you keep the audience |
| Earned | Attention you earn rather than buy | Search rankings, shares, reviews, press, links | High trust and lasting value |
| Paid | Attention you buy | Search ads, social ads, sponsorships | Fast, scalable and easy to target |
The strongest strategies connect all three. Paid ads bring people to owned pages. Good owned content earns links, shares and rankings. Earned attention brings new people onto your email list, which you own.
How Digital Marketing Works: The Customer Journey
People rarely buy the first time they hear of a business, so digital marketing guides them through stages.
- Awareness: someone discovers you, perhaps through a social post, a video or a search result.
- Consideration: they compare options, read reviews and visit your site. Helpful content and clear answers matter most here.
- Conversion: they buy, book or sign up. A clear page, a simple form and a reason to act now make the difference.
- Loyalty: they come back and recommend you. Email, good service and community keep the relationship going.
Different channels help at different stages. That is why relying on one channel alone tends to leave gaps. A business might run social ads for awareness, rank in search for comparison terms and use email to bring buyers back.
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Get the Newsletter →Measuring Digital Marketing
Measurement is digital marketing’s biggest advantage, but only if you track the numbers that matter to your goals.
- Traffic: how many people visit, and from which channels.
- Engagement: how long they stay, what they read and whether they come back.
- Conversion rate: the share of visitors who take a key action. Our explainer on conversion rate covers it in detail.
- Cost per acquisition (CPA): how much you spend to win one customer.
- Return on ad spend (ROAS): revenue earned for every dollar spent on ads.
- Customer lifetime value (CLV): how much a typical customer spends with you over time.
Free tools cover the basics. Website analytics shows traffic and conversions, Google Search Console shows search performance and ad platforms report on each campaign. The key is to set goals before you start, so you know what success looks like.
Beware of vanity metrics. Likes, follower counts and impressions can look good without leading to sales. Tie every channel back to a business result where you can.
The Rules: Advertising Law Applies Online
The same truth-in-advertising rules apply online as offline, and the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) enforces them.2
- Be truthful. Ads must not be deceptive, and claims must be backed by evidence.2
- Disclose endorsements. Influencers and affiliates must clearly disclose when they are paid, given free products or have a business link. A hidden or vague disclosure is not enough.3
- Follow email rules. The CAN-SPAM Act requires accurate sender details, honest subject lines, a physical address and an easy way to opt out, honored promptly.4
- Keep reviews genuine. Fake reviews and testimonials are banned under an FTC rule finalized in 2024.
Privacy rules matter too. Several US states have their own consumer privacy laws, and many other countries have stricter rules on tracking and cookies. If you collect personal data, be clear about what you collect and why.
How to Build a Simple Digital Marketing Plan
A plan does not need to be complex, but it should be clear about goals, audience and channels.
- Set one main goal. For example, more online bookings, more email sign-ups or more product sales.
- Define your audience. Who they are, what problems they have and where they spend time online.
- Get your website right. Every channel sends people somewhere. Make sure that place loads fast, works on phones and makes the next step obvious.
- Choose two or three channels to start. Pick the ones closest to your audience and your budget.
- Create a content and campaign calendar. Plan what you will publish or run, and when.
- Measure and adjust monthly. Put more effort into what works and fix or drop what does not.
Research helps at every step. Our explainer on keyword research shows how to find the words your audience uses, and our explainer on search intent explains what they want when they search.
A Worked Example
Here is a made-up example of a small online business using several channels together.
Lena sells handmade candles online. She starts by improving her product pages and writing guides such as “how to make a candle burn evenly.” These guides begin to rank in search over a few months and bring steady visitors.
She adds an email sign-up offering a short care guide. Visitors who join get a welcome series and a monthly email with new scents. Email becomes her most reliable source of repeat sales.
For faster reach, she runs a small social ad campaign to people interested in home decor, sending them to her best-selling candles. Her ads cost about $0.60 a click, and roughly 1 in 30 visitors buys a $35 candle, so each sale costs about $18 in ads. She tracks cost per sale and keeps only the ads that pay for themselves. Together, search, email and paid social cover awareness, consideration, conversion and loyalty.
