There are different types and variations for each type of digital marketing but, we are about to tell you in this blog post what the most common types are and how to apply them. Read on to learn the basics of the 12 types of digital marketing.

Digital Marketing Agency Australia & Ireland

In our extensive experience working with the internet, marketing, advertising, game development, and more, we have witnessed and been part of the massive growth in digital marketing. Before 2005, investing in digital marketing might have seemed unwise. Today, however, the landscape has changed entirely, and digital marketing is now considered a smart, forward-thinking investment. More businesses are allocating significant portions of their marketing budgets to digital strategies because it is often cheaper and more effective than print marketing and traditional advertising methods.

Digital marketing campaigns are highly cost-effective to set up, manage, monitor, and review, with the majority of results being measurable. This key advantage sets digital marketing apart from non-digital alternatives. Simply put, we are living in the digital age, and it’s here to stay—at least until virtual reality, time machines, or teleportation become the norm.

For businesses taking their first step into the world of digital marketing, the journey can feel overwhelming. The sheer amount of terminology, variety of services, and technical details can make even the most determined entrepreneur feel like a deer in headlights. At Loveridge Digital, our mission is to assist small businesses in growing their digital presence by simplifying the process and breaking down what digital marketing has to offer.

One of the core barriers preventing many businesses from investing in digital marketing is not knowing what they truly need. Unfortunately, some digital marketing agencies take advantage of this uncertainty, offering services that fail to deliver a meaningful return on investment (ROI).

Find a Digital Marketing Service For You

We understand that investing in digital marketing is a big decision. But the truth is, you don’t always need to pay for the entire package. Sometimes, a small Pay-Per-Click (PPC) campaign or some engaging video content may be all you need to move seasonal products that are on sale. Or perhaps, leveraging Social Media Marketing (SMM) to grow your online following could be the right solution. Whatever your specific needs, it’s crucial to find the right service or agency that aligns with your goals.

Fortunately, the Loveridge team has collaborated to create a straightforward, no-nonsense list of the different types of digital marketing. Our goal is to help you better understand these options so you can make informed decisions about where to invest.

Traditional Marketing Is Not Dead Yet

While traditional advertising and marketing have declined over the years, incorporating traditional marketing alongside your digital campaign can offer significant benefits. Traditional efforts remain effective for generating leads, building brand awareness, and selling products or services. With the shift toward an increasingly digital world, traditional advertising has taken a backseat, but its value in certain contexts cannot be overlooked.

How It Works

Traditional marketing encompasses printed media, such as advertisements in magazines, newspapers, signage, and flyers. However, it’s important to note that many traditional marketing sources have now transitioned to digital formats. For instance, newspapers are often accessible through social media platforms or apps on our devices, blending traditional and digital approaches seamlessly.

Strategy

A critical factor to consider is how to align your traditional marketing efforts with your digital marketing campaign. Traditional marketing becomes most effective when integrated thoughtfully with a successful digital strategy. As you evaluate your marketing budget, it might be wise to allocate more resources toward digital marketing, given its measurable results and broad reach. That said, traditional marketing still has its place and can complement your overall efforts when executed well.

To achieve success, it’s crucial to partner with a skilled agency, collaborate with knowledgeable partners, or develop a deeper personal understanding of marketing and advertising as a whole. Take the time to consider all elements of your strategy, ensuring they align with your business objectives, personal goals, and—most importantly—the behaviors and preferences of your target audience.

Digital Marketing Categories

There is a lot of different types of digital marketing (and we mean a lot), but leading digital marketing experts Neil Patel, Ryan Deiss and ourselves at Loveridge Digital back the theory that all digital marketing falls into 12 categories. And these are…

1. SEM (Search Engine Marketing)
2. SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
3. PPC (Pay-per-click)
4. SMM (Social Media Marketing)
5. Content Marketing
6. Email Marketing
7. Influencer Marketing
8. Affiliate Marketing
9. IMM (Instant Messaging Marketing)
10. Video Marketing
11. Mobile Advertising
12. Audio Marketing

We are going to go through each of these categories with some detail, so you can fully understand what you need to be investing in. Whilst the biggest businesses in the world have their finger in every metaphorical pie, a smaller business can benefit from just focusing on, or using a few digital marketing services. It is all dependent on what kind of business you are, your industry and what your personal goals are too. Do not be fooled into thinking you need every service offered above – unless your goals line up with all the services on offer.

