What digital marketing is and how it is done

Digital marketing is how a business wins new customers and keeps existing ones using online channels such as search engines, social media, email and its website. It differs from traditional marketing on two points: the message can be targeted at a specific audience, and what the money turned into can be measured.

This article covers what the channels are for, which one to start with, and the most common mistakes.

What are the digital marketing channels?

• Search engine optimisation (SEO). Getting your site to rank high on Google without paying for ads. Slow to take effect, lasting once it does.
• Search advertising. Appearing to someone making a specific search through Google Ads. Fast, and it stops when the budget does.
• Social advertising. Targeting by interest and behaviour on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn and TikTok.
• Content marketing. Articles, videos and guides that answer the questions customers ask.
• Email marketing. Reaching people who already know you, regularly. The cheapest channel and the most neglected.
• Local visibility. Google Business Profile and map results, for businesses working at neighbourhood and city scale.
• AI search. Being cited in the answers of tools such as ChatGPT and Gemini; details are in what GEO is.

None of these channels is a strategy on its own. The channel is the result of the decision.

Which channel works when?

What separates the channels is the customer’s intent at that moment:

• If the customer is already searching, search channels work: SEO and Google Ads. Someone looking for a plumber, a lawyer, a clinic or a software firm knows what they want.
• If the customer is not aware of the need, social media works. A new product, a fashion brand or an event is not searched for; it is put in front of people.
• If the decision takes a long time, content and email work. In a purchase considered for three months, something has to fill the gap.
• If the customer is nearby, map results work; details are in local SEO.

The budget side of the search-versus-ads question is compared in SEO vs Google Ads.

Where do you start with digital marketing?

Order matters, and most businesses start from the wrong end:

1. Turn the goal into a number. “More customers” is not a goal. “40 leads a month at no more than this much per lead” is.
2. Set up measurement. If you cannot see which lead came from which channel, you cannot know how to split the budget. What is worth measuring is in the GA4 guide.
3. Get the site ready. The ad brings the visitor; the site makes the sale. Sending traffic to a site that loads slowly, or where the phone number cannot be found, is money wasted.
4. Start with one channel. A small budget split across five channels is not enough to learn anything in any of them.
5. Test on a small budget, grow what works. Every test should have a stop threshold set in advance.

How to write a plan that fits on a page is covered in digital marketing strategy.

How is success measured in digital marketing?

Impressions, clicks and follower counts are intermediate indicators, not results. Three numbers matter to the business:

• Cost per lead or sale. What did you spend to win one customer?
• Return on ad spend. How much revenue came back for each unit spent?
• Customer lifetime value. What does a customer bring you after the first sale?

The three are read together. A campaign with a low cost per lead that never turns into sales looks successful and loses money. The reasoning is in what performance marketing is.

How much budget do you need?

It varies by sector, region and competition; there is no figure that fits everyone. The calculation runs backwards: start from what a sale is worth to you, work out the most you can pay for a lead, then multiply by the number of leads you are aiming for.

To run that calculation with your own numbers you can use the Google Ads budget calculator.

The most common mistakes

• Starting ads without measurement. Budget gets raised without knowing what works.
• Trying to be on every channel at once. A small budget split five ways delivers on none.
• Targeting followers and likes. Engagement is not sales.
• Neglecting the site. The problem is usually not the ad but the page the visitor lands on.
• Giving up after three weeks. Ad platforms need time to learn and SEO needs time to accumulate.

Frequently asked questions

Is digital marketing the same as social media management? No. Social media management is only one of digital marketing’s channels.

Can I do digital marketing myself? With one channel and a small budget, yes. Once several channels and a measurement setup are needed, working with a specialist or an agency becomes economic; the options are compared in agency, in-house or freelancer.

When do results come? Ad channels produce data from the first weeks. SEO and content accumulate over months.

What does a digital marketing agency do? Channel selection, campaign management, measurement and reporting. Agency types and selection criteria are in what a digital marketing agency does.

If you would like to work out which channel fits your business, you can book a call from our digital marketing agency page.