Module 4: Reading and Videos Part 2

Digital marketing is the use of marketing touchpoints executed electronically through a digital channel to communicate and interact with current and potential customers and partners.  Examples of digital channels are social media, email, search engines, and websites that facilitate connections with current and potential customers.

Insights from digital marketing analytics can be used to better understand and enhance the customer purchase journey.  The goal for marketers is to increase the likelihood that customers will complete the journey and actually purchase a product or service, and also that they return in the future to make additional purchases.  During the purchase journey, customers seek information and interact with companies through multiple digital touchpoints.  Properly managing interactions throughout the customer purchase journey can lead to brand awareness, brand engagement, word-of-mouth marketing, and conversion to purchase.

Digital marketing touchpoints can be categorized as different types of media, including owned, paid, and earned digital media.  Exposure the company pays others to provide is referred to as paid digital media.  Communication or exposure not initiated or posted by the company is called earned digital media – likely an outcome of owned and paid efforts.

Owned digital media is managed by the company and includes touchpoints such as email marketing, social media pages, and company websites.  Examples of paid digital media include sponsored posts, display advertisements, and social media advertisements.  Reviews, social media shares, and media coverage are some touchpoints considered earned digital media.

Some digital marketing metrics help answer questions about what is happening but do not clarify more advanced questions such as why.

Basic measurements include audience analysis, acquisition analysis, behavior analysis, and conversion analysis.

Audience analysis measures include: quantity of impressions or visitors, user demographics, and geography or location.

Acquisition analysis measures include traffic sources and campaigns.

Behavior analysis measures include: pageviews, frequency of engagement, site speed, bounce rate, click-through rate, site content, and site search.

Finally, conversion analysis measures include conversion rate and conversion by traffic source.  In addition to these basic measures, there are also more complex analyses such as A/B testing, multivariate testing, and multichannel attribution.

The following video helps explain in easy terms on what digital marketing metrics should be measured:

The following video is quite an overview of A/B Testing

A/B testing lets marketers experiment with different digital options, such as button color, to identify which ones are likely to be the most effective.  Marketers can compare on treatment (A/Control Group) to another treatment (B), where ‘treatment’ is the digital marketing intervention being tested – such as button color.  The results of A/B testing are designed to improve online visitor experiences, and ultimately increase the likelihood of purchasing.  Companies run digital A/B experiments regularly to learn what digital marketing works best.  A/B testing provides an understanding of which content is being received and acted on by website visitors and more quickly leads to improved conversion.