Difference Between Marketing and Digital Advertising

Digital Marketing and Digital Advertising are both regarded as one of the most important techniques of publicizing any product or business on the digital platform. They are ways to attract more and more consumers to a particular service through the Internet.

Marketing vs Digital Advertising

The main difference between Digital Marketing and Digital Advertising is that Digital Advertising mainly does not take into consideration, the fact that ‘who sees it’. It is only concerned about how many people see it, be it useful to all or just some. While Digital Marketing is more focussed and targeted. It is tailored to meet the needs of specific people or companies with specific requirements.

Digital Advertising would include any advertisement or promotion that we might see in between a particular video, whereas Digital Marketing focuses on reaching out to a particular person with a specific need.

Digital Marketing starts right from the inception of a product or a brand. It involves all the activities that go into making a marketing strategy. Whereas, Digital Advertising comes at a later stage, where the product or service is ready to be showcased to its customers.

 

Comparison Table Between Marketing and Digital Advertising (in Tabular Form)

Parameter of ComparisonDigital MarketingDigital Advertising
NatureIt is more strategic, i.e. it involves all acts like planning, setting goals, budgets, and developing means to achieve the objects.It is more tactical, i.e. it only involves how you promote your particular business or product.
DurationMarketing is a kind of strategy or plan that works in the long run and has great potential and cannot be easily replicated.Advertisements are done for a short period until it reaches a maximum number of consumers and can be easily replicated by others.
PurposeMarketing is the strategy involved in developing a particular brand or product and all the means taken up in making the brand an unforgettable one.Advertisements are promotional messages that are sole to increase sales and promote a particular brand.
SpecificityMarketing strategies are created specifically and carefully-crafted to help build a connection and address the needs of specific people.Advertisements target a large set of people and are more of non-personal communication.
Cost-effectivenessThey are considered to be more cost-effective as they have a higher potential to convince people due to their specific nature and yield high returns.They are considered to be expensive as advertisements are not target-specific and only provide returns if a large number of people are convinced by it.
 

What is Marketing?

Digital Marketing involves the use of various strategies and tactics to help form a connection with consumers and have a lasting impression on their minds, through online platforms.

Unlike, Digital Advertising, marketing focuses more on promoting brands or services in a way that is more person-oriented, meaning they crafted to cater to the needs of a few, but interested persons, thus increasing chances of ROI (Returns on Investments).

The key method followed in Digital Marketing is developing a marketing strategy that puts the host at places where particular followers of the host usually hang out and then using digital channels to connect with them through various means, know their problems and offer specific solutions.

Different kinds of Digital Marketing techniques are:

  • Content Marketing: This involves the creation of content for promotions and creating brand awareness through blog posts, ebooks, whitepapers, and Infographics.
  • Affiliate Marketing: This strategy involves promoting someone else’s products or services on the host’s websites, for example, by hosting ads through the YouTube Partner Program and so on.
  • Email Marketing: Emails are often used as marketing means to promote content, discounts, and other features of a company by way of blog subscriptions, etc.
  • Inbound Marketing: This methodology involves attracting and engaging customers at every stage of their buying process through video pop-ups and commercial ads.
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    What is Digital Advertising?

    It is the process of promoting brands, products, or any other services through digital platforms like social media, search engines, or any other applications that can be digitally accessed. Though there are traditional methods of advertising like newspapers, pamphlets, and so on, digital advertisements take them to a whole new level.

    Since they are digital, it is easier to track virtually how every customer takes a step or reacts to these ads. This, in turn, shows each company or brand what kind of image they have in the consumer markets.

    There are various Digital Advertising formats like:

  • Search Engine Marketing: The ads that appear on the top of any search engine like Google or Yahoo. These ads have to be paid for either when someone clicks on it for every 1000 impressions, regardless of the clicks.
  • Display Ads: These are the basic and common images, texts, or banners that we see as pop-ups or on third-party sites.
  • Social Media Ads: These are ads that are frequently seen on social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter which provides for the largest number of audiences to view the product.
  • Native Ads: These ads don’t look like typical ones and appear under the ‘recommended’ category and usually match the content a person is currently searching for.
  • Remarketing: Also known as ‘retargeting’, these are ads that come across showing the exact product that we must have checked on some other site.
  • Main Differences Between Marketing and Digital Advertising

  • Digital Advertisements are broadcasted to a wider set of people with the hope that it reaches at least a few interesting ones, while Digital Marketing specifically chooses a set of audience who are interested and fulfill their demands.
  • Digital Advertisements use ads as their basic medium of propaganda, while digital marketing could be in various other forms like a blog post, a podcast, or just a small video.
  • Advertisements are disruptive forms of communications as they tend to disrupt almost all people from watching or reading what they wish to, while marketing tends to not be over-generalized and addresses only the concerned ones.
  • The main difference is that Advertisements remain in people’s minds for a shorter time and targets immediate sales, while well-crafted marketing strategies tend to have a long-lasting effect on people and also influence their choices and preferences.
  • Digital Marketing is often considered to be a short span activity and as a part of a well-structured marketing plan, while marketing is a never-ending process that starts from the inception of business until its dissolution.
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    Conclusion

    Though both terms seem to be correct when used interchangeably, there still exist thin lines that separate them. They are different but related terms. Each one offers its benefit and caters to different and similar needs at the same time.

    Digital Marketing is usually a big umbrella that encompasses various means and modes of achieving set targets and goals, and digital advertising falls under one of them. Advertising and marketing have always been the basic means by which companies and brands have come into the frontline, but just that now, they got digital with multiple benefits and a wider audience.

     

    References

  • https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15252019.2011.10722190
  • https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/5a25/29b2c80aba3a954d544b9246d921808c04de.pdf
  • https://jyx.jyu.fi/bitstream/handle/123456789/55846/1/karjaluoto1s2.0s0736585317302241main.pdf
  • https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1757-899X/407/1/012183/meta
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