1. SEM- Search Engine Marketing

Search Engine Marketing (or SEM) often gets confused with SEO because both have very similar names. Both also deal with search engines like Google or Bing. But these two types of digital marketing have some important differences.

While SEO helps you rank organically for your target keywords, SEM is all about increasing your website traffic from search engines through paid means. The two most used SEM services are Bing Ads and Google AdWords.

How it Works

SEM helps you put paid ads on the search results page. These paid ads look almost identical to organic search results in Google, except for an “Ad” label. They appear at the top of the page – before any organic results – giving you great visibility and instant brand awareness.

Strategy

Digital marketers love SEM because it is easy to create targeted search ads based on keywords and the searcher’s location. This means you can narrow your ads down to a specific demographic or geographical location. You can even take it a step further and target competitor keywords, making it possible for you to “steal” some website traffic from a competing business.

Search Engine Marketing is not meant to be a replacement for Search Engine Optimisation. You should always incorporate a bit of both to drive as much traffic to your website as possible.

2. SEO- Search Engine Optimisation

What is SEO?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation. It works by optimising your website for search engines like Google and Bing. The goal is to improve your search engine ranking so that your business gains better visibility when users search for your website or keywords related to your services. After all, who really scrolls past the first search page—or even the first three results? While SEO is incredibly effective, it is not a quick fix. When clients sign up for SEO services, we always explain that it takes time to see results. Depending on your industry, we can confidently guarantee page 1 results within 12 months.

Types of SEO

There are four main types of SEO: Onsite SEO, Offsite SEO, Technical SEO, and Local SEO. Each plays a unique role in improving your website’s visibility and performance.

Onsite SEO

Onsite SEO focuses on optimising the content on your website to improve visibility in unpaid search results. This process helps search engine bots, or crawlers, understand what your website is about and why it matters to users. By refining your content with strategic keywords and relevant information, onsite SEO enhances your website’s relevance and ranking.

Offsite SEO

Offsite SEO refers to all techniques used outside of your website to boost its credibility and rankings. A key component of offsite SEO is backlink building, which involves placing links to your website on reputable platforms where users may find your content valuable. This is often achieved through guest blogging and collaboration with other websites, helping to build authority and trust in your brand.

Technical SEO

Technical SEO delves into the behind-the-scenes workings of your website. It involves conducting a thorough audit of your codebase to identify areas for improvement, such as increasing load times. Faster load times reduce bounce rates and keep users on your site longer. Simply put, the faster your website loads, the more likely users are to stay engaged.

Local SEO

Local SEO focuses on getting your business listed in Google map results and local search queries. Unlike paid ads, there’s no charge for clicks from organic or local listings. However, it’s important to note that while the traffic itself is unpaid, the optimisation process requires expertise and effort to deliver results.

How SEO Works

SEO begins with comprehensive keyword research and a detailed ranking analysis, paired with a full technical audit of your website. This process helps us understand how your website currently performs compared to competitors. From there, we optimise your website both onsite and offsite by employing various techniques such as page speed optimisation and backlink building.

Search engine crawlers evaluate and index your site’s content, creating an archive for relevant search queries. When a lead or customer enters a search term related to your services or keywords, Google uses this data to determine the relevance of your website and presents it as a result. The ultimate goal is to secure one of the coveted top three spots in the search rankings, whether organically or locally.

SEO Strategy

SEO is a long-term strategy that yields greater results over time. It is not a quick-fix solution but rather an ongoing process that requires commitment and expertise. While SEO services come with a cost, working with a reputable agency is crucial. The wrong approach, such as using poor-quality backlinks or targeting irrelevant geolocations, can harm your website’s credibility and effectiveness.

To succeed with SEO, ensure that your strategy aligns with your business goals and is supported by experienced professionals. With patience and persistence, SEO can drive substantial growth and visibility for your business.

3. PPC- Pay Per Click

PPC or Pay Per Click is a form of advertising on search engines, like Google and Bing. It is a way of moving to the top of search engine results pages by paid means. It is called PPC because your ad account is charged every time one of your adverts is clicked. The cost of each ad, or CPC (cost per click), depends on the quality score of your website and the selected keyword’s competition. PPC campaigns can be a short-term solution, and they have many uses including shifting products or seasonal deals, boosting revenue or depending on the saturation in your industry, your goal may be to maintain the number 1 spot. There are around 4 spots for Ads on Google, so getting your website in the for a selected keyword can be challenging. SEO work is about your ranking being ‘earned’, but PPC your ranking on the first page is bought.

