Advertising / Marketing · 28 Sep 2026
The answer to this question keeps changing, because digital marketing is constantly pushing the limits of its reach.
Digital marketing took off in the 1990s. Simply put, it is the promotion of products and services through digital technology. Shopping today happens on a completely different scale, because technology has a huge influence on culture and the economy around the world. With a single click, you can visit an online store and find whatever matters to you and your home. You know the idea: "Save time and shop from anywhere."
Why do we need digital marketing?
Digital marketing uses every digital advertising channel to bring products and services to the widest possible audience. It builds a personal relationship with the customer and helps earn their trust, patience and loyalty. It has a lot in common with traditional marketing, but with one key difference: it reaches its audience entirely through technology.
Digital marketing campaigns are a must for every business, and they keep getting more effective.
How to build a successful, original digital campaign
A digital campaign combines several marketing disciplines, such as content marketing, search engine optimization, email marketing, Google Ads and marketing on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. It takes a talented team of specialists who understand the needs and wants of both the business and its potential customers (the target audience). The key is to build an original strategy and market it well across the right digital channels.
The main types of digital marketing for a successful business
Content marketing: the foundation of digital marketing
Content marketing focuses on creating, publishing and distributing content that is valuable, relevant and consistent for a specific online audience.
Its goals are to:
attract attention and generate interest in the form of inquiries about your products or services;
grow your customer base;
increase online sales;
build engagement with a wide online audience.
Within a digital campaign, content marketing can work on a more emotional level, creating a sense of loyalty to a brand, product or service. It does not involve direct selling. Instead, it meets the audience's need for accurate, useful information.
Examples of marketing content include blog posts, videos, podcasts, infographics, white papers and e-books.
Search engine optimization (SEO): the most powerful tool in digital marketing
Search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the most important types of digital marketing. It is the process of improving both the quality and the quantity of traffic to a website. Its goal is to make the site more visible to people who use search engines.
SEO can be applied to different kinds of search engines, both specialized ones (image, video, academic and other searches) and general-purpose ones such as Google. Without search engine optimization, customers simply won't be able to find you online.
Common optimization techniques include keyword research and working those keywords into your website's content, optimizing your titles and building relevant links.
Search engine marketing (SEM)
Originally, "search engine marketing" was an umbrella term for getting both paid and free traffic from search. Today, the industry uses "SEM" for paid activity only.
Search engine marketing is a form of digital marketing that aims to increase your website's visibility in search engines through paid methods. In other words, these are the ads you run on Google Ads and Microsoft Advertising (formerly Bing Ads).
Google Ads
Google Ads is one of the main advertising channels in digital marketing. It puts your business in front of thousands of interested potential customers. Unlike many other channels, Google Ads is exceptionally good at generating sales and inquiries, because your ads are shown to people who are actively trying to solve a problem, find a specific service or buy a particular product.
Social media marketing
Social media marketing is the most powerful way to influence buying decisions on social networks. There, showcasing a product or service is a display of original thinking, quality and marketing strategy. Social platforms realized their hidden power long ago, and they now offer plenty of tools and services for business customers. These tools help you find an audience for your brand, product or service quickly and easily, and they let you analyze your campaigns and the return on your ad spend.
Social media is where customers can connect with you more directly, whether privately or in public.
Influencer marketing
Influencer marketing is part of social media marketing and one of the fastest-growing ways to promote your business. It creates a real connection with the audience most likely to become your customers. An influencer is a kind of digital ambassador: an interesting person with media influence in a particular field. They might be a blogger, a vlogger or a YouTube creator, and working with the right one can make your brand's advertising truly effective. Choosing the right person matters, so trust professionals who can carefully analyze which influencer is the best link between you and your customers.
Email marketing
Email marketing is the familiar process of sending a commercial message to a group of people by email. It is probably one of the most mature areas of digital marketing, with roots going back to the arrival of the internet for the general public. It lets you communicate directly with each individual customer. It is especially important to think carefully about the size and makeup of the group you are marketing to, so you can tailor your message in detail.
Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising
Pay-per-click is a type of advertising in which advertisers pay a fee every time someone clicks on their ad. Essentially, it is a way of buying visits to your website, rather than earning them organically through SEO or other types of digital marketing.
PPC is one form of paid search. It is similar to SEM, but it can also include display advertising (priced per click) and affiliate advertising.
Affiliate marketing
Affiliate marketing is one of the most popular ways people earn money online today. If your affiliate program is successful, it can bring in a very respectable passive income. In affiliate marketing, businesses work together: one earns a commission for the traffic it sends to the other. For example, you place a link to another website on your own blog or site. Every time a visitor follows that link and makes a purchase, you receive a commission.
Instant messaging
Marketing through instant messaging is one of the newest trends in marketing communication. Worldwide, more than 2 billion people use WhatsApp every month, followed by Facebook Messenger and WeChat. If you want to reach your audience where they already are, include messaging apps in your marketing strategy.
This type of digital marketing has taken off in recent years. People are much more likely to trust information sent through a messaging app, almost as if it came from a friend, than an email or text message, which are more exposed to spam.
Where to start
This is by no means the whole story. As we mentioned, digital marketing never stops evolving, like a living organism going through its own evolution.
Choose the types of digital marketing that you feel work best for your business, experiment and track the results. Who knows, tomorrow you might be the one to invent a brand-new type of digital marketing!
At GetSEO, we are a team of professionals who can create an original and effective Google Ads campaign for your business.
Take a look at the services we offer and invest in your business the smart way. Keep following our blog to stay up to date on everything that matters to you!