The Pros And Cons Of Digital Marketing

It is hard to argue that digital marketing is unnecessary. If a brand does not have an online presence it may have fallen vastly behind its competitors. But it did not always used to be like this. In the past, the most successful brands rolled out a shiny and beautiful campaign once a year. It consisted of a few television commercials or maybe a series of magazine ads. However, this all changed with the introduction of the internet in the 1990s. The internet completely changed how advertisers produced and distributed media to the public. Suddenly companies rushed to advertise online to avoid being left behind. Digital media has disrupted marketing by changing what platforms advertisements appear on, what advertisements look like and how advertisers

This pressure from customers and the industry propelled companies to transition quicker to digital marketing, but companies stayed because they found that it was more cost effective than traditional marketing. Digital marketing costs 62% less than traditional marketing and generates about three times as many leads, a promising return for any sales team (Brooks). Over the past decade the most prominent changes to marketing tactics have been the speed, relevance and reach of campaigns (Benady). Companies can now respond to changes in the market very quickly, by simply posting to social media or running an ad online the following week. Processes that used to last months, can now be executed almost instantaneously, forcing campaigns to be integrated well across all platforms to ensure a campaign’s immediate success (Benady). As digital marketing progressed, campaigns have changed and morphed into using less and less recognizable ads. In 2018, the more an ad “does not look, sound, read or resemble an ad, the better” (Rezvani). This could explain the reason why keyword ads and sponsored content has become so popular. The ads appear in a user’s feed automatically, and almost look exactly like the content they have liked already, making it easier to