Digital Marketing and AI
AI tools are changing how marketers research, create and measure, but they do not replace a clear strategy.
Marketers use AI to draft copy ideas, summarize data, suggest audiences and automate routine tasks. Ad platforms use machine learning to decide who sees which ad and at what price. Our explainer on generative AI covers how these tools create content.
AI output still needs human checking. Generated text can contain errors or invented facts, and brand voice matters. Search engines also change as AI answers appear on results pages, which makes genuinely useful, original content more valuable.
Budgeting for Digital Marketing
There is no single right budget, but a clear method stops money drifting into channels that do not pay back.
Start with what a customer is worth. If a typical customer spends $300 with you over a year, you can work out how much you can afford to spend to win one. That figure becomes your target cost per acquisition.
Split spending between building and buying. Building means owned and earned channels such as content, SEO and email, which take time but keep working. Buying means paid ads, which bring faster results that stop when spending stops. Many small businesses put most of their early effort into building, with a small ad budget for testing.
Test small before scaling. Run a modest campaign, measure cost per sale, then increase spending only on ads that pay for themselves. Our explainer on break-even point shows how to work out when spending turns into profit.
Time is also a cost. Writing content, managing social media and answering messages all take hours. Count that time when you compare channels, not just the cash you spend.
Skills Behind Good Digital Marketing
Digital marketing rewards a mix of creative, analytical and technical skills. Small teams often have one person covering several of them.
- Writing: clear headlines, product pages, emails and ads.
- Analysis: reading reports, spotting patterns and testing ideas.
- Design basics: simple, readable layouts that work on phones.
- Customer understanding: knowing the problems your audience wants solved.
Common Digital Marketing Mistakes
Most problems come from spreading too thin or measuring the wrong things.
- Trying every channel at once instead of doing two or three well.
- Sending traffic to a weak website that is slow, confusing or hard to use on a phone.
- Chasing vanity metrics such as likes rather than sales or sign-ups.
- Relying on one platform you do not own, which can change its rules overnight.
- Skipping disclosures on paid partnerships, which breaks FTC rules.3
- Giving up too early. SEO and content often take months to show results.
Key Terms Explained
- PPC: pay-per-click, an ad model where you pay each time someone clicks.
- Landing page: a page built for one campaign, with one clear action.
- CPA: cost per acquisition, what you spend to win one customer.
- ROAS: return on ad spend, the revenue earned for each dollar of ads.
- Retargeting: showing ads to people who visited your site before.
The Bottom Line
Digital marketing reaches people where they already spend time, and lets you measure exactly what works. Start with a strong website and one clear goal, pick two or three channels that fit your audience, follow the advertising rules and adjust based on real results. Over time, owned, earned and paid channels work best together. For more, browse our marketing explainers.
Frequently Asked Questions
It is marketing that uses the internet and digital devices to reach people. Examples include search, social media, email, websites and online ads.
The main types are SEO, paid search, content marketing, social media, email, display and video ads, and affiliate or influencer marketing. Most businesses combine several.
Not always, but it is easier to target and measure. Many businesses use both, with digital channels handling most testing and tracking.
It can start free, with SEO, social posts and email, and grow to any budget for paid ads. The key is to track results so spending follows what works.
It depends on your customers. Local businesses often start with local SEO and reviews, while online shops often start with search, email and social media.
Yes. The FTC requires clear disclosure when an influencer is paid, given free products or has a business link to a brand. The disclosure should be easy to notice and understand.
Sources
- 1US Census Bureau: Quarterly Retail E-Commerce Sales
- 2US Federal Trade Commission: Advertising and Marketing on the Internet, Rules of the Road
- 3US Federal Trade Commission: FTC’s Endorsement Guides, What People Are Asking
- 4US Federal Trade Commission: CAN-SPAM Act, A Compliance Guide for Business
Every figure in this article is checked against the sources above. How we research and fact-check →
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