New York Marketing

Automation Marketing

Marketing automation refers to software platforms and technologies designed for marketing departments and organizations to more effectively market on multiple channels online (such as email, social media, websites, etc.) and automate repetitive tasks.[1] Marketing departments, consultants and part-time marketing employees benefit by specifying criteria and outcomes for tasks and processes which are then interpreted, stored and executed by software, which increases efficiency and reduces human error.

Originally focused on email Marketing automation, Marketing automation refers to a broad range of automation and analytic tools for marketing[2] especially inbound marketing.

Marketing automation platforms are used as a hosted or web-based solution, and no software installation is required by a customer.

The use of a Marketing automation platform is to streamline sales and marketing organizations by replacing high-touch, repetitive manual processes with automated solutions.[3] Marketing automation is a platform that marketers use to plan, coordinate, manage and measure all of their marketing campaigns, both online and offline.

It is often used along with lifecycle marketing strategy to closely manage and nurture generated leads, aiming to convert leads into customers.[citation needed] Marketing automation is a subset of customer relationship management (CRM) or customer experience management (CXM) that focuses on the definition, segmentation, scheduling and tracking of marketing campaigns.

The use of Marketing automation makes processes that would otherwise have been performed manually much more efficient and makes new processes possible.

Marketing automation can be defined as a process where technology is used to automate several repetitive tasks that are undertaken on a regular basis in a marketing campaign.

A tool that allows an individual to design, execute and automate a time-bound marketing workflow can be called a Marketing automation platform.[citation needed] Marketing automation platforms allow marketers to automate and simplify client communication by managing complex omni-channel marketing strategies from a single tool.

Marketing automation assists greatly in areas like Lead Generation, Segmentation, Lead nurturing and lead scoring, Relationship marketing, Cross-sell and upsell, Retention, Marketing ROI measurement.

There are three categories of Marketing automation software: As of 25th May 2018 the General Data Protection Regulation came into effect, [5] this has had a large impact on the way marketing teams and organizations can manage their consumer data.

Any organization using Marketing automation tracking is required to ask consent from the consumer as well as provide transparency on how the data will be processed.

In order to effectively aid marketers in fully understanding customers and subsequently developing a strategic marketing plan, Marketing automation tools (MAT) are designed to perform eight key tasks:[6][verification needed]

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Conversion Rate Optimization

In internet marketing, and web analytics conversion optimization, or Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is a system for increasing the percentage of visitors to a website that convert into customers,[1] or more generally, take any desired action on a webpage.[2] It is commonly referred to as CRO.

Online Conversion rate optimization (or website optimization) was born out of the need of e-commerce marketers to improve their website's performance in the aftermath of the dot-com bubble, when tecnology companies started to be more aware about their spending, investing more in website analytics.

After the burst, with website creation being more accessible, tons of pages with bad user experience were created.

As competition grew on the web during the early 2000s, website analysis tools became available, and awareness of website usability grew, internet marketers were prompted to produce measurables for their tactics and improve their website's user experience.

In 2004, new tools enabled internet marketers to experiment with website design and content variations to determine which layouts, copy text, offers, and images perform best.

Testing started to be more accessible and known.

This form of optimization accelerated in 2007 with the introduction of the free tool Google Website Optimizer.[3] Today, optimization and conversion are key aspects of many digital marketing campaigns.

A research study conducted among internet marketers in 2017, for example, showed that 50% of respondents thought that CRO was "crucial to their overall digital marketing strategy".[4] Conversion rate optimization shares many principles with direct response marketing – a marketing approach that emphasizes tracking, testing, and on-going improvement.

Direct marketing was popularized in the early twentieth century and supported by the formation of industry groups such as the Direct Marketing Association, which formed in 1917.[5] Like modern day Conversion rate optimization, direct response marketers also practice A/B split-testing, response tracking, and audience testing to optimize mail, radio, and print campaigns.[6] Conversion rate optimization seeks to increase the percentage of website visitors that take a specific action (often submitting a web form, making a purchase, signing up for a trial, etc.) by methodically testing alternate versions of a page or process.[citation needed] In doing so, businesses are able to generate more leads or sales without investing more money on website traffic, hence increasing their marketing return on investment and overall profitability.[7] Statistical significance helps understand that the result of a test is not achieved merely on the basis of chance.

There are several approaches to conversion optimization with two main schools of thought prevailing in the last few years.

One school is more focused on testing to discover the best way to increase website, campaign, or landing page conversion rates.

The other school is focused on the pretesting stage of the optimization process.[8] In this second approach, the optimization company will invest a considerable amount of time understanding the audience and then creating a targeted message that appeals to that particular audience.

Only then would it be willing to deploy testing mechanisms to increase conversion rates.

A conversion rate is defined as the percentage of visitors who complete a goal, as set by the site owner.

It is calculated as the total number of conversions, divided by the total number people who visited your website.

For example: Your website receives 100 visitors in a day and 15 visitors sign up for your email newsletter (your chosen conversion to measure).

Your conversion rate would be 15% for that day.

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Digital Marketing

Digital marketing is the component of marketing that utilizes internet and online based digital technologies such as desktop computers, mobile phones and other digital media and platforms to promote products and services.[1][2] Its development during the 1990s and 2000s, changed the way brands and businesses use technology for marketing.

As digital platforms became increasingly incorporated into marketing plans and everyday life,[3] and as people increasingly use digital devices instead of visiting physical shops,[4][5] Digital marketing campaigns have become prevalent, employing combinations of search engine optimization (SEO), search engine marketing (SEM), content marketing, influencer marketing, content automation, campaign marketing, data-driven marketing, e-commerce marketing, social media marketing, social media optimization, e-mail direct marketing, display advertising, e–books, and optical disks and games have become commonplace.

Digital marketing extends to non-Internet channels that provide digital media, such as television, mobile phones (SMS and MMS), callback, and on-hold mobile ring tones.[6] The extension to non-Internet channels differentiates Digital marketing from online marketing.[7] The development of Digital marketing is inseparable from technology development.

One of the key points in the start of was in 1971, where Ray Tomlinson sent the very first email and his technology set the platform to allow people to send and receive files through different machines.[8] However, the more recognisable period as being the start of Digital marketing is 1990 as this was where the Archie search engine was created as an index for FTP sites.

In the 1980s, the storage capacity of computer was already big enough to store huge volumes of customer information.

Companies started choosing online techniques, such as database marketing, rather than limited list broker.[9] These kinds of databases allowed companies to track customers' information more effectively, thus transforming the relationship between buyer and seller.

However, the manual process was not as efficient.

In the 1990s, the term Digital marketing was first coined,.[10] With the debut of server/client architecture and the popularity of personal computers, the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) applications became a significant factor in marketing technology.[11] Fierce competition forced vendors to include more service into their software, for example, marketing, sales and service applications.

Marketers were also able to own huge online customer data by eCRM software after the Internet was born.

Companies could update the data of customer needs and obtain the priorities of their experience.

This led to the first clickable banner ad being going live in 1994, which was the "You Will" campaign by AT&T and over the first four months of it going live, 44% of all people who saw it clicked on the ad.[12][13] In the 2000s, with increasing numbers of Internet users and the birth of iPhone, customers began searching products and making decisions about their needs online first, instead of consulting a salesperson, which created a new problem for the marketing department of a company.[14] In addition, a survey in 2000 in the United Kingdom found that most retailers had not registered their own domain address.[15] These problems encouraged marketers to find new ways to integrate digital technology into market development.

In 2007, marketing automation was developed as a response to the ever evolving marketing climate.

Marketing automation is the process by which software is used to automate conventional marketing processes.[16] Marketing automation helped companies segment customers, launch multichannel marketing campaigns, and provide personalized information for customers.[16] However, the speed of its adaptability to consumer devices was not fast enough.

Digital marketing became more sophisticated in the 2000s and the 2010s, when[17][18] the proliferation of devices' capable of accessing digital media led to sudden growth.[19] Statistics produced in 2012 and 2013 showed that Digital marketing was still growing.[20][21] With the development of social media in the 2000s, such as LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, consumers became highly dependent on digital electronics in daily lives.

Therefore, they expected a seamless user experience across different channels for searching product's information.

The change of customer behavior improved the diversification of marketing technology.[22] Digital marketing is also referred to as 'online marketing', 'internet marketing' or 'web marketing'.

The term Digital marketing has grown in popularity over time.

In the USA online marketing is still a popular term.

In Italy, Digital marketing is referred to as web marketing.

Worldwide Digital marketing has become the most common term, especially after the year 2013.[23] Digital media growth was estimated at 4.5 trillion online ads served annually with digital media spend at 48% growth in 2010.[24] An increasing portion of advertising stems from businesses employing Online Behavioural Advertising (OBA) to tailor advertising for internet users, but OBA raises concern of consumer privacy and data protection.[19] Nonlinear marketing, a type of interactive marketing, is a long-term marketing approach which builds on businesses collecting information about an Internet user's online activities, and trying to be visible in multiple areas.[25][26] Unlike traditional marketing techniques, which involve direct, one-way messaging to consumers (via print, television and radio advertising), nonlinear Digital marketing strategies are centered on reaching prospective customers across multiple online channels.[27] Combined with higher consumer knowledge and the demand for more sophisticated consumer offerings, this change has forced many businesses to rethink their outreach strategy and adopt or incorporate omnichannel, nonlinear marketing techniques to maintain sufficient brand exposure, engagement and reach.[28] Nonlinear marketing strategies involve efforts to adapt the advertising to different platforms,[29] and to tailor the advertising to different individual buyers rather than a large coherent audience.[26] Tactics may include: Some studies indicate that consumer responses to traditional marketing approaches are becoming less predictable for businesses.[30] According to a 2018 study, nearly 90% of online consumers in the United States researched products and brands online before visiting the store or making a purchase.[31] The Global Web Index estimated that in 2018, a little more than 50% of consumers researched products on social media.[32] Businesses often rely on individuals portraying their products in a positive light on social media, and may adapt their marketing strategy to target people with large social media followings in order to generate such comments.[33] In this manner, businesses can use consumers to advertise their products or services, decreasing the cost for the company.[34] One of the key objectives of modern Digital marketing is to raise brand awareness, the extent to which customers and the general public are familiar with and recognize a particular brand.

Enhancing brand awareness is important in Digital marketing, and marketing in general, because of its impact on brand perception and consumer decision-making.

According to the 2015 essay, “Impact of Brand on Consumer Behavior”: “Brand awareness, as one of the fundamental dimensions of brand equity, is often considered to be a prerequisite of consumers’ buying decision, as it represents the main factor for including a brand in the consideration set.

Brand awareness can also influence consumers’ perceived risk assessment and their confidence in the purchase decision, due to familiarity with the brand and its characteristics.”[35] Recent trends show that businesses and digital marketers are prioritizing brand awareness, focusing more of their Digital marketing efforts on cultivating brand recognition and recall than in previous years.

This is evidenced by a 2019 Content Marketing Institute study, which found that 81% of digital marketers have worked on enhancing brand recognition over the past year.[36] Another Content Marketing Institute survey revealed 89% of B2B marketers now believe improving brand awareness to be more important than efforts directed at increasing sales.[37] Increasing brand awareness is a focus of Digital marketing strategy for a number of reasons: Digital marketing strategies may include the use of one or more online channels and techniques (omnichannel) to increase brand awareness among consumers.[45] Building brand awareness may involve such methods/tools as: Search engine optimization techniques may be used to improve the visibility of business websites and brand-related content for common industry-related search queries.[46] The importance of SEO to increasing brand awareness is said to correlate with the growing influence of search results and search features like featured snippets, knowledge panels and local SEO on customer behavior.[47] SEM, also known as PPC advertising, involves the purchase of ad space in prominent, visible positions atop search results pages and websites.

Search ads have been shown to have a positive impact on brand recognition, awareness and conversions.[48] 33% of searchers who click on paid ads do so because they directly respond to their particular search query.[49] 70% of marketers list increasing brand awareness as their number one goal for marketing on social media platforms.

Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube are listed as the top platforms currently used by social media marketing teams.[50] 56% of marketers believe personalized content – brand-centered blogs, articles, social updates, videos, landing pages – improves brand recall and engagement.[51] According to Mentionlytics, an active and consistent content strategy that incorporates elements of interactive content creation, social posting and guest blogging can improve brand awareness and loyalty by 88%.[52] One of the major changes that occurred in traditional marketing was the "emergence of Digital marketing" (Patrutiu Baltes, Loredana, 2015), this led to the reinvention of marketing strategies in order to adapt to this major change in traditional marketing (Patrutiu Baltes, Loredana, 2015).

As Digital marketing is dependent on technology which is ever-evolving and fast-changing, the same features should be expected from Digital marketing developments and strategies.

This portion is an attempt to qualify or segregate the notable highlights existing and being used as of press time.[when?] To summarize, Pull Digital marketing is characterized by consumers actively seeking marketing content while Push Digital marketing occurs when marketers send messages without that content being actively sought by the recipients.

An important consideration today while deciding on a strategy is that the digital tools have democratized the promotional landscape.

The new digital era has enabled brands to selectively target their customers that may potentially be interested in their brand or based on previous browsing interests.

Businesses can now use social media to select the age range, location, gender and interests of whom they would like their targeted post to be seen by.

Furthermore, based on a customer's recent search history they can be ‘followed’ on the internet so they see advertisements from similar brands, products and services,[58] This allows businesses to target the specific customers that they know and feel will most benefit from their product or service, something that had limited capabilities up until the digital era.

Digital marketing activity is still growing across the world according to the headline global marketing index.

A study published in September 2018, found that global outlays on Digital marketing tactics are approaching $100 billion.[59] Digital media continues to rapidly grow; while the marketing budgets are expanding, traditional media is declining (World Economics, 2015).[60] Digital media helps brands reach consumers to engage with their product or service in a personalised way.

Five areas, which are outlined as current industry practices that are often ineffective are prioritizing clicks, balancing search and display, understanding mobiles, targeting, viewability, brand safety and invalid traffic, and cross-platform measurement (Whiteside, 2016).[61] Why these practices are ineffective and some ways around making these aspects effective are discussed surrounding the following points.

Prioritizing clicks refers to display click ads, although advantageous by being ‘simple, fast and inexpensive’ rates for display ads in 2016 is only 0.10 percent in the United States.

This means one in a thousand click ads are relevant therefore having little effect.

This displays that marketing companies should not just use click ads to evaluate the effectiveness of display advertisements (Whiteside, 2016).[61] Balancing search and display for digital display ads are important; marketers tend to look at the last search and attribute all of the effectiveness to this.