How it Works

By bidding on a selected keyword or search term, you can make your way into the 4 ad spaces on offer by Google. Through tools like Google AdWords, PPC pros work on finding keywords that your website will perform well, and dependent on the competition, CPC is determined. Through bidding on keywords, against competitors, your ad appears in relevant search results and will charge you if a user clicks on your ad.

Strategy

Many of our clients use both short-term and long-term PPC campaigns. Dependent on your industry, goals and what you are using your PPC for, PPC campaigns should never be a standalone digital marketing effort, and should always be run in conjunction with other marketing efforts, whether that be traditional or digital. Always do your research, find successful keywords that do not charge too much and never be scared to try new strategies. Think ahead of the competition and not with them.

4. SMM Social Media Marketing

SMM or Social Media Marketing is the process of working on marketing through, you guessed it, social media. With the ever-growing social platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram (to name a few), businesses online need to invest in social media marketing in order to grow their following and reach a whole new pool of potential customers. Dependent on your business type, there is a social network out there for you. All businesses would do well to be on Facebook, but if you specialise in business to business (B2B), LinkedIn is the one for you. If you are a ‘visual business’, then Instagram is the ideal platform. We could go on and on, but you get the point. If you are not currently on social media, now is the time. But how do you market on social media?

How it Works

As, you would be aware sites like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and more collect data about you. They collect information in a private manner which is secure but what they collect is information around what you like, your interests, what you search for and what you engage with. They also gather information regarding personal factors like your age, your location and more. Some of this information is available to Facebook business users to create targeted ads and our mission is to place adverts on social media that resonate with the selected demographic.

SMM has two areas businesses focus on organic and paid. Organic strategies are focused on providing valuable content, while paid is generally focused on your campaign or business goals. Some SMM goals are to increase brand awareness, drive traffic to your website, generate new leads, grow revenue (signups or sales), boost brand engagement, build communities, provide more customer service touch points and more. Social media should always be considered as a major driving tool in the hopes of gaining more business through social platforms.

Strategy

SMM should be used in today’s world in both a long-term and short-term investment. This includes organic and paid campaigns. Whilst maintaining a social media presence is key, always think quality over quantity and you must pay to play. Use targeted ads over a short-term period otherwise, it could cost a lot, with minimal return. When using ads remember to decide on at least one of the following three targeting methods: interest, broad category or precise targeting. Your decision should always be made before creating your advert. Also, remember video is king, and while writing your copy think Neil Patel’s AIDA Attention, Interest, Desire and Action.

5. Content Marketing

This style of marketing is a little different than the previous ones we have mentioned. It is not so much about directly marketing products and services to customers, but rather creating enriching and valuable content that enhances customer experience. Some of the biggest brands in the world will actively use blogs for this, and entertaining/informational videos for social channels. It is what establishes your business as a brand and essentially what increases your customers interest in you. It is promoting your brand by providing information that is both enriching and engaging, without incentive-driven advertising. For example, our ‘Getting into it with Loveridge’ series is based solely on a content marketing strategy that fits into our SMM strategy.

How it Works

Through posting blogs, videos, and infographic images, you can build up a loyal consumer base, that visit your sites and channels for content that serves a purpose. Your customers will appreciate the effort behind every blog, video, or image you post that provides information. It is about listening to your customer needs and producing what they want. If your content is share-worthy enough, it can help drive in traffic and potentially more business.

Strategy

Just like SEO, content marketing should be a long-term investment. To yield results, constant work is required, similarly to SEO. Always remember to think ‘Value, Value, Value ‘. What will bring value to my audience? What would they appreciate? You may even look at competitors to find out what content they are delivering.

6. Email Marketing

Another form of digital marketing is email marketing, and you have guessed it, it involves email. It is a form of direct marketing which sends information, offers, etc directly to your communities that you have built from your SMM and SEO efforts. Through a sea of emails, your marketing email will appear, but the trick is getting it read. Yes, it may emerge alongside 100’s of emails, and if you cannot create an email that is eye-catching, then it will be lost. Luckily, there are email marketing tools and agencies (like us), that can assist you. Email marketing is a great way to reach your customers, interact with them after purchases, or even sending them a newsletter. Be warned,

sending unsolicited emails will land you a place in the spam box, or worse, drive your customers away. So, make sure you have gathered your mailing list by your own means, and not from a third-party company. They need to be your customers or have opted in to receiving your mail.

