Digital Marketing 101

What is digital marketing? 

Defined broadly, digital marketing consists of advertising delivered through digital channels such as search engines, websites, social media, email, and mobile apps. 

Why digital marketing? 

• Unlike traditional marketing, which is composed of print, radio, out-of-home (e.g., billboards, transit ads, etc.), and television-based tactics, digital marketing is adjustable and measurable in real time. Not only can ad copy, targeting, and budgets be adjusted at will, but also your advertising performance data is readily available almost instantaneously after reaching potential customers, allowing you to make more informed decisions in real time. 
• In 2017, traditional ad spend in the U.S. was roughly 2/3’s of total marketing spend. Now in 2023, total ad spend in the U.S. has practically doubled, but now digital advertising will instead make up 2/3’s of total marketing spend. In other words, if you’re not engaging in digital advertising, you’re falling behind!

How do I measure success with digital marketing? 

The goals of a digital marketing campaign will vary from business to business. Below are the most common ways to measure success: 

• Brand awareness 
• Includes ad recall & enhanced brand sentiment post-ad impression 
• Engagement & traffic 
• Includes increased web traffic and shares/comments/likes on social media platforms 
• Conversions 
• Includes actions that are likely to result in a sale or a sale itself (e.g., adding an item to an online cart, inbound phone calls, lead form submissions) 
• Sales lift 
• Directional/correlated lift in sales revenue during and post-campaign 

What is search engine marketing? 

Search engine marketing is the process of gaining website traffic and brand visibility from search engines through paid advertising. Search ads will always be featured at the top of the search engine results page with a sponsored ad label when a user makes a relevant search, such as your business name or the products/services you offer. 

How is this different from search engine optimization (SEO)? 

Search engine marketing (SEM) is buying traffic through paid search ads.  

Search engine optimization (SEO) is earning website traffic by incorporating highly relevant content that a search engine can crawl and use to rank your site higher within the organic (non-paid) search engine results. Unpaid listings on other websites that drive to your page also play a role in SEO. 

While SEM does have a cost associated with it, it empowers businesses to promote their products and services easily and in a highly visible area: the top of the search results page, always above the organic search results. Since SEO requires consistently posting highly relevant content and ensuring that other websites link back to you (and vice-versa), SEO requires considerable time and effort – especially when factoring in that popular, high-traffic websites of big brand competitors have much more content, are more interconnected, and often can easily outrank small business sites. 

Please Note: Running online ads does not have an impact on where your website appears in the organic search results. Google Ads by Upnetic is strictly a search engine management (SEM) service. SEO management and website analysis & optimization are not included.

Paid vs. Unpaid Search Results:

What is Google Ads? 

Google Ads is one of Google’s online advertising programs. Through Google Ads, you can create online ads that will reach people exactly when they’re interested in the products and services that you offer. You choose where your ad appears, set a budget that’s comfortable for you, and easily measure the impact of your ad.

Why Google Ads? 

Google Ads is a great choice for small businesses to market their products and services, for many reasons! Here are just a few to consider: 

1. Google controls approximately 92% of the search engine market worldwide. It’s estimated that 5.6 billion searches are made per day worldwide.
2. For every dollar businesses spend on Google Ads, they make an average of $2 in increased revenue.
3. While Google Ads does not have a minimum required budget, advertisers typically see success for as little as $10 per day. 
4. Users have total control over their campaigns. You decide the keywords you want your ads to serve on, the audiences you want to reach, and the days, times, and locations you want to reach them. 
5. Google Ads can help achieve any marketing goal, whether it be brand awareness, website traffic, or quality leads/phone calls. 

Please Note: Sales are not guaranteed by our service, nor from any form of digital marketing. 

What about social media marketing? 

Just like search marketing, social media platforms can serve unpaid and paid content to various audiences. Unpaid content typically only reaches followers/fans of your business, while paid content can reach additional audiences based on user interests and behaviors that the social platform tracks.  

Google Ads by Upnetic is strictly a search advertising management service. Social media strategy, content, and advertising are not included.  

What about banner/display or video ads? 

Display and video ads feature engaging static or rich banner and video content, rather than text alone, and leverage user interest and behavior data to reach people on relevant, popular websites, rather than within search engine results or social media feeds.  

Although Google does offer display and video ads via their ad platform, these tactics are not included in our management service at this time.