This, in turn, disregards other marketing efforts, which establish brand value within the consumers mind.

ComScore determined through drawing on data online, produced by over one hundred multichannel retailers that digital display marketing poses strengths when compared with or positioned alongside, paid search (Whiteside, 2016).[61] This is why it is advised that when someone clicks on a display ad the company opens a landing page, not its home page.

A landing page typically has something to draw the customer in to search beyond this page.

Things such as free offers that the consumer can obtain through giving the company contact information so that they can use retargeting communication strategies (Square2Marketing, 2012).[62] Commonly marketers see increased sales among people exposed to a search ad.

But the fact of how many people you can reach with a display campaign compared to a search campaign should be considered.

Multichannel retailers have an increased reach if the display is considered in synergy with search campaigns.

Overall both search and display aspects are valued as display campaigns build awareness for the brand so that more people are likely to click on these digital ads when running a search campaign (Whiteside, 2016).[61] Understanding Mobiles: Understanding mobile devices is a significant aspect of Digital marketing because smartphones and tablets are now responsible for 64% of the time US consumers are online (Whiteside, 2016).[61] Apps provide a big opportunity as well as challenge for the marketers because firstly the app needs to be downloaded and secondly the person needs to actually use it.

This may be difficult as ‘half the time spent on smartphone apps occurs on the individuals single most used app, and almost 85% of their time on the top four rated apps’ (Whiteside, 2016).[61] Mobile advertising can assist in achieving a variety of commercial objectives and it is effective due to taking over the entire screen, and voice or status is likely to be considered highly; although the message must not be seen or thought of as intrusive (Whiteside, 2016).[61] Disadvantages of digital media used on mobile devices also include limited creative capabilities, and reach.

Although there are many positive aspects including the users entitlement to select product information, digital media creating a flexible message platform and there is potential for direct selling (Belch & Belch, 2012).[63] Cross-platform measurement: The number of marketing channels continues to expand, as measurement practices are growing in complexity.

A cross-platform view must be used to unify audience measurement and media planning.

Market researchers need to understand how the Omni-channel affects consumer's behaviour, although when advertisements are on a consumer's device this does not get measured.

Significant aspects to cross-platform measurement involves deduplication and understanding that you have reached an incremental level with another platform, rather than delivering more impressions against people that have previously been reached (Whiteside, 2016).[61] An example is ‘ESPN and comScore partnered on Project Blueprint discovering the sports broadcaster achieved a 21% increase in unduplicated daily reach thanks to digital advertising’ (Whiteside, 2016).[61] Television and radio industries are the electronic media, which competes with digital and other technological advertising.

Yet television advertising is not directly competing with online digital advertising due to being able to cross platform with digital technology.

Radio also gains power through cross platforms, in online streaming content.

Television and radio continue to persuade and affect the audience, across multiple platforms (Fill, Hughes, & De Franceso, 2013).[64] Targeting, viewability, brand safety and invalid traffic: Targeting, viewability, brand safety and invalid traffic all are aspects used by marketers to help advocate digital advertising.

Cookies are a form of digital advertising, which are tracking tools within desktop devices; causing difficulty, with shortcomings including deletion by web browsers, the inability to sort between multiple users of a device, inaccurate estimates for unique visitors, overstating reach, understanding frequency, problems with ad servers, which cannot distinguish between when cookies have been deleted and when consumers have not previously been exposed to an ad.

Due to the inaccuracies influenced by cookies, demographics in the target market are low and vary (Whiteside, 2016).[61] Another element, which is affected within Digital marketing, is ‘viewabilty’ or whether the ad was actually seen by the consumer.

Many ads are not seen by a consumer and may never reach the right demographic segment.

Brand safety is another issue of whether or not the ad was produced in the context of being unethical or having offensive content.

Recognizing fraud when an ad is exposed is another challenge marketers face.

This relates to invalid traffic as premium sites are more effective at detecting fraudulent traffic, although non-premium sites are more so the problem (Whiteside, 2016).[61] Digital marketing Channels are systems based on the Internet that can create, accelerate, and transmit product value from producer to a consumer terminal, through digital networks.[65][66] Digital marketing is facilitated by multiple Digital marketing channels, As an advertiser one's core objective is to find channels which result in maximum two-way communication and a better overall ROI for the brand.

There are multiple Digital marketing channels available namely;[67] It is important for a firm to reach out to consumers and create a two-way communication model, as Digital marketing allows consumers to give back feed back to the firm on a community based site or straight directly to the firm via email.[80] Firms should seek this long term communication relationship by using multiple forms of channels and using promotional strategies related to their target consumer as well as word-of mouth marketing.[80] The ICC Code has integrated rules that apply to marketing communications using digital interactive media throughout the guidelines.

There is also an entirely updated section dealing with issues specific to digital interactive media techniques and platforms.

Code self-regulation on use of digital interactive media includes: Digital marketing planning is a term used in marketing management.

It describes the first stage of forming a Digital marketing strategy for the wider Digital marketing system.

The difference between digital and traditional marketing planning is that it uses digitally based communication tools and technology such as Social, Web, Mobile, Scannable Surface.[84][85] Nevertheless, both are aligned with the vision, the mission of the company and the overarching business strategy.[86] Using Dr Dave Chaffey's approach, the Digital marketing planning (DMP) has three main stages: Opportunity, Strategy and Action.

He suggests that any business looking to implement a successful Digital marketing strategy must structure their plan by looking at opportunity, strategy and action.

This generic strategic approach often has phases of situation review, goal setting, strategy formulation, resource allocation and monitoring.[86] To create an effective DMP, a business first needs to review the marketplace and set 'SMART' (Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Relevant and Time-Bound) objectives.[87] They can set SMART objectives by reviewing the current benchmarks and key performance indicators (KPIs) of the company and competitors.

It is pertinent that the analytics used for the KPIs be customised to the type, objectives, mission and vision of the company.[88][89] Companies can scan for marketing and sales opportunities by reviewing their own outreach as well as influencer outreach.

This means they have competitive advantage because they are able to analyse their co-marketers influence and brand associations.[90] To cease opportunity, the firm should summarize their current customers' personas and purchase journey from this they are able to deduce their Digital marketing capability.

This means they need to form a clear picture of where they are currently and how many resources they can allocate for their Digital marketing strategy i.e.

labour, time etc.

By summarizing the purchase journey, they can also recognise gaps and growth for future marketing opportunities that will either meet objectives or propose new objectives and increase profit.

To create a planned digital strategy, the company must review their digital proposition (what you are offering to consumers) and communicate it using digital customer targeting techniques.

So, they must define online value proposition (OVP), this means the company must express clearly what they are offering customers online e.g.

brand positioning.

The company should also (re)select target market segments and personas and define digital targeting approaches.

After doing this effectively, it is important to review the marketing mix for online options.

The marketing mix comprises the 4Ps – Product, Price, Promotion and Place.[91][92] Some academics have added three additional elements to the traditional 4Ps of marketing Process, Place and Physical appearance making it 7Ps of marketing.[93] The third and final stage requires the firm to set a budget and management systems; these must be measurable touchpoints, such as audience reached across all digital platforms.

Furthermore, marketers must ensure the budget and management systems are integrating the paid, owned and earned media of the company.[94] The Action and final stage of planning also requires the company to set in place measurable content creation e.g.

oral, visual or written online media.[95] After confirming the Digital marketing plan, a scheduled format of digital communications (e.g.

Gantt Chart) should be encoded throughout the internal operations of the company.

This ensures that all platforms used fall in line and complement each other for the succeeding stages of Digital marketing strategy.

One way marketers can reach out to consumers, and understand their thought process is through what is called an empathy map.

An empathy map is a four step process.

The first step is through asking questions that the consumer would be thinking in their demographic.

The second step is to describe the feelings that the consumer may be having.

The third step is to think about what the consumer would say in their situation.

The final step is to imagine what the consumer will try to do based on the other three steps.

This map is so marketing teams can put themselves in their target demographics shoes.[96] Web Analytics are also a very important way to understand consumers.

They show the habits that people have online for each website.[97] One particular form of these analytics is predictive analytics which helps marketers figure out what route consumers are on.

This uses the information gathered from other analytics, and then creates different predictions of what people will do so that companies can strategize on what to do next, according to the peoples trends.[98] The "sharing economy" refers to an economic pattern that aims to obtain a resource that is not fully utilized.[101] Nowadays, the sharing economy has had an unimagined effect on many traditional elements including labor, industry, and distribution system.[101] This effect is not negligible that some industries are obviously under threat.[101][102] The sharing economy is influencing the traditional marketing channels by changing the nature of some specific concept including ownership, assets, and recruitment.[102] Digital marketing channels and traditional marketing channels are similar in function that the value of the product or service is passed from the original producer to the end user by a kind of supply chain.[103] Digital marketing channels, however, consist of internet systems that create, promote, and deliver products or services from producer to consumer through digital networks.[104] Increasing changes to marketing channels has been a significant contributor to the expansion and growth of the sharing economy.[104] Such changes to marketing channels has prompted unprecedented and historic growth.[104] In addition to this typical approach, the built-in control, efficiency and low cost of Digital marketing channels is an essential features in the application of sharing economy.[103] Digital marketing channels within the sharing economy are typically divided into three domains including, e-mail, social media, and search engine marketing or SEM.[104] Other emerging Digital marketing channels, particularly branded mobile apps, have excelled in the sharing economy.[104] Branded mobile apps are created specifically to initiate engagement between customers and the company.This engagement is typically facilitated through entertainment, information, or market transaction.[104]

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Search Engine Optimization

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of growing the quality and quantity of website traffic by increasing the visibility of a website or a web page to users of a web search engine.[1] SEO refers to the improvement of unpaid results (known as "natural" or "organic" results) and excludes direct traffic and the purchase of paid placement.

Additionally, it may target different kinds of searches, including image search, video search, academic search,[2] news search, and industry-specific vertical search engines.

Promoting a site to increase the number of backlinks, or inbound links, is another SEO tactic.

By May 2015, mobile search had surpassed desktop search.[3] As an Internet marketing strategy, SEO considers how search engines work, the computer-programmed algorithms that dictate search engine behavior, what people search for, the actual search terms or keywords typed into search engines, and which search engines are preferred by their targeted audience.

SEO is performed because a website will receive more visitors from a search engine when website ranks are higher in the search engine results page (SERP).

These visitors can then be converted into customers.[4] SEO differs from local Search engine optimization in that the latter is focused on optimizing a business' online presence so that its web pages will be displayed by search engines when a user enters a local search for its products or services.

The former instead is more focused on national or international searches.

Webmasters and content providers began optimizing websites for search engines in the mid-1990s, as the first search engines were cataloging the early Web.

Initially, all webmasters only needed to submit the address of a page, or URL, to the various engines which would send a web crawler to crawl that page, extract links to other pages from it, and return information found on the page to be indexed.[5] The process involves a search engine spider downloading a page and storing it on the search engine's own server.

A second program, known as an indexer, extracts information about the page, such as the words it contains, where they are located, and any weight for specific words, as well as all links the page contains.

All of this information is then placed into a scheduler for crawling at a later date.

Website owners recognized the value of a high ranking and visibility in search engine results,[6] creating an opportunity for both white hat and black hat SEO practitioners.

According to industry analyst Danny Sullivan, the phrase "Search engine optimization" probably came into use in 1997.

Sullivan credits Bruce Clay as one of the first people to popularize the term.[7] On May 2, 2007,[8] Jason Gambert attempted to trademark the term SEO by convincing the Trademark Office in Arizona[9] that SEO is a "process" involving manipulation of keywords and not a "marketing service." Early versions of search algorithms relied on webmaster-provided information such as the keyword meta tag or index files in engines like ALIWEB.

Meta tags provide a guide to each page's content.

Using metadata to index pages was found to be less than reliable, however, because the webmaster's choice of keywords in the meta tag could potentially be an inaccurate representation of the site's actual content.

Inaccurate, incomplete, and inconsistent data in meta tags could and did cause pages to rank for irrelevant searches.[10][dubious – discuss] Web content providers also manipulated some attributes within the HTML source of a page in an attempt to rank well in search engines.[11] By 1997, search engine designers recognized that webmasters were making efforts to rank well in their search engine, and that some webmasters were even manipulating their rankings in search results by stuffing pages with excessive or irrelevant keywords.

Early search engines, such as Altavista and Infoseek, adjusted their algorithms to prevent webmasters from manipulating rankings.[12] By relying so much on factors such as keyword density which were exclusively within a webmaster's control, early search engines suffered from abuse and ranking manipulation.

To provide better results to their users, search engines had to adapt to ensure their results pages showed the most relevant search results, rather than unrelated pages stuffed with numerous keywords by unscrupulous webmasters.

This meant moving away from heavy reliance on term density to a more holistic process for scoring semantic signals.[13] Since the success and popularity of a search engine is determined by its ability to produce the most relevant results to any given search, poor quality or irrelevant search results could lead users to find other search sources.

Search engines responded by developing more complex ranking algorithms, taking into account additional factors that were more difficult for webmasters to manipulate.

In 2005, an annual conference, AIRWeb (Adversarial Information Retrieval on the Web), was created to bring together practitioners and researchers concerned with Search engine optimization and related topics.[14] Companies that employ overly aggressive techniques can get their client websites banned from the search results.

In 2005, the Wall Street Journal reported on a company, Traffic Power, which allegedly used high-risk techniques and failed to disclose those risks to its clients.[15] Wired magazine reported that the same company sued blogger and SEO Aaron Wall for writing about the ban.[16] Google's Matt Cutts later confirmed that Google did in fact ban Traffic Power and some of its clients.[17] Some search engines have also reached out to the SEO industry, and are frequent sponsors and guests at SEO conferences, webchats, and seminars.

Major search engines provide information and guidelines to help with website optimization.[18][19] Google has a Sitemaps program to help webmasters learn if Google is having any problems indexing their website and also provides data on Google traffic to the website.[20] Bing Webmaster Tools provides a way for webmasters to submit a sitemap and web feeds, allows users to determine the "crawl rate", and track the web pages index status.

In 2015, it was reported that Google was developing and promoting mobile search as a key feature within future products.

In response, many brands began to take a different approach to their Internet marketing strategies.[21] In 1998, two graduate students at Stanford University, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, developed "Backrub", a search engine that relied on a mathematical algorithm to rate the prominence of web pages.

