There are dozens of terms that get thrown about in marketing. Acronyms like SEO, KPIs, and PPC are commonplace. So are terms like digital advertising and digital marketing.
It’s easy to confuse them all or think that they mean the same thing. That’s often the case when talking about digital marketing and digital advertising. You might think that they mean the same thing, but there are major differences between the two. That can impact your approach to drive more traffic to your website.
What’s the difference between digital marketing and digital advertising?
Keep reading to find out.
What Is Digital Marketing?
Let’s look at your business for a moment. It doesn’t matter what kind of business you have. You’re likely to have a website. Your website is a tool so that people can learn more about your business and eventually contact you for your services.
If you want more calls, you have to find a way to get more people to visit your website. There are dozens of ways to do that, from social media to organic search or having a blog.
All of these things encompass digital marketing. Think of digital marketing as a huge umbrella. Under that umbrella are all of the ways you can promote your website.
Each Instagram post and blog post are a form of digital marketing. Each white paper or case study is a part of digital marketing. These pieces of content have a specific purpose. They’re also intended to resonate with a very specific audience.
What Is Digital Advertising?
Digital advertising does fall under the umbrella of digital marketing. It’s a form of promotion that uses paid advertising. Common forms of digital advertising are pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns, search advertising, social media ads, and display advertising.
Digital advertising can be targeted towards a specific audience, or it could be used to build brand awareness to a broader audience. It can also be used for short promotions or to drive search engine traffic to your site.
When to Use Digital Marketing and Digital Advertising
Now that you know the differences between digital marketing and digital advertising, when do you use them? The importance of digital marketing can’t be ignored, so you want to make sure that’s where you begin.
Digital marketing should always be working. Consistency is the key to get the best results and get more traffic to your site. Digital advertising can be used for a short time period, such as a holiday promotion. It can also be used to build awareness for a new product or service.
Integrating Digital Marketing and Digital Advertising
Digital marketing and digital advertising work best when they’re integrated. An integrated campaign doesn’t look at each form of marketing as individual pieces. It takes each piece and forms a larger picture like a puzzle. Here’s an example of how the two can work together.
You have a marketing campaign that uses social media to drive brand awareness and drive traffic to your website. You know that most people who visit your website will leave without converting into a sale or subscriber.
The best way to recapture that audience is to use a retargeting campaign. That’s when you install a tracking cookie on your website. You set up a display campaign on Google or Facebook’s ad network.
The tracking cookie will follow visitors who leave your site. Your ads will appear to them as they visit other websites. This is a great way to recapture your visitors can increase the likelihood of conversions.
Another example of using digital marketing and digital advertising together happens to be on search engines. Most websites rely on organic search results for traffic. However, it can be hard to rank for certain search terms organically.
It also takes time to build up your organic search and see results. While you’re building up SEO, you can use PPC ads at the same time. This lets your website leapfrog the competition and get your site at the top of search results.
Digital Marketing and Advertising Tips
How can you make the most of your digital marketing budget? Be sure to follow these tips.
1. Have Clear Goals
When you make the investment into marketing your business, you have to have clearly defined goals. This will allow you to measure the results and determine which marketing efforts are working and which ones aren’t.
2. Know Your Target
Who is your ideal customer? That’s what you need to know when you are creating a digital marketing campaign. Get detailed information about them, such as why they want or need your services.
3. What Action Do You Want?
Your digital marketing and digital advertising campaigns are designed to drive traffic to your website. The million-dollar question is what do you want people to do when they get to your website?
You have to add calls to action throughout your website and make it clear what the next step is. Let’s say that your digital marketing campaign includes SEO and blogging.
You have a blog post that gets a lot of traffic about meditation. You can offer a content upgrade where people can sign up to download a free meditation guide.
That will add more value and increase conversions on your site.
4. Map the Journey Out
Digital marketing isn’t complicated, but there are a number of steps a person will take before they become a customer. They may interact with your brand online at least a dozen times before they finally convert.
You want to map out the customer’s journey as much as possible. This will help you lay out your content and the various touchpoints.
The Difference Between Digital Advertising and Digital Marketing
There is one core difference between digital marketing and digital advertising. Digital advertising is a part of digital marketing, but it involved paid advertising. Once you understand that difference, the easier it is to develop and budget effective marketing campaigns.
You can find more great content by visiting the home page of this site.