How it Works

By using your existing mailing list, you can create a prospective list of recipients for your mail. Whether it be for remarketing or to update them on a new service/product/ blog post, you need to send the right email to the right people. This means segmentation should be active amongst your lists. With your analytic tools, you can monitor things like open rate, deliverability, click-through rates (CTR), bounce rates, number of clicks, plus more.

Strategy

Email marketing is usually considered more in short term campaigns but can also be used in long-term strategies. If you are running a blitz launch campaign or a funnel, it can be a short-term campaign to boost sales. Or if you choose to send blogs, newsletters, or product updates, to boost your website traffic, those would be used long term. Just keep in mind that by bombarding people with email after email, you may end up on the “I hate this company” list.

7. Influencer Marketing

What is Influencer Marketing?

Influencer marketing leverages individuals in positions of influence—typically social media personalities, industry experts, or public figures—to promote a business or campaign. These influencers can range from professional athletes to business gurus, depending on the target audience. Influencers typically assist businesses in short-term marketing campaigns designed to influence consumer buying behaviors. While influencer marketing has been around for decades through traditional media such as TV commercials and print ads, it has surged in popularity in recent years, thanks to platforms like Instagram, YouTube, and LinkedIn.

Collaborations with influencers often include strategies like offering unique discount codes, sharing product reviews, or running prize draws. These tactics are aimed at creating excitement around your brand and boosting your campaign’s visibility among their audience.

How It Works

The influencer marketing process generally involves identifying individuals with large followings or multiple influencers with smaller, niche audiences. These individuals could be active on social media or well-regarded within a specific industry. Once identified, businesses approach influencers for collaboration opportunities. Most influencers will require a payment upfront and, in some cases, a share of the sales generated through their audience.

The next step is creating a clear project brief outlining your campaign goals, deliverables, and expectations. This ensures the influencer knows exactly what content to create—whether that’s posts, blogs, or videos—to showcase your product or service effectively. The key to success is partnering with the right influencer who aligns with your brand and audience.

Types of Influencers

Micro-Influencers

Micro-influencers typically have thousands of followers, but rarely more than 100,000. These individuals often have expertise in a specific niche and are trusted within their smaller communities. They are also more affordable compared to larger influencers, making them a great option for smaller businesses or targeted campaigns.

Macro-Influencers

Macro-influencers have followings ranging from 100,000 to one million. They are often at the top of their field in social media and offer a balance of reach and expertise. This makes them an ideal choice if you’re looking for both credibility and a decent audience size.

Mega-Influencers

Mega-influencers boast millions of followers and are often celebrities or major social media stars. While they provide the largest reach, their broad appeal may not always result in targeted engagement. Additionally, their rates can be exorbitant, sometimes running into thousands or even millions of dollars for a single post.

Strategy

Influencer marketing is typically used for short-term campaigns aimed at driving sales or increasing website traffic. Influencers often promote a product or service for no longer than a week, as prolonged promotions can lead to audience disengagement. Followers may lose interest if they repeatedly see the same product on their favorite influencer’s feed.

However, long-term strategies can also be effective. For example, an influencer could make regular appearances at your store for monthly product demonstrations, helping to attract customers to brick-and-mortar locations while keeping the campaign fresh and engaging.

8. Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is one of the most lucrative types of digital marketing. It involves a partnership with an online retailer where you earn a commission from every sale or lead that you bring in. The two most common ways of doing this are:

• Offering a unique discount code to their readers/followers
• Linking to your website from their content website

How it Works

Whenever a user plugs in the discount code or clicks on the link, you pay your affiliate partner for the website traffic/sale. The most popular affiliate network is Amazon Associates, but there are also affiliate marketing programs with eBay, Shopify, and other e-commerce sites. You can also skip the middleman and establish your own affiliate program.

Strategy

It is a win-win in most cases. You outsource some of your marketing, reach a new target audience in niche communities, dictate your cost-per-click/sale, and only pay for actual conversions. In return, your partners get to earn a passive income with no upfront cost and very little stress. Ideally, you will tie this in with some form of Content Marketing, Social Media Marketing and Video Marketing

9. IMM or Instant Messaging Marketing

Instant messaging is most often used to connect with friends and family, but it can also be used by businesses to connect with their customers. And not just to answer questions or fulfil orders, but to promote themselves too.