The number calculated by the algorithm, PageRank, is a function of the quantity and strength of inbound links.[22] PageRank estimates the likelihood that a given page will be reached by a web user who randomly surfs the web, and follows links from one page to another.

In effect, this means that some links are stronger than others, as a higher PageRank page is more likely to be reached by the random web surfer.

Page and Brin founded Google in 1998.[23] Google attracted a loyal following among the growing number of Internet users, who liked its simple design.[24] Off-page factors (such as PageRank and hyperlink analysis) were considered as well as on-page factors (such as keyword frequency, meta tags, headings, links and site structure) to enable Google to avoid the kind of manipulation seen in search engines that only considered on-page factors for their rankings.

Although PageRank was more difficult to game, webmasters had already developed link building tools and schemes to influence the Inktomi search engine, and these methods proved similarly applicable to gaming PageRank.

Many sites focused on exchanging, buying, and selling links, often on a massive scale.

Some of these schemes, or link farms, involved the creation of thousands of sites for the sole purpose of link spamming.[25] By 2004, search engines had incorporated a wide range of undisclosed factors in their ranking algorithms to reduce the impact of link manipulation.

In June 2007, The New York Times' Saul Hansell stated Google ranks sites using more than 200 different signals.[26] The leading search engines, Google, Bing, and Yahoo, do not disclose the algorithms they use to rank pages.

Some SEO practitioners have studied different approaches to Search engine optimization, and have shared their personal opinions.[27] Patents related to search engines can provide information to better understand search engines.[28] In 2005, Google began personalizing search results for each user.

Depending on their history of previous searches, Google crafted results for logged in users.[29] In 2007, Google announced a campaign against paid links that transfer PageRank.[30] On June 15, 2009, Google disclosed that they had taken measures to mitigate the effects of PageRank sculpting by use of the nofollow attribute on links.

Matt Cutts, a well-known software engineer at Google, announced that Google Bot would no longer treat any nofollow links, in the same way, to prevent SEO service providers from using nofollow for PageRank sculpting.[31] As a result of this change the usage of nofollow led to evaporation of PageRank.

In order to avoid the above, SEO engineers developed alternative techniques that replace nofollowed tags with obfuscated JavaScript and thus permit PageRank sculpting.

Additionally several solutions have been suggested that include the usage of iframes, Flash and JavaScript.[32] In December 2009, Google announced it would be using the web search history of all its users in order to populate search results.[33] On June 8, 2010 a new web indexing system called Google Caffeine was announced.

Designed to allow users to find news results, forum posts and other content much sooner after publishing than before, Google Caffeine was a change to the way Google updated its index in order to make things show up quicker on Google than before.

According to Carrie Grimes, the software engineer who announced Caffeine for Google, "Caffeine provides 50 percent fresher results for web searches than our last index..."[34] Google Instant, real-time-search, was introduced in late 2010 in an attempt to make search results more timely and relevant.

Historically site administrators have spent months or even years optimizing a website to increase search rankings.

With the growth in popularity of social media sites and blogs the leading engines made changes to their algorithms to allow fresh content to rank quickly within the search results.[35] In February 2011, Google announced the Panda update, which penalizes websites containing content duplicated from other websites and sources.

Historically websites have copied content from one another and benefited in search engine rankings by engaging in this practice.

However, Google implemented a new system which punishes sites whose content is not unique.[36] The 2012 Google Penguin attempted to penalize websites that used manipulative techniques to improve their rankings on the search engine.[37] Although Google Penguin has been presented as an algorithm aimed at fighting web spam, it really focuses on spammy links[38] by gauging the quality of the sites the links are coming from.

The 2013 Google Hummingbird update featured an algorithm change designed to improve Google's natural language processing and semantic understanding of web pages.

Hummingbird's language processing system falls under the newly recognized term of "conversational search" where the system pays more attention to each word in the query in order to better match the pages to the meaning of the query rather than a few words.[39] With regards to the changes made to Search engine optimization, for content publishers and writers, Hummingbird is intended to resolve issues by getting rid of irrelevant content and spam, allowing Google to produce high-quality content and rely on them to be 'trusted' authors.

In October 2019, Google announced they would start applying BERT models for English language search queries in the US.

Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers (BERT) was another attempt by Google to improve their natural language processing but this time in order to better understand the search queries of their users.[40] In terms of Search engine optimization, BERT intended to connect users more easily to relevant content and increase the quality of traffic coming to websites that are ranking in the Search Engine Results Page.

The leading search engines, such as Google, Bing and Yahoo!, use crawlers to find pages for their algorithmic search results.

Pages that are linked from other search engine indexed pages do not need to be submitted because they are found automatically.

The Yahoo! Directory and DMOZ, two major directories which closed in 2014 and 2017 respectively, both required manual submission and human editorial review.[41] Google offers Google Search Console, for which an XML Sitemap feed can be created and submitted for free to ensure that all pages are found, especially pages that are not discoverable by automatically following links[42] in addition to their URL submission console.[43] Yahoo! formerly operated a paid submission service that guaranteed crawling for a cost per click;[44] however, this practice was discontinued in 2009.

Search engine crawlers may look at a number of different factors when crawling a site.

Not every page is indexed by the search engines.

The distance of pages from the root directory of a site may also be a factor in whether or not pages get crawled.[45] Today, most people are searching on Google using a mobile device.[46] In November 2016, Google announced a major change to the way crawling websites and started to make their index mobile-first, which means the mobile version of a given website becomes the starting point for what Google includes in their index.[47] In May 2019, Google updated the rendering engine of their crawler to be the latest version of Chromium (74 at the time of the announcement).

Google indicated that they would regularly update the Chromium rendering engine to the latest version.[48] In December 2019, Google began updating the User-Agent string of their crawler to reflect the latest Chrome version used by their rendering service.

The delay was to allow webmasters time to update their code that responded to particular bot User-Agent strings.

Google ran evaluations and felt confident the impact would be minor.[49] To avoid undesirable content in the search indexes, webmasters can instruct spiders not to crawl certain files or directories through the standard robots.txt file in the root directory of the domain.

Additionally, a page can be explicitly excluded from a search engine's database by using a meta tag specific to robots (usually <meta name="robots" content="noindex"> ).

When a search engine visits a site, the robots.txt located in the root directory is the first file crawled.

The robots.txt file is then parsed and will instruct the robot as to which pages are not to be crawled.

As a search engine crawler may keep a cached copy of this file, it may on occasion crawl pages a webmaster does not wish crawled.

Pages typically prevented from being crawled include login specific pages such as shopping carts and user-specific content such as search results from internal searches.

In March 2007, Google warned webmasters that they should prevent indexing of internal search results because those pages are considered search spam.[50] A variety of methods can increase the prominence of a webpage within the search results.

Cross linking between pages of the same website to provide more links to important pages may improve its visibility.[51] Writing content that includes frequently searched keyword phrase, so as to be relevant to a wide variety of search queries will tend to increase traffic.[51] Updating content so as to keep search engines crawling back frequently can give additional weight to a site.

Adding relevant keywords to a web page's metadata, including the title tag and meta description, will tend to improve the relevancy of a site's search listings, thus increasing traffic.

URL canonicalization of web pages accessible via multiple URLs, using the canonical link element[52] or via 301 redirects can help make sure links to different versions of the URL all count towards the page's link popularity score.

SEO techniques can be classified into two broad categories: techniques that search engine companies recommend as part of good design ("white hat"), and those techniques of which search engines do not approve ("black hat").

The search engines attempt to minimize the effect of the latter, among them spamdexing.

Industry commentators have classified these methods, and the practitioners who employ them, as either white hat SEO, or black hat SEO.[53] White hats tend to produce results that last a long time, whereas black hats anticipate that their sites may eventually be banned either temporarily or permanently once the search engines discover what they are doing.[54] An SEO technique is considered white hat if it conforms to the search engines' guidelines and involves no deception.

As the search engine guidelines[18][19][55] are not written as a series of rules or commandments, this is an important distinction to note.

White hat SEO is not just about following guidelines but is about ensuring that the content a search engine indexes and subsequently ranks is the same content a user will see.

White hat advice is generally summed up as creating content for users, not for search engines, and then making that content easily accessible to the online "spider" algorithms, rather than attempting to trick the algorithm from its intended purpose.

White hat SEO is in many ways similar to web development that promotes accessibility,[56] although the two are not identical.

Black hat SEO attempts to improve rankings in ways that are disapproved of by the search engines, or involve deception.

One black hat technique uses hidden text, either as text colored similar to the background, in an invisible div, or positioned off screen.

Another method gives a different page depending on whether the page is being requested by a human visitor or a search engine, a technique known as cloaking.

Another category sometimes used is grey hat SEO.

This is in between black hat and white hat approaches, where the methods employed avoid the site being penalized but do not act in producing the best content for users.

Grey hat SEO is entirely focused on improving search engine rankings.

Search engines may penalize sites they discover using black or grey hat methods, either by reducing their rankings or eliminating their listings from their databases altogether.

Such penalties can be applied either automatically by the search engines' algorithms, or by a manual site review.

One example was the February 2006 Google removal of both BMW Germany and Ricoh Germany for use of deceptive practices.[57] Both companies, however, quickly apologized, fixed the offending pages, and were restored to Google's search engine results page.[58] SEO is not an appropriate strategy for every website, and other Internet marketing strategies can be more effective, such as paid advertising through pay per click (PPC) campaigns, depending on the site operator's goals.

Search engine marketing (SEM) is the practice of designing, running and optimizing search engine ad campaigns.[59] Its difference from SEO is most simply depicted as the difference between paid and unpaid priority ranking in search results.

Its purpose regards prominence more so than relevance; website developers should regard SEM with the utmost importance with consideration to visibility as most navigate to the primary listings of their search.[60] A successful Internet marketing campaign may also depend upon building high quality web pages to engage and persuade, setting up analytics programs to enable site owners to measure results, and improving a site's conversion rate.[61] In November 2015, Google released a full 160 page version of its Search Quality Rating Guidelines to the public,[62] which revealed a shift in their focus towards "usefulness" and mobile search.

In recent years the mobile market has exploded, overtaking the use of desktops, as shown in by StatCounter in October 2016 where they analyzed 2.5 million websites and found that 51.3% of the pages were loaded by a mobile device.[63] Google has been one of the companies that are utilizing the popularity of mobile usage by encouraging websites to use their Google Search Console, the Mobile-Friendly Test, which allows companies to measure up their website to the search engine results and how user-friendly it is.

SEO may generate an adequate return on investment.

However, search engines are not paid for organic search traffic, their algorithms change, and there are no guarantees of continued referrals.

Due to this lack of guarantees and certainty, a business that relies heavily on search engine traffic can suffer major losses if the search engines stop sending visitors.[64] Search engines can change their algorithms, impacting a website's placement, possibly resulting in a serious loss of traffic.

According to Google's CEO, Eric Schmidt, in 2010, Google made over 500 algorithm changes – almost 1.5 per day.[65] It is considered a wise business practice for website operators to liberate themselves from dependence on search engine traffic.[66] In addition to accessibility in terms of web crawlers (addressed above), user web accessibility has become increasingly important for SEO.

Optimization techniques are highly tuned to the dominant search engines in the target market.

The search engines' market shares vary from market to market, as does competition.

In 2003, Danny Sullivan stated that Google represented about 75% of all searches.[67] In markets outside the United States, Google's share is often larger, and Google remains the dominant search engine worldwide as of 2007.[68] As of 2006, Google had an 85–90% market share in Germany.[69] While there were hundreds of SEO firms in the US at that time, there were only about five in Germany.[69] As of June 2008, the market share of Google in the UK was close to 90% according to Hitwise.[70] That market share is achieved in a number of countries.

As of 2009, there are only a few large markets where Google is not the leading search engine.

In most cases, when Google is not leading in a given market, it is lagging behind a local player.

The most notable example markets are China, Japan, South Korea, Russia and the Czech Republic where respectively Baidu, Yahoo! Japan, Naver, Yandex and Seznam are market leaders.

Successful search optimization for international markets may require professional translation of web pages, registration of a domain name with a top level domain in the target market, and web hosting that provides a local IP address.

Otherwise, the fundamental elements of search optimization are essentially the same, regardless of language.[69] On October 17, 2002, SearchKing filed suit in the United States District Court, Western District of Oklahoma, against the search engine Google.

SearchKing's claim was that Google's tactics to prevent spamdexing constituted a tortious interference with contractual relations.

On May 27, 2003, the court granted Google's motion to dismiss the complaint because SearchKing "failed to state a claim upon which relief may be granted."[71][72] In March 2006, KinderStart filed a lawsuit against Google over search engine rankings.

KinderStart's website was removed from Google's index prior to the lawsuit, and the amount of traffic to the site dropped by 70%.

On March 16, 2007, the United States District Court for the Northern District of California (San Jose Division) dismissed KinderStart's complaint without leave to amend, and partially granted Google's motion for Rule 11 sanctions against KinderStart's attorney, requiring him to pay part of Google's legal expenses.[73][74]

Read more...

Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing is the use of social media platforms and websites to promote a product or service.[1] Although the terms e-marketing and digital marketing are still dominant in academia, Social media marketing is becoming more popular for both practitioners and researchers.[2] Most social media platforms have built-in data analytics tools, enabling companies to track the progress, success, and engagement of ad campaigns.

Companies address a range of stakeholders through Social media marketing, including current and potential customers, current and potential employees, journalists, bloggers, and the general public.

On a strategic level, Social media marketing includes the management of a marketing campaign, governance, setting the scope (e.g.

more active or passive use) and the establishment of a firm's desired social media "culture" and "tone." When using Social media marketing, firms can allow customers and Internet users to post user-generated content (e.g., online comments, product reviews, etc.), also known as "earned media," rather than use marketer-prepared advertising copy.

Social networking websites allow individuals, businesses and other organizations to interact with one another and build relationships and communities online.

When companies join these social channels, consumers can interact with them directly.[3] That interaction can be more personal to users than traditional methods of outbound marketing and advertising.[4] Social networking sites act as word of mouth or more precisely, e-word of mouth.

The Internet's ability to reach billions across the globe has given online word of mouth a powerful voice and far reach.

The ability to rapidly change buying patterns and product or service acquisition and activity to a growing number of consumers is defined as an influence network.[5] Social networking sites and blogs allow followers to "retweet" or "repost" comments made by others about a product being promoted, which occurs quite frequently on some social media sites.[6] By repeating the message, the user's connections are able to see the message, therefore reaching more people.

