Intro

Digital marketing typically refers to online marketing campaigns that appear on a computer, phone, tablet, or other device. It can take many forms, including online video, display ads, search engine marketing, paid social ads and social media posts.

Digital marketing is often compared to “traditional marketing” such as magazine ads, billboards, and direct mail. Oddly, television is usually lumped in with traditional marketing.

Why is online marketing important?

Any type of marketing can help your business thrive. However, internet marketing has become increasingly important because of how accessible digital channels are. In fact, there were 5.56 billion internet users globally as of February 2025.

From social media to emails, there are many ways to use digital marketing tactics in order to communicate with your target audience. Additionally, digital marketing has minimal upfront costs, making it a cost-effective marketing technique for small businesses.

 

                                                 

B2B versus B2C digital marketing

Digital marketing strategies work for B2B (business to business) as well as B2C (business to consumer) companies, but best practices differ significantly between the two. Here's a closer look at how digital marketing is used in B2B and B2C marketing strategies:

         

Types of digital marketing

There are as many specializations within digital marketing as there are ways of interacting using digital media. Here are a few key examples of types of digital marketing tactics.

          Search engine optimization

Search engine optimization, or SEO, is technically a marketing tool rather than a form of internet marketing in itself. It is often called "an art and a science."

The "science" part of SEO is what’s most important. SEO is a science because it requires you to research and weigh different contributing factors to achieve the highest possible ranking on a search engine results page (SERP).

Today, the most important elements to consider when optimizing a web page for search engines include:

• Quality and uniqueness of content
• Optimization of key elements for the targeted keyword (URL, title tag, H1, sub headlines)
• Level of user engagement (time on page, bounce rate)
• Number and quality of backlinks
• Internal linking
• 
  

In addition to the elements above, you need to prioritize technical SEO, which is all the back-end components of your site. This includes mobile-friendliness and loading times. Improving your technical SEO can help search engines better navigate and crawl your site.

The strategic use of these factors makes search engine optimization a science, but the unpredictability involved makes it an "art" that often requires experienced SEO professionals.

Ultimately, the goal is to rank at or near the top of the first page of a search engine’s result page or in Google's AI Overviews. This ensures that those searching for a specific query related to your brand can easily find your products or services. While there are many search engines, digital marketers often focus on Google since it's a global leader in the search engine market.

                       Content marketing

As mentioned, the quality of your content is a key component of an optimized page. As a result, SEO is a major factor in content marketing, an online marketing strategy based on the distribution of relevant and valuable content to a target audience.

As in any marketing strategy, the goal of content marketing is to attract leads that ultimately convert into customers. But it does so differently than traditional advertising. Instead of enticing prospects with potential value from a product or service, it offers value for free in the form of written material, such as:

• Blog posts
• E-books
• Newsletters
• Video or audio transcripts
• Whitepapers
• Infographics
• 84% of consumers expect companies to produce entertaining and helpful content experiences
• 62% of companies that have at least 5,000 employees produce content daily
• 92% of marketers believe that their company values content as an important asset

                 Social media marketing

Social media marketing means driving traffic and brand awareness by engaging people in discussion online. You can use social media marketing to highlight your brand, products, services, culture, and more. With billions of people spending their time engaging on social media platforms, focusing on social media marketing can be worthwhile.

The most popular digital platforms for social media marketing are Facebook, X, and Instagram, with LinkedIn and YouTube not far behind. Ultimately, which social media platforms you use for your business depends on your goals and audience. For example, if you want to find new leads for your FinTech startup, targeting your audience on LinkedIn is a good idea since industry professionals are active on the platform. On the other hand, running social media ads on Instagram may be better for your brand if you run a B2C focused on younger consumers.