What Is Digital Marketing?

Digital marketing effectively began in 1990 when the Archie search engine was created as an index for FTP sites. In the 1980s, the storage capacity of computers was already large enough to store huge volumes of customer information. Companies started choosing online techniques, such as database marketing, rather than limited list brokers.^[9] Databases allowed companies to track customers' information more effectively, transforming the relationship between buyer and seller.

In the 1990s, the term digital marketing was coined.^[10] With the development of server/client architecture and the popularity of personal computers, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) applications became a significant factor in marketing technology.^[11] Fierce competition forced vendors to include more services in their software, for example, marketing, sales, and service applications. Marketers were also able to own online customer data through eCRM software after the Internet was born. This led to the first clickable banner ad going live in 1994, which was the "You Will" campaign by AT&T, and over the first four months of it going live, 44% of all people who saw it clicked on the ad.^[12][13]

In the 2000s, with increasing numbers of Internet users and the birth of the iPhone, customers began searching for products and making decisions about their needs online first, instead of consulting a salesperson, which created a new problem for the marketing department of a company.^[14] In addition, a survey in 2000 in the United Kingdom found that most retailers still needed to register their own domain address.^[15] These problems encouraged marketers to find new ways to integrate digital technology into market development.

In 2007, marketing automation was developed as a response to the ever-evolving marketing climate. Marketing automation is the process by which software is used to automate conventional marketing processes.^[16] Marketing automation helped companies segment customers, launch multichannel marketing campaigns, and provide personalized information for customers.,^[16] based on their specific activities. In this way, users' activity (or lack thereof) triggers a personal message that is customized to the user in their preferred platform. However, despite the benefits of marketing automation many companies are struggling to adopt it to their everyday uses correctly.^{[17][page needed]}

Digital marketing became more sophisticated in the 2000s and the 2010s, when^[18][19] the proliferation of devices' capable of accessing digital media led to sudden growth.^[20] Statistics produced in 2012 and 2013 showed that digital marketing was still growing.^[21][22] With the development of social media in the 2000s, such as LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, consumers became highly dependent on digital electronics in daily lives. Therefore, they expected a seamless user experience across different channels for searching product's information. The change of customer behavior improved the diversification of marketing technology.^[23]

The term "Digital Marketing" was coined in the 1990s. Digital marketing was formally known as and referred to as 'online marketing', 'internet marketing' or 'web marketing'. Worldwide digital marketing has become the most common used term and took off in the business industry, especially after the year 2013. But in other countries like Italy, digital marketing is still known as web marketing.^[24]

Digital media growth was estimated at 4.5 trillion online ads served annually with digital media spend at 48% growth in 2010.^[25] An increasing portion of advertising stems from businesses employing Online Behavioural Advertising (OBA) to tailor advertising for internet users, but OBA raises concern of consumer privacy and data protection.^[20]