Because the information about the product is being put out there and is getting repeated, more traffic is brought to the product/company.[4] Social networking websites are based on building virtual communities that allow consumers to express their needs, wants and values, online.

Social media marketing then connects these consumers and audiences to businesses that share the same needs, wants, and values.

Through social networking sites, companies can keep in touch with individual followers.

This personal interaction can instill a feeling of loyalty into followers and potential customers.

Also, by choosing whom to follow on these sites, products can reach a very narrow target audience.[4] Social networking sites also include much information about what products and services prospective clients might be interested in.

Through the use of new semantic analysis technologies, marketers can detect buying signals, such as content shared by people and questions posted online.

An understanding of buying signals can help sales people target relevant prospects and marketers run micro-targeted campaigns.

In 2014, over 80% of business executives identified social media as an integral part of their business.[7] Business retailers have seen 133% increases in their revenues from Social media marketing.[8] Some examples of popular social networking websites over the years are Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, MySpace, LinkedIn, and SnapChat.

More than three billion people in the world are active on the Internet.

Over the years, the Internet has continually gained more and more users, jumping from 738 million in 2000 all the way to 3.2 billion in 2015.[9] Roughly 81% of the current population in the United States has some type of social media profile that they engage with frequently.[10] Mobile phone usage is beneficial for Social media marketing because of their web browsing capabilities which allow individuals immediate access to social networking sites.

Mobile phones have altered the path-to-purchase process by allowing consumers to easily obtain pricing and product information in real time.[11] They have also allowed companies to constantly remind and update their followers.

Many companies are now putting QR (Quick Response) codes along with products for individuals to access the company website or online services with their smart phones.

Retailers use QR codes to facilitate consumer interaction with brands by linking the code to brand websites, promotions, product information, and any other mobile-enabled content.

In addition, Real-time bidding use in the mobile advertising industry is high and rising due to its value for on-the-go web browsing.

In 2012, Nexage, a provider of real time bidding in mobile advertising reported a 37% increase in revenue each month.

Adfonic, another mobile advertisement publishing platform, reported an increase of 22 billion ad requests that same year.[12] Mobile devices have become increasingly popular, where 5.7 billion people are using them worldwide.[13] This has played a role in the way consumers interact with media and has many further implications for TV ratings, advertising, mobile commerce, and more.

Mobile media consumption such as mobile audio streaming or mobile video are on the rise – In the United States, more than 100 million users are projected to access online video content via mobile device.

Mobile video revenue consists of pay-per-view downloads, advertising and subscriptions.

As of 2013, worldwide mobile phone Internet user penetration was 73.4%.

In 2017, figures suggest that more than 90% of Internet users will access online content through their phones.[14] There are two basic strategies for using social media as a marketing tool: Social media can be a useful source of market information and a way to hear customer perspectives.

Blogs, content communities, and forums are platforms where individuals share their reviews and recommendations of brands, products, and services.

Businesses are able to tap and analyze the customer voices and feedback generated in social media for marketing purposes;[15] in this sense the social media is a relatively inexpensive source of market intelligence which can be used by marketers and managers to track and respond to consumer-identified problems and detect market opportunities.

For example, the Internet erupted with videos and pictures of iPhone 6 "bend test" which showed that the coveted phone could be bent by hand pressure.

The so-called "bend gate" controversy[16] created confusion amongst customers who had waited months for the launch of the latest rendition of the iPhone.

However, Apple promptly issued a statement saying that the problem was extremely rare and that the company had taken several steps to make the mobile device's case stronger and robust.

Unlike traditional market research methods such as surveys, focus groups, and data mining which are time-consuming and costly, and which take weeks or even months to analyze, marketers can use social media to obtain 'live' or "real time" information about consumer behavior and viewpoints on a company's brand or products.

This can be useful in the highly dynamic, competitive, fast-paced and global marketplace of the 2010s.

Social media can be used not only as public relations and direct marketing tools, but also as communication channels targeting very specific audiences with social media influencers and social media personalities as effective customer engagement tools.[15] This tactic is widely known as influencer marketing.

Influencer marketing allows brands the opportunity to reach their target audience in a more genuine, authentic way via a special group of selected influencers advertising their product or service.

In fact, brands are set to spend up to $15 billion on influencer marketing by 2022, per Business Insider Intelligence estimates, based on Mediakix data.[17] Technologies predating social media, such as broadcast TV and newspapers can also provide advertisers with a fairly targeted audience, given that an ad placed during a sports game broadcast or in the sports section of a newspaper is likely to be read by sports fans.

However, social media websites can target niche markets even more precisely.

Using digital tools such as Google Adsense, advertisers can target their ads to very specific demographics, such as people who are interested in social entrepreneurship, political activism associated with a particular political party, or video gaming.

Google Adsense does this by looking for keywords in social media user's online posts and comments.

It would be hard for a TV station or paper-based newspaper to provide ads that are this targeted (though not impossible, as can be seen with "special issue" sections on niche issues, which newspapers can use to sell targeted ads).

Social networks are, in many cases, viewed as a great tool for avoiding costly market research.

They are known for providing a short, fast, and direct way to reach an audience through a person who is widely known.

For example, an athlete who gets endorsed by a sporting goods company also brings their support base of millions of people who are interested in what they do or how they play and now they want to be a part of this athlete through their endorsements with that particular company.

At one point consumers would visit stores to view their products with famous athletes, but now you can view a famous athlete's, such as Cristiano Ronaldo, latest apparel online with the click of a button.

He advertises them to you directly through his Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook accounts.

Facebook and LinkedIn are leading social media platforms where users can hyper-target their ads.

Hypertargeting not only uses public profile information but also information users submit but hide from others.[18] There are several examples of firms initiating some form of online dialog with the public to foster relations with customers.

According to Constantinides, Lorenzo and Gómez Borja (2008) "Business executives like Jonathan Swartz, President and CEO of Sun Microsystems, Steve Jobs CEO of Apple Computers, and McDonald's Vice President Bob Langert post regularly in their CEO blogs, encouraging customers to interact and freely express their feelings, ideas, suggestions, or remarks about their postings, the company or its products".[15] Using customer influencers (for example popular bloggers) can be a very efficient and cost-effective method to launch new products or services[19] Among the political leaders in office, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has the highest number of followers at 40 million, and President Donald Trump ranks second with 25 million followers.[20] Modi employed social media platforms to circumvent traditional media channels to reach out to the young and urban population of India which is estimated to be 200 million.

Engagement with the social web means that customers and stakeholders are active participants rather than passive viewers.

An example of these are consumer advocacy groups and groups that criticize companies (e.g., lobby groups or advocacy organizations).

Social media use in a business or political context allows all consumers/citizens to express and share an opinion about a company's products, services, business practices, or a government's actions.

Each participating customer, non-customer, or citizen who is participating online via social media becomes a part of the marketing department (or a challenge to the marketing effort) as other customers read their positive or negative comments or reviews.

Getting consumers, potential consumers or citizens to be engaged online is fundamental to successful Social media marketing.[21] With the advent of Social media marketing, it has become increasingly important to gain customer interest in products and services.

This can eventually be translated into buying behavior, or voting and donating behavior in a political context.

New online marketing concepts of engagement and loyalty have emerged which aim to build customer participation and brand reputation.[22] Engagement in social media for the purpose of a social media strategy is divided into two parts.

The first is proactive, regular posting of new online content.

This can be seen through digital photos, digital videos, text, and conversations.

It is also represented through sharing of content and information from others via weblinks.

The second part is reactive conversations with social media users responding to those who reach out to your social media profiles through commenting or messaging.[23] Traditional media such as TV news shows are limited to one-way interaction with customers or 'push and tell' where only specific information is given to the customer with few or limited mechanisms to obtain customer feedback.

Traditional media such as physical newspapers, do give readers the option of sending a letter to the editor.

Though, this is a relatively slow process, as the editorial board has to review the letter and decide if it is appropriate for publication.

On the other hand, social media is participative and open; Participants are able to instantly share their views on brands, products, and services.

Traditional media gave control of message to the marketer, whereas social media shifts the balance to the consumer or citizen.

Small businesses also use social networking sites as a promotional technique.

Businesses can follow individuals social networking site uses in the local area and advertise specials and deals.

These can be exclusive and in the form of "get a free drink with a copy of this tweet".

This type of message encourages other locals to follow the business on the sites in order to obtain the promotional deal.

In the process, the business is getting seen and promoting itself (brand visibility).

Small businesses also use social networking sites to develop their own market research on new products and services.

By encouraging their customers to give feedback on new product ideas, businesses can gain valuable insights on whether a product may be accepted by their target market enough to merit full production, or not.

In addition, customers will feel the company has engaged them in the process of co-creation—the process in which the business uses customer feedback to create or modify a product or service the filling a need of the target market.

Such feedback can present in various forms, such as surveys, contests, polls, etc.

Social networking sites such as LinkedIn, also provide an opportunity for small businesses to find candidates to fill staff positions.[24] Of course, review sites, such as Yelp, also help small businesses to build their reputation beyond just brand visibility.

Positive customer peer reviews help to influence new prospects to purchase goods and services more than company advertising.[25] In early 2012, Nike introduced its Make It Count social media campaign.

The campaign kickoff began YouTubers Casey Neistat and Max Joseph launching a YouTube video, where they traveled 34,000 miles to visit 16 cities in 13 countries.

They promoted the #makeitcount hashtag, which millions of consumers shared via Twitter and Instagram by uploading photos and sending tweets.[26] The #MakeItCount YouTube video went viral and Nike saw an 18% increase in profit in 2012, the year this product was released.

One of the main purposes of employing social media in marketing is as a communications tool that makes the companies accessible to those interested in their product and makes them visible to those who have no knowledge of their products.[27] These companies use social media to create buzz, and learn from and target customers.

It's the only form of marketing that can finger consumers at each and every stage of the consumer decision journey.[28] Marketing through social media has other benefits as well.

Of the top 10 factors that correlate with a strong Google organic search, seven are social media dependent.

This means that if brands are less or non-active on social media, they tend to show up less on Google searches.[29] While platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and Google+ have a larger number of monthly users, the visual media sharing based mobile platforms, however, garner a higher interaction rate in comparison and have registered the fastest growth and have changed the ways in which consumers engage with brand content.

Instagram has an interaction rate of 1.46% with an average of 130 million users monthly as opposed to Twitter which has a .03% interaction rate with an average of 210 million monthly users.[29] Unlike traditional media that are often cost-prohibitive to many companies, a social media strategy does not require astronomical budgeting.[30] To this end, companies make use of platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram to reach audiences much wider than through the use of traditional print/TV/radio advertisements alone at a fraction of the cost, as most social networking sites can be used at little or no cost (however, some websites charge companies for premium services).

This has changed the ways that companies approach to interact with customers, as a substantial percentage of consumer interactions are now being carried out over online platforms with much higher visibility.

Customers can now post reviews of products and services, rate customer service, and ask questions or voice concerns directly to companies through social media platforms.

According to Measuring Success, over 80% of consumers use the web to research products and services.[31] Thus Social media marketing is also used by businesses in order to build relationships of trust with consumers.[32] To this aim, companies may also hire personnel to specifically handle these social media interactions, who usually report under the title of Online community managers.

Handling these interactions in a satisfactory manner can result in an increase of consumer trust.

To both this aim and to fix the public's perception of a company, 3 steps are taken in order to address consumer concerns, identifying the extent of the social chatter, engaging the influencers to help, and developing a proportional response.[33] Twitter allows companies to promote their products in short messages known as tweets limited to 140 characters which appear on followers' Home timelines.[34] Tweets can contain text, Hashtag, photo, video, Animated GIF, Emoji, or links to the product's website and other social media profiles, etc.[35] Twitter is also used by companies to provide customer service.[36] Some companies make support available 24/7 and answer promptly, thus improving brand loyalty and appreciation.

Facebook pages are far more detailed than Twitter accounts.

They allow a product to provide videos, photos, longer descriptions, and testimonials where followers can comment on the product pages for others to see.

Facebook can link back to the product's Twitter page, as well as send out event reminders.

As of May 2015, 93% of businesses marketers use Facebook to promote their brand.[37] A study from 2011 attributed 84% of "engagement" or clicks and likes that link back to Facebook advertising.[38] By 2014, Facebook had restricted the content published from business and brand pages.

Adjustments in Facebook algorithms have reduced the audience for non-paying business pages (that have at least 500,000 "Likes") from 16% in 2012 down to 2% in February 2014.[39][40][41] LinkedIn, a professional business-related networking site, allows companies to create professional profiles for themselves as well as their business to network and meet others.[42] Through the use of widgets, members can promote their various social networking activities, such as Twitter stream or blog entries of their product pages, onto their LinkedIn profile page.[43] LinkedIn provides its members the opportunity to generate sales leads and business partners.[44] Members can use "Company Pages" similar to Facebook pages to create an area that will allow business owners to promote their products or services and be able to interact with their customers.[45] Due to spread of spam mail sent to job seeker, leading companies prefer to use LinkedIn for employee's recruitment instead of using a different job portal.

Additionally, companies have voiced a preference for the amount of information that can be gleaned from a LinkedIn profile, versus a limited email.[46] WhatsApp was founded by Jan Koum and Brian Acton.

Joining Facebook in 2014, WhatsApp continues to operate as a separate app with a laser focus on building a messaging service that works fast and reliably anywhere in the world.

Started as an alternative to SMS, Whatsapp now supports sending and receiving a variety of media including text, photos, videos, documents, and location, as well as voice calls.

WhatsApp messages and calls are secured with end-to-end encryption, meaning that no third party including WhatsApp can read or listen to them.

WhatsApp has a customer base of 1 billion people in over 180 countries.[47][48] It is used to send personalised promotional messages to individual customers.

It has plenty of advantages over SMS that includes ability to track how Message Broadcast Performs using blue tick option in Whatsapp.

It allows sending messages to Do Not Disturb (DND) customers.

WhatsApp is also used to send a series of bulk messages to their targeted customers using broadcast option.

Companies started using this to a large extent because it is a cost-effective promotional option and quick to spread a message.

As of 2019, WhatsApp still not allow businesses to place ads in their app.[49] Yelp consists of a comprehensive online index of business profiles.

Businesses are searchable by location, similar to Yellow Pages.

The website is operational in seven different countries, including the United States and Canada.

Business account holders are allowed to create, share, and edit business profiles.

They may post information such as the business location, contact information, pictures, and service information.

The website further allows individuals to write, post reviews about businesses, and rate them on a five-point scale.

