What is digital marketing?

We'll delve into what digital marketing is and give you some insider insight.

Digital marketing is essentially promoting and advertising on the web. I'm sure most of us could have guessed that.

The real question is how and where does one digitally market? Well, there are a number of different online platforms where netizens gather. Digital markers use proprietary adverting tools that are designed and supplied by these different platforms. Depending on your business objectives and budget the digital marketer would then tailor your campaign to suit these goals.

These advertising tools can be altered to target end users according to browsing history, purchases, and even demographics.

Example: Jimmy likes to go hiking and recently purchased a tent from Rob's Online Sports Shop. The digital marketer could then target Jimmy and other end users like him via these advertising tools.

How does digital marketing work?

Ever heard of "cookies"? To explain it in layman's terms, cookies are small files of data that are sent from web servers to your browser. They communicate with each other and hold small pieces of information which assist in speeding up your browsing experience. Most people are kind of shocked to hear this but, it's not new.

Now how does this relate to digital marketing? Cookies are essentially trackers which can be used by advertising tools for analytics like browsing history. The point is that these cookies help digital marketing reach your target audience.

Can anyone digitally market themselves?

Be it on Google, TikTok, Instagram, Amazon, Facebook, or any other online platform - they mostly offer some type of advertising option. Different sites use different algorithms, but they run with similar terminologies such as CPC (cost per click), auctions, and bidding.

If the above sounded a bit foreign to you that's probably because you haven't studied digital marketing. It's not rocket science but it does take time to wrap your head around what this all means. Sites like Google, Amazon, and Facebook do offer instruction manuals and training which could take you a good few days to complete and understand - that's per platform. Once you understand at least one platform's advertising solution, you may find it easier to master the others.

The moral of the story is that it is doable, you just need to put in the time. The other catch is that digital marketing takes time, which is why some people have made a full-time job of it.