Messaging and talk features are further made available for general members of the website, serving to guide thoughts and opinions.[50] In May 2014, Instagram had over 200 million users.

The user engagement rate of Instagram was 15 times higher than of Facebook and 25 times higher than that of Twitter.[51] According to Scott Galloway, the founder of L2 and a professor of marketing at New York University's Stern School of Business, latest studies estimate that 93% of prestige brands have an active presence on Instagram and include it in their marketing mix.[52] When it comes to brands and businesses, Instagram's goal is to help companies to reach their respective audiences through captivating imagery in a rich, visual environment.[53] Moreover, Instagram provides a platform where user and company can communicate publicly and directly, making itself an ideal platform for companies to connect with their current and potential customers.[54] Many brands are now heavily using this mobile app to boost their marketing strategy.

Instagram can be used to gain the necessary momentum needed to capture the attention of the market segment that has an interest in the product offering or services.[55] As Instagram is supported by Apple and android system, it can be easily accessed by smartphone users.

Moreover, it can be accessed by the Internet as well.

Thus, the marketers see it as a potential platform to expand their brands exposure to the public, especially the younger target group.

On top of this, marketers do not only use social media for traditional Internet advertising, but they also encourage users to create attention for a certain brand.

This generally creates an opportunity for greater brand exposure.[56] Furthermore, marketers are also using the platform to drive social shopping and inspire people to collect and share pictures of their favorite products.

Many big names have already jumped on board: Starbucks, MTV, Nike, Marc Jacobs, and Red Bull are a few examples of multinationals that adopted the mobile photo app early.

Fashion blogger Danielle Bernstein, who goes by @weworewhat on Instagram, collaborated with Harper's Bazaar to do a piece on how brands are using Instagram to market their products, and how bloggers make money from it.

Bernstein, who currently has one and a half million followers on Instagram, and whose "outfit of the day" photos on Snapchat get tens of thousands of screenshots, explained that for a lot of her sponsored posts, she must feature the brand in a certain number of posts, and often cannot wear a competitor's product in the same picture.

According to Harper's Bazaar, industry estimates say that brands are spending more than $1 billion per year on consumer-generated advertising.[57] Founder of Instagram Kevin Systrom even went to Paris Fashion week, going to couture shows and meeting with designers to learn more about how style bloggers, editors, and designers are currently dominating much of the content on his application.[58] Instagram has proven itself a powerful platform for marketers to reach their customers and prospects through sharing pictures and brief messages.

According to a study by Simply Measured, 71% of the world's largest brands are now using Instagram as a marketing channel.[59] For companies, Instagram can be used as a tool to connect and communicate with current and potential customers.

The company can present a more personal picture of their brand, and by doing so the company conveys a better and true picture of itself.

The idea of Instagram pictures lies on on-the-go, a sense that the event is happening right now, and that adds another layer to the personal and accurate picture of the company.

In fact, Thomas Rankin, co-founder and CEO of the program Dash Hudson, stated that when he approves a blogger's Instagram post before it is posted on the behalf of a brand his company represents, his only negative feedback is if it looks too posed.

"It's not an editorial photo," he explained, "We're not trying to be a magazine.

We're trying to create a moment."[58] Another option Instagram provides the opportunity for companies to reflect a true picture of the brand from the perspective of the customers, for instance, using the user-generated contents thought the hashtags encouragement.[60] Other than the filters and hashtags functions, the Instagram's 15-second videos and the recently added ability to send private messages between users have opened new opportunities for brands to connect with customers in a new extent, further promoting effective marketing on Instagram.

Snapchat is a popular messaging and picture exchanging application that was created in 2011 by three students at Stanford University named Evan Spiegel, Bobby Murphy, and Reggie Brown.

The application was first developed to allow users to message back and forth and to also send photographs that are only available from 1–10 seconds until they are no longer available.

The app was an instant hit with social media members and today there are up to 158 million people using snapchat every single day.[61] It is also estimated that Snapchat users are opening the application approximately 18 times per day, which means users are on the app for about 25–30 minutes per day.[61] YouTube is another popular avenue; advertisements are done in a way to suit the target audience.

The type of language used in the commercials and the ideas used to promote the product reflect the audience's style and taste.

Also, the ads on this platform are usually in sync with the content of the video requested, this is another advantage YouTube brings for advertisers.

Certain ads are presented with certain videos since the content is relevant.

Promotional opportunities such as sponsoring a video is also possible on YouTube, "for example, a user who searches for a YouTube video on dog training may be presented with a sponsored video from a dog toy company in results along with other videos."[62] YouTube also enable publishers to earn money through its YouTube Partner Program.

Companies can pay YouTube for a special "channel" which promotes the companies products or services.

Websites such as Delicious, Digg, Slashdot, Diigo, Stumbleupon, and Reddit are popular social bookmarking sites used in social media promotion.

Each of these sites is dedicated to the collection, curation, and organization of links to other websites that users deem to be of good quality.

This process is "crowdsourced", allowing amateur social media network members to sort and prioritize links by relevance and general category.

Due to the large user bases of these websites, any link from one of them to another, the smaller website may in a flash crowd, a sudden surge of interest in the target website.

In addition to user-generated promotion, these sites also offer advertisements within individual user communities and categories.[63] Because ads can be placed in designated communities with a very specific target audience and demographic, they have far greater potential for traffic generation than ads selected simply through cookie and browser history.[64] Additionally, some of these websites have also implemented measures to make ads more relevant to users by allowing users to vote on which ones will be shown on pages they frequent.[65] The ability to redirect large volumes of web traffic and target specific, relevant audiences makes social bookmarking sites a valuable asset for social media marketers.

Platforms like LinkedIn create an environment for companies and clients to connect online.[66] Companies that recognize the need for information, originality/ and accessibility employ blogs to make their products popular and unique/ and ultimately reach out to consumers who are privy to social media.[67] Studies from 2009 show that consumers view coverage in the media or from bloggers as being more neutral and credible than print advertisements, which are not thought of as free or independent.[68] Blogs allow a product or company to provide longer descriptions of products or services, can include testimonials and can link to and from other social network and blog pages.

Blogs can be updated frequently and are promotional techniques for keeping customers, and also for acquiring followers and subscribers who can then be directed to social network pages.

Online communities can enable a business to reach the clients of other businesses using the platform.

To allow firms to measure their standing in the corporate world, sites enable employees to place evaluations of their companies.[66] Some businesses opt out of integrating social media platforms into their traditional marketing regimen.

There are also specific corporate standards that apply when interacting online.[66] To maintain an advantage in a business-consumer relationship, businesses have to be aware of four key assets that consumers maintain: information, involvement, community, and control.[69] Blogging website Tumblr first launched ad products on May 29, 2012.[70] Rather than relying on simple banner ads, Tumblr requires advertisers to create a Tumblr blog so the content of those blogs can be featured on the site.[71] In one year, four native ad formats were created on web and mobile, and had more than 100 brands advertising on Tumblr with 500 cumulative sponsored posts.

These posts can be one or more of the following: images, photo sets, animated GIFs, video, audio, and text posts.

For the users to differentiate the promoted posts to the regular users' posts, the promoted posts have a dollar symbol on the corner.

On May 6, 2014, Tumblr announced customization and theming on mobile apps for brands to advertise.[73] Social media marketing involves the use of social networks, consumer's online brand-related activities (COBRA) and electronic word of mouth (eWOM)[76][77] to successfully advertise online.

Social networks such as Facebook and Twitter provide advertisers with information about the likes and dislikes of their consumers.[62] This technique is crucial, as it provides the businesses with a "target audience".[62] With social networks, information relevant to the user's likes is available to businesses; who then advertise accordingly.

Activities such as uploading a picture of your "new Converse sneakers to Facebook[76]" is an example of a COBRA.[76][77] Electronic recommendations and appraisals are a convenient manner to have a product promoted via "consumer-to-consumer interactions.[76] An example of eWOM would be an online hotel review;[78] the hotel company can have two possible outcomes based on their service.

A good service would result in a positive review which gets the hotel free advertising via social media.

However, a poor service will result in a negative consumer review which can potentially harm the company's reputation.[79] Social networking sites such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, MySpace etc.

have all influenced the buzz of word of mouth marketing.

In 1999, Misner said that word-of mouth marketing is, "the world's most effective, yet least understood marketing strategy" (Trusov, Bucklin, & Pauwels, 2009, p. 3).[80] Through the influence of opinion leaders, the increased online "buzz" of "word-of-mouth" marketing that a product, service or companies are experiencing is due to the rise in use of social media and smartphones.

Businesses and marketers have noticed that, "a persons behaviour is influenced by many small groups" (Kotler, Burton, Deans, Brown, & Armstrong, 2013, p. 189).

These small groups rotate around social networking accounts that are run by influential people (opinion leaders or "thought leaders") who have followers of groups.

The types of groups (followers) are called:[81] reference groups (people who know each other either face-to-face or have an indirect influence on a persons attitude or behaviour); membership groups (a person has a direct influence on a person's attitude or behaviour); and aspirational groups (groups which an individual wishes to belong to).

Marketers target influential people, referred to as influencers, on social media who are recognized as being opinion leaders and opinion-formers to send messages to their target audiences and amplify the impact of their message.

A social media post by an opinion leader can have a much greater impact (via the forwarding of the post or "liking" of the post) than a social media post by a regular user.

Marketers have come to the understanding that "consumers are more prone to believe in other individuals" who they trust (Sepp, Liljander, & Gummerus, 2011).

OL's and OF's can also send their own messages about products and services they choose (Fill, Hughes, & De Francesco, 2013, p. 216).

The reason the opinion leader or formers have such a strong following base is because their opinion is valued or trusted (Clement, Proppe, & Rott, 2007).

They can review products and services for their followings, which can be positive or negative towards the brand.

OL's and OF's are people who have a social status and because of their personality, beliefs, values etc.

have the potential to influence other people (Kotler, Burton, Deans, Brown, & Armstrong, 2013, p. 189).

They usually have a large number of followers otherwise known as their reference, membership or aspirational group (Kotler, Burton, Deans, Brown, & Armstrong, 2013, p. 189.

By having an OL or OF support a brands product by posting a photo, video or written recommendation on a blog, the following may be influenced and because they trust the OL/OF a high chance of the brand selling more products or creating a following base.

Having an OL/OF helps spread word of mouth talk amongst reference groups and/or memberships groups e.g.

family, friends, work-friends etc.

(Kotler, Burton, Deans, Brown, & Armstrong, 2013, p. 189).[82][83][84][85][85][85] The adjusted communication model shows the use of using opinion leaders and opinion formers.

The sender/source gives the message to many, many OL's/OF's who pass the message on along with their personal opinion, the receiver (followers/groups) form their own opinion and send their personal message to their group (friends, family etc.) (Dahlen, Lange, & Smith, 2010, p. 39).[86] Owned social media channels are an essential extension of business' and brands in today's world.

Brand must seek to create their brand image on each platform, and cater to the type of consumer demographics on each respective platform.

In contrast with pre-Internet marketing, such as TV ads and newspaper ads, in which the marketer controlled all aspects of the ad, with social media, users are free to post comments right below an online ad or an online post by a company about its product.

Companies are increasing using their social media strategy as part of their traditional marketing effort using magazines, newspapers, radio advertisements, television advertisements.

Since in the 2010s, media consumers are often using multiple platforms at the same time (e.g., surfing the Internet on a tablet while watching a streaming TV show), marketing content needs to be consistent across all platforms, whether traditional or new media.

Heath (2006) wrote about the extent of attention businesses should give to their social media sites.

It is about finding a balance between frequently posting but not over posting.

There is a lot more attention to be paid towards social media sites because people need updates to gain brand recognition.

Therefore, a lot more content is need and this can often be unplanned content.[87] Planned content begins with the creative/marketing team generating their ideas, once they have completed their ideas they send them off for approval.

There is two general ways of doing so.

The first is where each sector approves the plan one after another, editor, brand, followed by the legal team (Brito, 2013).

Sectors may differ depending on the size and philosophy of the business.

The second is where each sector is given 24 hours (or such designated time) to sign off or disapprove.

If no action is given within the 24-hour period the original plan is implemented.

Planned content is often noticeable to customers and is un-original or lacks excitement but is also a safer option to avoid unnecessary backlash from the public.[88] Both routes for planned content are time consuming as in the above; the first way to approval takes 72 hours to be approved.

Although the second route can be significantly shorter it also holds more risk particularly in the legal department.

Unplanned content is an 'in the moment' idea, "a spontaneous, tactical reaction." (Cramer, 2014, p. 6).

The content could be trending and not have the time to take the planned content route.

The unplanned content is posted sporadically and is not calendar/date/time arranged (Deshpande, 2014).[89][90] Issues with unplanned content revolve around legal issues and whether the message being sent out represents the business/brand accordingly.

If a company sends out a Tweet or Facebook message too hurriedly, the company may unintentionally use insensitive language or messaging that could alienate some consumers.

For example, celebrity chef Paula Deen was criticized after she made a social media post commenting about HIV-AIDS and South Africa; her message was deemed to be offensive by many observers.

The main difference between planned and unplanned is the time to approve the content.

Unplanned content must still be approved by marketing managers, but in a much more rapid manner e.g.

1–2 hours or less.

Sectors may miss errors because of being hurried.

When using unplanned content Brito (2013) says, "be prepared to be reactive and respond to issues when they arise."[88] Brito (2013) writes about having a, "crisis escalation plan", because, "It will happen".

The plan involves breaking down the issue into topics and classifying the issue into groups.

Colour coding the potential risk "identify and flag potential risks" also helps to organise an issue.

The problem can then be handled by the correct team and dissolved more effectively rather than any person at hand trying to solve the situation.[88] Traditional advertising techniques include print and television advertising.

The Internet has already overtaken television as the largest advertising market.[91] Web sites often include the banner or pop-up ads.

Social networking sites don't always have ads.

In exchange, products have entire pages and are able to interact with users.

Television commercials often end with a spokesperson asking viewers to check out the product website for more information.

While briefly popular, print ads included QR codes on them.

These QR codes can be scanned by cell phones and computers, sending viewers to the product website.

Advertising is beginning to move viewers from the traditional outlets to the electronic ones.[92] While traditional media, like newspapers and television advertising, are largely overshadowed by the rise of Social media marketing, there is still a place for traditional marketing.

For example, with newspapers, readership over the years has shown a decline.

However, readership with newspapers is still fiercely loyal to print-only media.

51% of newspaper readers only read the newspaper in its print form,[93] making well-placed ads valuable.

The Internet and social networking leaks are one of the issues facing traditional advertising.

Video and print ads are often leaked to the world via the Internet earlier than they are scheduled to premiere.

Social networking sites allow those leaks to go viral, and be seen by many users more quickly.

The time difference is also a problem facing traditional advertisers.

When social events occur and are broadcast on television, there is often a time delay between airings on the east coast and west coast of the United States.

Social networking sites have become a hub of comment and interaction concerning the event.

This allows individuals watching the event on the west coast (time-delayed) to know the outcome before it airs.

The 2011 Grammy Awards highlighted this problem.

Viewers on the west coast learned who won different awards based on comments made on social networking sites by individuals watching live on the east coast.[94] Since viewers knew who won already, many tuned out and ratings were lower.

All the advertisement and promotion put into the event was lost because viewers didn't have a reason to watch.[according to whom?] Social media marketing provides organizations with a way to connect with their customers.

However, organizations must protect their information as well as closely watch comments and concerns on the social media they use.

A flash poll done on 1225 IT executives from 33 countries revealed that social media mishaps caused organizations a combined $4.3 million in damages in 2010.[95] The top three social media incidents an organization faced during the previous year included employees sharing too much information in public forums, loss or exposure of confidential information, and increased exposure to litigation.[95] Due to the viral nature of the Internet, a mistake by a single employee has in some cases shown to result in devastating consequences for organizations.

An example of a social media mishap includes designer Kenneth Cole's Twitter mishap in 2011.

When Kenneth Cole tweeted, "Millions are in uproar in #Cairo.

Rumor has they heard our new spring collection is now available online at [Kenneth Cole's website]".[96] This reference to the 2011 Egyptian revolution drew an objection from the public; it was widely objected to on the Internet.[96] Kenneth Cole realized his mistake shortly after and responded with a statement apologizing for the tweet.[97] In 2012 during Hurricane Sandy, Gap sent out a tweet to its followers telling them to stay safe but encouraged them to shop online and offered free shipping.

The tweet was deemed insensitive, and Gap eventually took it down and apologized.[98] Numerous additional online marketing mishap examples exist.

Examples include a YouTube video of a Domino's Pizza employee violating health code standards, which went viral on the Internet and later resulted in felony charges against two employees.[95][99] A Twitter hashtag posted by McDonald's in 2012 attracting attention due to numerous complaints and negative events customers experienced at the chain store; and a 2011 tweet posted by a Chrysler Group employee that no one in Detroit knows how to drive.[100] When the Link REIT opened a Facebook page to recommend old-style restaurants, the page was flooded by furious comments criticizing the REIT for having forced a lot of restaurants and stores to shut down; it had to terminate its campaign early amid further deterioration of its corporate image.[101] In 2018, Max Factor, MAC and other beauty brands were forced to rush to disassociate themselves from Kuwaiti beauty blogger and Instagram 'influencer' Sondos Alqattan after she criticised government moves to improve conditions for domestic workers.[102] The code of ethics that is affiliated with traditional marketing can also be applied to social media.

However, with social media being so personal and international, there is another list of complications and challenges that come along with being ethical online.

With the invention of social media, the marketer no longer has to focus solely on the basic demographics and psychographics given from television and magazines, but now they can see what consumers like to hear from advertisers, how they engage online, and what their needs and wants are.[103] The general concept of being ethical while marking on social network sites is to be honest with the intentions of the campaign, avoid false advertising, be aware of user privacy conditions (which means not using consumers' private information for gain), respect the dignity of persons in the shared online community, and claim responsibility for any mistakes or mishaps that are results of your marketing campaign.[104] Most social network marketers use websites like Facebook and MySpace to try to drive traffic to another website.[105] While it is ethical to use social networking websites to spread a message to people who are genuinely interested, many people game the system with auto-friend adding programs and spam messages and bulletins.

Social networking websites are becoming wise to these practices, however, and are effectively weeding out and banning offenders.

In addition, social media platforms have become extremely aware of their users and collect information about their viewers to connect with them in various ways.

Social-networking website Facebook Inc.

is quietly working on a new advertising system that would let marketers target users with ads based on the massive amounts of information people reveal on the site about themselves.[106] This may be an unethical or ethical feature to some individuals.

Some people may react negatively because they believe it is an invasion of privacy.

On the other hand, some individuals may enjoy this feature because their social network recognizes their interests and sends them particular advertisements pertaining to those interests.

Consumers like to network with people who share their interests and desires.[107] Individuals who agree to have their social media profile public, should be aware that advertisers have the ability to take information that interests them to be able to send them information and advertisements to boost their sales.

Managers invest in social media to foster relationships and int

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Pay Per Click Marketing

Pay-per-click (PPC) is an internet advertising model used to drive traffic to websites, in which an advertiser pays a publisher (typically a search engine, website owner, or a network of websites) when the ad is clicked.

Pay-per-click is commonly associated with first-tier search engines (such as Google Ads, Amazon Advertising, and Microsoft Advertising formerly Bing Ads).

With search engines, advertisers typically bid on keyword phrases relevant to their target market and pay when ads (text-based search ads or shopping ads that are a combination of images and text) are clicked.

In contrast, content sites commonly charge a fixed price per click rather than use a bidding system.

PPC display advertisements, also known as banner ads, are shown on web sites with related content that have agreed to show ads and are typically not Pay-per-click advertising.

Social networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Twitter have also adopted Pay-per-click as one of their advertising models.

The amount advertisers pay depends on the publisher and is usually driven by two major factors: quality of the ad, and the maximum bid the advertiser is willing to pay per click.

The higher the quality of the ad, the lower the cost per click is charged and vice versa.

However, websites can offer PPC ads.

Websites that utilize PPC ads will display an advertisement when a keyword query matches an advertiser's keyword list that has been added in different ad groups, or when a content site displays relevant content.

Such advertisements are called sponsored links or sponsored ads, and appear adjacent to, above, or beneath organic results on search engine results pages, or anywhere a web developer chooses on a content site.[1] The PPC advertising model is open to abuse through click fraud,[2] although Google and others have implemented automated systems[3] to guard against abusive clicks by competitors or corrupt web developers.[4] Pay-per-click, along with cost per impression (CPM) and cost per order, are used to assess the cost-effectiveness and profitability of the internet marketing.

In Cost Per Thousand Impressions (CPM), the advertiser only pays for every 1000 impressions of the ad.

Pay-per-click (PPC) has an advantage over cost per impression in that it conveys information about how effective the advertising was.

Clicks are a way to measure attention and interest; if the main purpose of an ad is to generate a click, or more specifically drive traffic to a destination, then Pay-per-click is the preferred metric.

The quality and placement of the advertisement will affect click through rates and the resulting total Pay-per-click cost.

Cost-per-click (CPC) is calculated by dividing the advertising cost by the number of clicks generated by an advertisement.

The basic formula is: There are two primary models for determining Pay-per-click: flat-rate and bid-based.

In both cases, the advertiser must consider the potential value of a click from a given source.

This value is based on the type of individual the advertiser is expecting to receive as a visitor to his or her website, and what the advertiser can gain from that visit, usually revenue, both in the short term as well as in the long term.

As with other forms of advertising, targeting is key, and factors that often play into PPC campaigns include the target's interest (often defined by a search term they have entered into a search engine or the content of a page that they are browsing), intent (e.g., to purchase or not), location (for geo targeting), and the day and time that they are browsing.

In the flat-rate model, the advertiser and publisher agree upon a fixed amount that will be paid for each click.

In many cases, the publisher has a rate card that lists the Pay-per-click (PPC) within different areas of their website or network.

These various amounts are often related to the content on pages, with content that generally attracts more valuable visitors having a higher PPC than content that attracts less valuable visitors.

However, in many cases, advertisers can negotiate lower rates, especially when committing to a long-term or high-value contract.

The flat-rate model is particularly common to comparison shopping engines, which typically publish rate cards.[5] However, these rates are sometimes minimal, and advertisers can pay more for greater visibility.

These sites are usually neatly compartmentalized into product or service categories, allowing a high degree of targeting by advertisers.

In many cases, the entire core content of these sites is paid ads.

The advertiser signs a contract that allows them to compete against other advertisers in a private auction hosted by a publisher or, more commonly, an advertising network.

Each advertiser informs the host of the maximum amount that he or she is willing to pay for a given ad spot (often based on a keyword), usually using online tools to do so.

The auction plays out in an automated fashion every time a visitor triggers the ad spot.

When the ad spot is part of a search engine results page (SERP), the automated auction takes place whenever a search for the keyword that is being bid upon occurs.

All bids for the keyword that target the searcher's Geo-location, the day and time of the search, etc.

are then compared and the winner determined.

In situations where there are multiple ad spots, a common occurrence on SERPs, there can be multiple winners whose positions on the page are influenced by the amount each has bid.

The bid and Quality Score are used to give each advertiser's advert an ad rank.

The ad with the highest ad rank shows up first.

The predominant three match types for both Google and Bing are Broad, Exact and Phrase Match.

Google Ads and Bing Ads also offer the Broad Match Modifier type which differs from broad match in that the keyword must contain the actual keyword terms in any order and doesn't include relevant variations of the terms.[6] In addition to ad spots on SERPs, the major advertising networks allow for contextual ads to be placed on the properties of 3rd-parties with whom they have partnered.

These publishers sign up to host ads on behalf of the network.

In return, they receive a portion of the ad revenue that the network generates, which can be anywhere from 50% to over 80% of the gross revenue paid by advertisers.

These properties are often referred to as a content network and the ads on them as contextual ads because the ad spots are associated with keywords based on the context of the page on which they are found.

In general, ads on content networks have a much lower click-through rate (CTR) and conversion rate (CR) than ads found on SERPs and consequently are less highly valued.

Content network properties can include websites, newsletters, and e-mails.[7] Advertisers pay for each single click they receive, with the actual amount paid based on the amount of bid.

It is common practice amongst auction hosts to charge a winning bidder just slightly more (e.g.

one penny) than the next highest bidder or the actual amount bid, whichever is lower.[8] This avoids situations where bidders are constantly adjusting their bids by very small amounts to see if they can still win the auction while paying just a little bit less per click.

In order to maximize success and achieve scale, automated bid management systems can be deployed.

These systems can be used directly by the advertiser, though they are more commonly used by advertising agencies that offer PPC bid management as a service.

These tools generally allow for bid management at scale, with thousands or even millions of PPC bids controlled by a highly automated system.

The system generally sets each bid based on the goal that has been set for it, such as maximize profit, maximize traffic, get the very targeted customer at break even, and so forth.

The system is usually tied into the advertiser's website and fed the results of each click, which then allows it to set bids.

The effectiveness of these systems is directly related to the quality and quantity of the performance data that they have to work with — low-traffic ads can lead to a scarcity of data problem that renders many bid management tools useless at worst, or inefficient at best.

As a rule, the contextual advertising system (Google AdWords, Yandex.Direct, etc.) uses an auction approach as the advertising payment system.

There are several sites that claim to be the first PPC model on the web,[9] with many appearing in the mid-1990s.

For example, in 1996, the first known and documented version of a PPC was included in a web directory called Planet Oasis.

This was a desktop application featuring links to informational and commercial websites, and it was developed by Ark Interface II, a division of Packard Bell NEC Computers.

The initial reactions from commercial companies to Ark Interface II's "pay-per-visit" model were skeptical, however.[10] By the end of 1997, over 400 major brands were paying between $.005 to $.25 per click plus a placement fee.[citation needed] In February 1998 Jeffrey Brewer of Goto.com, a 25-employee startup company (later Overture, now part of Yahoo!), presented a pay per click search engine proof-of-concept to the TED conference in California.[11] This presentation and the events that followed created the PPC advertising system.

Credit for the concept of the PPC model is generally given to Idealab and Goto.com founder Bill Gross.[12] Google started search engine advertising in December 1999.

It was not until October 2000 that the AdWords system was introduced, allowing advertisers to create text ads for placement on the Google search engine.

However, PPC was only introduced in 2002; until then, advertisements were charged at cost-per-thousand impressions or Cost per mille (CPM).

Overture has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Google, saying the rival search service overstepped its bounds with its ad-placement tools.[13] Although GoTo.com started PPC in 1998, Yahoo! did not start syndicating GoTo.com (later Overture) advertisers until November 2001.[14] Prior to this, Yahoo's primary source of SERPs advertising included contextual IAB advertising units (mainly 468x60 display ads).

When the syndication contract with Yahoo! was up for renewal in July 2003, Yahoo! announced intent to acquire Overture for $1.63 billion.[15] Today, companies such as adMarketplace, ValueClick and adknowledge offer PPC services, as an alternative to AdWords and AdCenter.

Among PPC providers, Google Ads (formerly Google AdWords), Microsoft adCenter and Yahoo! Search Marketing had been the three largest network operators, all three operating under a bid-based model.[1] For example, in the year 2014, PPC(Adwords) or online advertising attributed approximately US$45 billion of the total US$66 billion of Google's annual revenue[16] In 2010, Yahoo and Microsoft launched their combined effort against Google, and Microsoft's Bing began to be the search engine that Yahoo used to provide its search results.[17] Since they joined forces, their PPC platform was renamed AdCenter.

Their combined network of third party sites that allow AdCenter ads to populate banner and text ads on their site is called BingAds.[18] In 2012, Google was initially ruled to have engaged in misleading and deceptive conduct by the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC) in possibly the first legal case of its kind.

The ACCC ruled that Google was responsible for the content of its sponsored AdWords ads that had shown links to a car sales website Carsales.com.

The Ads had been shown by Google in response to a search for Honda Australia.

The ACCC said the ads were deceptive, as they suggested Carsales.com was connected to the Honda company.

The ruling was later overturned when Google appealed to the Australian High Court.

Google was found not liable for the misleading advertisements run through AdWords despite the fact that the ads were served up by Google and created using the company's tools.[19]

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Small Business Marketing

Business marketing is a marketing practice of individuals or organizations (including commercial businesses, governments and institutions).

It allows them to sell products or services to other companies or organizations that resell them, use them in their products or services or use them to support their works.

It is a way to promote business and improve profit too.

Business marketing is also known as industrial marketing or business-to-business (B2B) marketing.

Business-to-government marketing, while still classified within the B2B discipline due to the sharing of dynamics, does differ slightly.

The practice of a purveyor of goods trading with another may be as old as commerce itself.

In relation to marketing today, its history is more recent.

Michael Morris, Leyland Pitt, and Earl Dwight Honeycutt say that for several years Business marketing took "a back seat" to consumer marketing.[1] This entailed providers of goods or services selling directly to households through mass media and retail channels.

David Lichtenthal (professor of marketing at Zicklin School of Business) notes in his research that Business marketing has existed since the mid-19th century.

He adds that the bulk of research on Business marketing has come in the last 25 years.[2] This began to change in the middle to late 1970s.

Academic periodicals, including the Journal of Business-to-Business marketing[3] and the Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing[4] now publish studies on the subject regularly.

Professional conferences on Business marketing are held every year[citation needed] and courses are commonplace at many universities today.

According to Jeremy Kourdi, more than half of marketing majors start their careers in Business marketing rather than consumer marketing.[5] Business markets have derived demand – a demand in them exists because of demand in the consumer market.

An example would be a government wishing to purchase equipment for a nuclear power plant.

Another example would be when items are in popular demand.

The underlying consumer demand that has triggered this is that people are consuming more electricity (by using more household devices such as washing machines and computers).

Business markets do not exist in isolation.

A single consumer market demand can give rise to hundreds of business market demands.

The demand for cars creates demands for castings, forgings, plastic components, steel and tires.

In turn, this creates demands for casting sand, forging machines, mining materials, polymers, rubber.

Each of these growing demands has triggered more demands.

As the spending power of citizens increases, countries generally see an upward wave in their economy.

Cities or countries with growing consumption are generally growing business markets.

Despite the differences between business and consumer marketing from a surface perspective being seemingly obvious, there are more subtle distinctions between the two with substantial ramifications.

Dwyer and Tanner note that Business marketing generally entails shorter and more direct channels of distribution.

While consumer marketing is aimed at large groups through mass media and retailers, the negotiation process between the buyer and seller is more personal in Business marketing.

According to Hutt and Speh (2004), most business marketers commit only a small part of their promotional budgets to advertising, and that is usually through direct mail efforts and trade journals.

While advertising is limited, it often helps the business marketer set up successful sales calls.

Both business to business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) marketing is done with the ultimate intention of making a profit to the seller (business-to-Business marketing).

In B2C, B2B and B2G marketing situations, the marketer must always: These are the fundamental principles of the 4 Ps of marketing (the marketing mix) first documented by E.

Jerome McCarthy in 1960.[6] While "other businesses" might seem like the simple answer, Dwyer and Tanner say business customers fall into four broad categories: companies that consume products or services, government agencies, institutions and resellers.

The first category includes original equipment manufacturers, such as large auto-makers who buy gauges to put in their cars and also small firms owned by 1-2 individuals who purchase products to run their business.

The second category - government agencies, is the biggest.

In fact, the U.S.

government is the biggest single purchaser of products and services in the country, spending more than $300 billion annually.

But this category also includes state and local governments.

The third category, institutions, includes schools, hospitals and nursing homes, churches and charities.

Finally, resellers consist of wholesalers, brokers and industrial distributors.

So what are the meaningful differences between B2B and B2C marketing? A B2C sale is to a "Consumer" i.e.

to a single person who pays for the transaction.

A B2B sale is to a "Business" i.e.

organization or firm.

Given the complexity of organizational structure, B2B sales typically involve multiple decision makers.

While the structure of a B2B sale involving an organization is understood, the psychology of a B2B sale, particularly from a marketing perspective, is not always devoid of human emotion.

According to Bill Blaney (2012), a B2C and a B2B sale can be differentiated by the customer as either a "want" or a "need." While retail consumer sales rarely hinge upon a product or service that customers "need" in order to survive (pharmaceutical and other health industry products notwithstanding), business sales are more directly applied to the growth and survival of that particular company, organization or institution.

As a result, marketing to businesses relies on communication that can provide the company buyer with a level of comfort in the long-term performance of their product or service, and support in its continued efficacy.

The marketing mix is affected by the B2B uniqueness which include complexity of business products and services, diversity of demand and the differing nature of the sales itself (including fewer customers buying larger volumes).[7] Because there are some important subtleties to the B2B sale, the issues are broken down beyond just the original 4 Ps of marketing developed by McCarthy.

B2B branding is different from B2C in some crucial ways, including the need to align corporate brands, divisional brands and product/service brands and to apply brand standards to material often considered “informal” such as email and other electronic correspondence.

It is mainly of large scale when compared with B2C.

Due to the fact that business customers are focused on creating shareholder value for themselves, the cost-saving or revenue-producing benefits of products and services are important to factor in throughout the product development and marketing cycles.

Quite often, the target market for a business product or service is smaller and has more specialized needs reflective of a specific industry or niche.[8] A B2B niche, a segment of the market, can be described in terms of firmographics which requires marketers to have good business intelligence in order to increase response rates.

Regardless of the size of the target market, the business customer is making an organizational purchase decision and the dynamics of this, both procedurally and in terms of how they value the product offered, differ dramatically from the consumer market.

There may be multiple influencers on the purchase decision, which may also have to be marketed to, though they may not be members of the decision making unit.[9] In addition the research and decision making process a B2B buyer undertakes will be more extensive.[10] Finally the purchase information that buyers are researching changes as they go through the buying process (see sample decision map).[11] The business market can be convinced to pay premium prices more often than the consumer market with appropriate pricing structure and payment terms.

This pricing premium is particularly achievable if it is supported with a strong brand.[12] Promotion planning is relatively easy when the decision making habits of the customer base and the vocabulary unique to their segment are known.

Specific trade shows, analysts, publications, blogs and retail/wholesale outlets tend to be fairly common to each industry/product area.

Once it is figured out for the industry/product, writing the promotion plan is simple.

Promotion techniques rely heavily on marketing communications strategies (see below).[13] The importance of a knowledgeable, experienced and effective direct (inside or outside) sales force is often critical in the business market.

When selling through distribution channels also, the number and type of sales forces can vary tremendously and success as a marketer is highly dependent on their success.

One of the distinguishing features of the B2B sales cycle is its comparably longer lead times compared to B2C.[14] The result of this longer lead cycle affects the entire B2B marketing process.

The purpose of B2B marketing communications is to support the organizations' sales effort and improve company profitability.

B2B marketing communications tactics generally include advertising, public relations, direct mail, trade show support, sales collateral, branding, and interactive services such as website design and search engine optimization.

The Business marketing Association[15] is the trade organization that serves B2B marketing professionals.

It was founded in 1922 and offers certification programs, research services, conferences, industry awards and training programs.

An important first step in business to Business marketing is the development of a positioning statement.

This is a statement of what is done and how it will be better and more efficient than competitors.

The next step is to develop messages.

There is usually a primary message that conveys more strongly to customers, what is done and how the customers benefit from it.

This is often supported by a number of secondary messages, each of which may have a number of supporting arguments, facts and figures.

A comprehensive plan to target resources where they will deliver the best return on investment.

The infrastructure to support each stage of the marketing process has to be in place and the entire organization must be geared up to handle the inquiries appropriately.

A standard briefing document is usually a good idea for briefing an agency, as well as focusing the agency on what is important in the campaign.

It serves as a checklist of all the important things to consider as part of the brief.

Typical elements to an agency brief are: objectives, target market, target audience, product, campaign description, product positioning, graphical considerations, corporate guidelines, and any other supporting material and distribution.

The value in results measurement is in tying the marketing campaign back to business results.

Metrics to measure the impact are e.g.

cost per acquisition, cost per lead or tangible changes in customer perception.

Hutt and Speh (2001) note that "business marketers serve the largest market of all; the dollar volume of transactions in the industrial or business market significantly exceeds that of the ultimate consumer market." For example, they note that companies such as GE, DuPont and IBM spend more than $60 million a day on purchases to support their operations.

Dwyer and Tanner (2006) say the purchases made by companies, government agencies and institutions "account for more than half of the economic activity in industrialized countries such as the United States, Canada and France." A 2003 study sponsored by the Business marketing Association estimated that business-to-business marketers in the United States spend about $85 billion a year to promote their goods and services.

The BMA study breaks that spending out as follows (figures are in billions of dollars): The tremendous growth and change that Business marketing is experiencing is largely due to three "revolutions" occurring around the world today, according to Morris, Pitt and Honeycutt (2001).

The Internet has become an integral component of the customer relationship management strategy for business marketers.

Dwyer and Tanner (2006) note that business marketers not only use the Internet to improve customer service but also to gain opportunities with distributors.

According to Anderson and Narus (2004), two new types of resellers have emerged as by-products of the Internet: infomediaries and metamediaries.

Infomediaries, such as Google and Yahoo, are search engine companies that also function as brokers, or middlemen, in the Business marketing world.

They charge companies fees to find information on the Web as well as for banner and pop-up ads and search engine optimization services.

Metamediaries are companies with robust Internet sites that furnish customers with multiproduct, multivendor and multiservice marketspace in return for commissions on sales.

With the advent of b-to-b exchanges, the Internet ushered in an enthusiasm for collaboration that never existed before—and in fact might have even seemed ludicrous 10 years ago.

For example, a decade ago who would have imagined Ford, General Motors and DaimlerChrysler entering into a joint venture? That's exactly what happened after all three of the Big Three began moving their purchases online in the late 1990s.

All three companies were pursuing their own initiatives when they realized the economies of scale they could achieve by pooling their efforts.

Thus was born what then was the world's largest Internet business when Ford's Auto-Xchange and GM's TradeXchange merged, with DaimlerChrysler representing the third partner.

While this exchange did not stand the test of time, others have, including Agentrics, which was formed in 2005 with the merger of WorldWide Retail Exchange and GlobalNetXchange, or GNX.

Agentrics serves more 50 retailers around the world and more than 300 customers, and its members have combined sales of about $1 trillion.

Hutt and Speh (2001) note that such virtual marketplaces enable companies and their suppliers to conduct business in real time as well as simplify purchase processes and cut costs.

B2B design often relies heavily on gradients.

This is seen by some to represent the fluid nature of the sector and the democratic approach to design employed by B2B agencies.

[16]

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Internet Marketing Agency

Digital marketing is the component of marketing that utilizes internet and online based digital technologies such as desktop computers, mobile phones and other digital media and platforms to promote products and services.[1][2] Its development during the 1990s and 2000s, changed the way brands and businesses use technology for marketing.

As digital platforms became increasingly incorporated into marketing plans and everyday life,[3] and as people increasingly use digital devices instead of visiting physical shops,[4][5] Digital marketing campaigns have become prevalent, employing combinations of search engine optimization (SEO), search engine marketing (SEM), content marketing, influencer marketing, content automation, campaign marketing, data-driven marketing, e-commerce marketing, social media marketing, social media optimization, e-mail direct marketing, display advertising, e–books, and optical disks and games have become commonplace.

Digital marketing extends to non-Internet channels that provide digital media, such as television, mobile phones (SMS and MMS), callback, and on-hold mobile ring tones.[6] The extension to non-Internet channels differentiates Digital marketing from online marketing.[7] The development of Digital marketing is inseparable from technology development.

One of the key points in the start of was in 1971, where Ray Tomlinson sent the very first email and his technology set the platform to allow people to send and receive files through different machines.[8] However, the more recognisable period as being the start of Digital marketing is 1990 as this was where the Archie search engine was created as an index for FTP sites.

In the 1980s, the storage capacity of computer was already big enough to store huge volumes of customer information.

Companies started choosing online techniques, such as database marketing, rather than limited list broker.[9] These kinds of databases allowed companies to track customers' information more effectively, thus transforming the relationship between buyer and seller.

However, the manual process was not as efficient.

In the 1990s, the term Digital marketing was first coined,.[10] With the debut of server/client architecture and the popularity of personal computers, the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) applications became a significant factor in marketing technology.[11] Fierce competition forced vendors to include more service into their software, for example, marketing, sales and service applications.

Marketers were also able to own huge online customer data by eCRM software after the Internet was born.

Companies could update the data of customer needs and obtain the priorities of their experience.

This led to the first clickable banner ad being going live in 1994, which was the "You Will" campaign by AT&T and over the first four months of it going live, 44% of all people who saw it clicked on the ad.[12][13] In the 2000s, with increasing numbers of Internet users and the birth of iPhone, customers began searching products and making decisions about their needs online first, instead of consulting a salesperson, which created a new problem for the marketing department of a company.[14] In addition, a survey in 2000 in the United Kingdom found that most retailers had not registered their own domain address.[15] These problems encouraged marketers to find new ways to integrate digital technology into market development.

In 2007, marketing automation was developed as a response to the ever evolving marketing climate.

Marketing automation is the process by which software is used to automate conventional marketing processes.[16] Marketing automation helped companies segment customers, launch multichannel marketing campaigns, and provide personalized information for customers.[16] However, the speed of its adaptability to consumer devices was not fast enough.

Digital marketing became more sophisticated in the 2000s and the 2010s, when[17][18] the proliferation of devices' capable of accessing digital media led to sudden growth.[19] Statistics produced in 2012 and 2013 showed that Digital marketing was still growing.[20][21] With the development of social media in the 2000s, such as LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, consumers became highly dependent on digital electronics in daily lives.

Therefore, they expected a seamless user experience across different channels for searching product's information.

The change of customer behavior improved the diversification of marketing technology.[22] Digital marketing is also referred to as 'online marketing', 'internet marketing' or 'web marketing'.

The term Digital marketing has grown in popularity over time.

In the USA online marketing is still a popular term.

In Italy, Digital marketing is referred to as web marketing.

Worldwide Digital marketing has become the most common term, especially after the year 2013.[23] Digital media growth was estimated at 4.5 trillion online ads served annually with digital media spend at 48% growth in 2010.[24] An increasing portion of advertising stems from businesses employing Online Behavioural Advertising (OBA) to tailor advertising for internet users, but OBA raises concern of consumer privacy and data protection.[19] Nonlinear marketing, a type of interactive marketing, is a long-term marketing approach which builds on businesses collecting information about an Internet user's online activities, and trying to be visible in multiple areas.[25][26] Unlike traditional marketing techniques, which involve direct, one-way messaging to consumers (via print, television and radio advertising), nonlinear Digital marketing strategies are centered on reaching prospective customers across multiple online channels.[27] Combined with higher consumer knowledge and the demand for more sophisticated consumer offerings, this change has forced many businesses to rethink their outreach strategy and adopt or incorporate omnichannel, nonlinear marketing techniques to maintain sufficient brand exposure, engagement and reach.[28] Nonlinear marketing strategies involve efforts to adapt the advertising to different platforms,[29] and to tailor the advertising to different individual buyers rather than a large coherent audience.[26] Tactics may include: Some studies indicate that consumer responses to traditional marketing approaches are becoming less predictable for businesses.[30] According to a 2018 study, nearly 90% of online consumers in the United States researched products and brands online before visiting the store or making a purchase.[31] The Global Web Index estimated that in 2018, a little more than 50% of consumers researched products on social media.[32] Businesses often rely on individuals portraying their products in a positive light on social media, and may adapt their marketing strategy to target people with large social media followings in order to generate such comments.[33] In this manner, businesses can use consumers to advertise their products or services, decreasing the cost for the company.[34] One of the key objectives of modern Digital marketing is to raise brand awareness, the extent to which customers and the general public are familiar with and recognize a particular brand.

Enhancing brand awareness is important in Digital marketing, and marketing in general, because of its impact on brand perception and consumer decision-making.

According to the 2015 essay, “Impact of Brand on Consumer Behavior”: “Brand awareness, as one of the fundamental dimensions of brand equity, is often considered to be a prerequisite of consumers’ buying decision, as it represents the main factor for including a brand in the consideration set.

Brand awareness can also influence consumers’ perceived risk assessment and their confidence in the purchase decision, due to familiarity with the brand and its characteristics.”[35] Recent trends show that businesses and digital marketers are prioritizing brand awareness, focusing more of their Digital marketing efforts on cultivating brand recognition and recall than in previous years.

This is evidenced by a 2019 Content Marketing Institute study, which found that 81% of digital marketers have worked on enhancing brand recognition over the past year.[36] Another Content Marketing Institute survey revealed 89% of B2B marketers now believe improving brand awareness to be more important than efforts directed at increasing sales.[37] Increasing brand awareness is a focus of Digital marketing strategy for a number of reasons: Digital marketing strategies may include the use of one or more online channels and techniques (omnichannel) to increase brand awareness among consumers.[45] Building brand awareness may involve such methods/tools as: Search engine optimization techniques may be used to improve the visibility of business websites and brand-related content for common industry-related search queries.[46] The importance of SEO to increasing brand awareness is said to correlate with the growing influence of search results and search features like featured snippets, knowledge panels and local SEO on customer behavior.[47] SEM, also known as PPC advertising, involves the purchase of ad space in prominent, visible positions atop search results pages and websites.

Search ads have been shown to have a positive impact on brand recognition, awareness and conversions.[48] 33% of searchers who click on paid ads do so because they directly respond to their particular search query.[49] 70% of marketers list increasing brand awareness as their number one goal for marketing on social media platforms.

Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube are listed as the top platforms currently used by social media marketing teams.[50] 56% of marketers believe personalized content – brand-centered blogs, articles, social updates, videos, landing pages – improves brand recall and engagement.[51] According to Mentionlytics, an active and consistent content strategy that incorporates elements of interactive content creation, social posting and guest blogging can improve brand awareness and loyalty by 88%.[52] One of the major changes that occurred in traditional marketing was the "emergence of Digital marketing" (Patrutiu Baltes, Loredana, 2015), this led to the reinvention of marketing strategies in order to adapt to this major change in traditional marketing (Patrutiu Baltes, Loredana, 2015).

As Digital marketing is dependent on technology which is ever-evolving and fast-changing, the same features should be expected from Digital marketing developments and strategies.

This portion is an attempt to qualify or segregate the notable highlights existing and being used as of press time.[when?] To summarize, Pull Digital marketing is characterized by consumers actively seeking marketing content while Push Digital marketing occurs when marketers send messages without that content being actively sought by the recipients.

An important consideration today while deciding on a strategy is that the digital tools have democratized the promotional landscape.

The new digital era has enabled brands to selectively target their customers that may potentially be interested in their brand or based on previous browsing interests.

Businesses can now use social media to select the age range, location, gender and interests of whom they would like their targeted post to be seen by.

Furthermore, based on a customer's recent search history they can be ‘followed’ on the internet so they see advertisements from similar brands, products and services,[58] This allows businesses to target the specific customers that they know and feel will most benefit from their product or service, something that had limited capabilities up until the digital era.

Digital marketing activity is still growing across the world according to the headline global marketing index.

A study published in September 2018, found that global outlays on Digital marketing tactics are approaching $100 billion.[59] Digital media continues to rapidly grow; while the marketing budgets are expanding, traditional media is declining (World Economics, 2015).[60] Digital media helps brands reach consumers to engage with their product or service in a personalised way.

Five areas, which are outlined as current industry practices that are often ineffective are prioritizing clicks, balancing search and display, understanding mobiles, targeting, viewability, brand safety and invalid traffic, and cross-platform measurement (Whiteside, 2016).[61] Why these practices are ineffective and some ways around making these aspects effective are discussed surrounding the following points.

Prioritizing clicks refers to display click ads, although advantageous by being ‘simple, fast and inexpensive’ rates for display ads in 2016 is only 0.10 percent in the United States.

This means one in a thousand click ads are relevant therefore having little effect.

This displays that marketing companies should not just use click ads to evaluate the effectiveness of display advertisements (Whiteside, 2016).[61] Balancing search and display for digital display ads are important; marketers tend to look at the last search and attribute all of the effectiveness to this.

This, in turn, disregards other marketing efforts, which establish brand value within the consumers mind.

ComScore determined through drawing on data online, produced by over one hundred multichannel retailers that digital display marketing poses strengths when compared with or positioned alongside, paid search (Whiteside, 2016).[61] This is why it is advised that when someone clicks on a display ad the company opens a landing page, not its home page.

A landing page typically has something to draw the customer in to search beyond this page.

Things such as free offers that the consumer can obtain through giving the company contact information so that they can use retargeting communication strategies (Square2Marketing, 2012).[62] Commonly marketers see increased sales among people exposed to a search ad.

But the fact of how many people you can reach with a display campaign compared to a search campaign should be considered.

Multichannel retailers have an increased reach if the display is considered in synergy with search campaigns.

Overall both search and display aspects are valued as display campaigns build awareness for the brand so that more people are likely to click on these digital ads when running a search campaign (Whiteside, 2016).[61] Understanding Mobiles: Understanding mobile devices is a significant aspect of Digital marketing because smartphones and tablets are now responsible for 64% of the time US consumers are online (Whiteside, 2016).[61] Apps provide a big opportunity as well as challenge for the marketers because firstly the app needs to be downloaded and secondly the person needs to actually use it.

This may be difficult as ‘half the time spent on smartphone apps occurs on the individuals single most used app, and almost 85% of their time on the top four rated apps’ (Whiteside, 2016).[61] Mobile advertising can assist in achieving a variety of commercial objectives and it is effective due to taking over the entire screen, and voice or status is likely to be considered highly; although the message must not be seen or thought of as intrusive (Whiteside, 2016).[61] Disadvantages of digital media used on mobile devices also include limited creative capabilities, and reach.

Although there are many positive aspects including the users entitlement to select product information, digital media creating a flexible message platform and there is potential for direct selling (Belch & Belch, 2012).[63] Cross-platform measurement: The number of marketing channels continues to expand, as measurement practices are growing in complexity.

A cross-platform view must be used to unify audience measurement and media planning.

Market researchers need to understand how the Omni-channel affects consumer's behaviour, although when advertisements are on a consumer's device this does not get measured.

Significant aspects to cross-platform measurement involves deduplication and understanding that you have reached an incremental level with another platform, rather than delivering more impressions against people that have previously been reached (Whiteside, 2016).[61] An example is ‘ESPN and comScore partnered on Project Blueprint discovering the sports broadcaster achieved a 21% increase in unduplicated daily reach thanks to digital advertising’ (Whiteside, 2016).[61] Television and radio industries are the electronic media, which competes with digital and other technological advertising.

Yet television advertising is not directly competing with online digital advertising due to being able to cross platform with digital technology.

Radio also gains power through cross platforms, in online streaming content.

Television and radio continue to persuade and affect the audience, across multiple platforms (Fill, Hughes, & De Franceso, 2013).[64] Targeting, viewability, brand safety and invalid traffic: Targeting, viewability, brand safety and invalid traffic all are aspects used by marketers to help advocate digital advertising.

Cookies are a form of digital advertising, which are tracking tools within desktop devices; causing difficulty, with shortcomings including deletion by web browsers, the inability to sort between multiple users of a device, inaccurate estimates for unique visitors, overstating reach, understanding frequency, problems with ad servers, which cannot distinguish between when cookies have been deleted and when consumers have not previously been exposed to an ad.

Due to the inaccuracies influenced by cookies, demographics in the target market are low and vary (Whiteside, 2016).[61] Another element, which is affected within Digital marketing, is ‘viewabilty’ or whether the ad was actually seen by the consumer.

Many ads are not seen by a consumer and may never reach the right demographic segment.

Brand safety is another issue of whether or not the ad was produced in the context of being unethical or having offensive content.

Recognizing fraud when an ad is exposed is another challenge marketers face.

This relates to invalid traffic as premium sites are more effective at detecting fraudulent traffic, although non-premium sites are more so the problem (Whiteside, 2016).[61] Digital marketing Channels are systems based on the Internet that can create, accelerate, and transmit product value from producer to a consumer terminal, through digital networks.[65][66] Digital marketing is facilitated by multiple Digital marketing channels, As an advertiser one's core objective is to find channels which result in maximum two-way communication and a better overall ROI for the brand.

There are multiple Digital marketing channels available namely;[67] It is important for a firm to reach out to consumers and create a two-way communication model, as Digital marketing allows consumers to give back feed back to the firm on a community based site or straight directly to the firm via email.[80] Firms should seek this long term communication relationship by using multiple forms of channels and using promotional strategies related to their target consumer as well as word-of mouth marketing.[80] The ICC Code has integrated rules that apply to marketing communications using digital interactive media throughout the guidelines.

There is also an entirely updated section dealing with issues specific to digital interactive media techniques and platforms.

Code self-regulation on use of digital interactive media includes: Digital marketing planning is a term used in marketing management.

It describes the first stage of forming a Digital marketing strategy for the wider Digital marketing system.

The difference between digital and traditional marketing planning is that it uses digitally based communication tools and technology such as Social, Web, Mobile, Scannable Surface.[84][85] Nevertheless, both are aligned with the vision, the mission of the company and the overarching business strategy.[86] Using Dr Dave Chaffey's approach, the Digital marketing planning (DMP) has three main stages: Opportunity, Strategy and Action.

He suggests that any business looking to implement a successful Digital marketing strategy must structure their plan by looking at opportunity, strategy and action.

This generic strategic approach often has phases of situation review, goal setting, strategy formulation, resource allocation and monitoring.[86] To create an effective DMP, a business first needs to review the marketplace and set 'SMART' (Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Relevant and Time-Bound) objectives.[87] They can set SMART objectives by reviewing the current benchmarks and key performance indicators (KPIs) of the company and competitors.

It is pertinent that the analytics used for the KPIs be customised to the type, objectives, mission and vision of the company.[88][89] Companies can scan for marketing and sales opportunities by reviewing their own outreach as well as influencer outreach.

This means they have competitive advantage because they are able to analyse their co-marketers influence and brand associations.[90] To cease opportunity, the firm should summarize their current customers' personas and purchase journey from this they are able to deduce their Digital marketing capability.

This means they need to form a clear picture of where they are currently and how many resources they can allocate for their Digital marketing strategy i.e.

labour, time etc.

By summarizing the purchase journey, they can also recognise gaps and growth for future marketing opportunities that will either meet objectives or propose new objectives and increase profit.

To create a planned digital strategy, the company must review their digital proposition (what you are offering to consumers) and communicate it using digital customer targeting techniques.

So, they must define online value proposition (OVP), this means the company must express clearly what they are offering customers online e.g.

brand positioning.

The company should also (re)select target market segments and personas and define digital targeting approaches.

After doing this effectively, it is important to review the marketing mix for online options.

The marketing mix comprises the 4Ps – Product, Price, Promotion and Place.[91][92] Some academics have added three additional elements to the traditional 4Ps of marketing Process, Place and Physical appearance making it 7Ps of marketing.[93] The third and final stage requires the firm to set a budget and management systems; these must be measurable touchpoints, such as audience reached across all digital platforms.

Furthermore, marketers must ensure the budget and management systems are integrating the paid, owned and earned media of the company.[94] The Action and final stage of planning also requires the company to set in place measurable content creation e.g.

oral, visual or written online media.[95] After confirming the Digital marketing plan, a scheduled format of digital communications (e.g.

Gantt Chart) should be encoded throughout the internal operations of the company.

This ensures that all platforms used fall in line and complement each other for the succeeding stages of Digital marketing strategy.

One way marketers can reach out to consumers, and understand their thought process is through what is called an empathy map.

An empathy map is a four step process.

The first step is through asking questions that the consumer would be thinking in their demographic.

The second step is to describe the feelings that the consumer may be having.

The third step is to think about what the consumer would say in their situation.

The final step is to imagine what the consumer will try to do based on the other three steps.

This map is so marketing teams can put themselves in their target demographics shoes.[96] Web Analytics are also a very important way to understand consumers.

They show the habits that people have online for each website.[97] One particular form of these analytics is predictive analytics which helps marketers figure out what route consumers are on.

This uses the information gathered from other analytics, and then creates different predictions of what people will do so that companies can strategize on what to do next, according to the peoples trends.[98] The "sharing economy" refers to an economic pattern that aims to obtain a resource that is not fully utilized.[101] Nowadays, the sharing economy has had an unimagined effect on many traditional elements including labor, industry, and distribution system.[101] This effect is not negligible that some industries are obviously under threat.[101][102] The sharing economy is influencing the traditional marketing channels by changing the nature of some specific concept including ownership, assets, and recruitment.[102] Digital marketing channels and traditional marketing channels are similar in function that the value of the product or service is passed from the original producer to the end user by a kind of supply chain.[103] Digital marketing channels, however, consist of internet systems that create, promote, and deliver products or services from producer to consumer through digital networks.[104] Increasing changes to marketing channels has been a significant contributor to the expansion and growth of the sharing economy.[104] Such changes to marketing channels has prompted unprecedented and historic growth.[104] In addition to this typical approach, the built-in control, efficiency and low cost of Digital marketing channels is an essential features in the application of sharing economy.[103] Digital marketing channels within the sharing economy are typically divided into three domains including, e-mail, social media, and search engine marketing or SEM.[104] Other emerging Digital marketing channels, particularly branded mobile apps, have excelled in the sharing economy.[104] Branded mobile apps are created specifically to initiate engagement between customers and the company.This engagement is typically facilitated through entertainment, information, or market transaction.[104]

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