How it Works

Marketing through instant messaging apps requires a slightly different approach to other types of online marketing because of the one-on-one nature of the chat. Ideally, you should personalise your messages, inspire action (e.g. “Learn more”, “Buy now”, etc.), and most of all, keep it short and snappy. Users are likely to skip over long messages.

Strategy

One of the more underrated types of digital marketing, IMM offers many advantages for your business:

1. Setting up a profile or account is a no-brainer.
2. Instant messaging is, well… instant. Customers can (and often do) view and respond to your messages immediately.
3. You can often create lists or groups to segment your target audience, allowing you to send the most relevant messages to the right people.

When considering which messaging apps to sign up for, a few stand out above the rest. WhatsApp comes out on top, with more than 1.6 billion people on the app. Facebook Messenger is a close second at 1.3 billion, while WeChat, Viber, and Telegram round out the list with a few hundred million users.

10. Video Marketing

What is Video Marketing?

Video marketing rose to the forefront of digital strategies in 2017, and it’s no surprise why when you look at the statistics. Including a video on a landing page can increase conversion rates by over 80%, while the mere mention of the word “video” in an email subject line boosts open rates by 19%. Additionally, 90% of customers report that videos have helped them make purchasing decisions.

Why Focus on Video Marketing Today?

Video marketing has proven its effectiveness time and time again. For example, Daniel Finn, Owner of Daniel Finn Builder, shares his success:
“Retargeting our website visitors on social media has led to a 47% increase in visitor value city-wide. By having the Loveridge Digital team handle all my marketing efforts—from creation to implementation—they have truly transformed my business.”

The granularity of video analytics on platforms like Facebook is another reason video marketing stands out. In 2018, 93% of Loveridge Digital customers reported gaining new customers on social media as a direct result of the videos we created for them.

Today, video has evolved into a holistic business approach. Video content should be produced by all teams within a company in a way that is conversational, actionable, and measurable. Consumers enjoy videos because they are easy to digest, engaging, and entertaining. Marketers value video for its ability to deliver a substantial return on investment (ROI) across multiple channels.

The Accessibility of Video

Video content is accessible to anyone with internet access—it can be created, watched, and shared easily. While high-budget productions often perform better, as seen in a Wistia case study where a $10,000 production outperformed a lower-budget version using the same ad spend, anyone can create a video on their phone in under an hour.

However, the quality of the video should align with your campaign goals. For example:

• A phone-quality video might not be ideal for showcasing your brand in a professional light through sales pitches, product launches, or interview-style content.
• On the other hand, behind-the-scenes footage or Instagram stories designed to build hype can be effectively shot on a phone.

Ultimately, while there is a clear trend toward high-quality video, the success of video marketing depends on the strategy and campaign behind it. The content should fit the purpose, audience, and desired outcome.

How It Works

At Loveridge Digital, we create versatile and engaging video content that provides your audience with a real-life glimpse into your brand. These videos are not only informative and compelling but also easy to share across multiple platforms. Whether you’re looking to build brand awareness, drive conversions, or engage your audience, we tailor your video marketing strategy to achieve measurable results.

Strategy

You need to carefully think about how to adapt your videos into your broader advertising and marketing strategy. You will need to consider the type of Video (Check out this link for several different types https://loveridgedigital.com/most-used-types-of-videos-in-marketing/) and optimise the video for the social channels you plan to utilise. Your strategy will depend on you knowing your goals and knowing the finer details will help you pivot and generate a video campaign that has a high conversion rate.

11. Mobile Advertising

Mobile advertising is something that spans across all forms of digital marketing we have mentioned above. Whether it’s mobile social ads, mobile search ads or even mobile TV and radio ads, every form of digital marketing we’ve mentioned can be transferred to mobile. Businesses all over the world are shifting more of their advertising budget into mobile because consumers spend more time on their mobile devices than any other device.

How it Works

You can target mobile ads by audience segments or by using geofencing. Geofencing is one of the most popular tactics as it is based on a consumer’s physical location. This is a laser-focused strategy as you can target mobile ads to a clearly defined and relevant audience.

Strategy

You need to carefully think about how to adapt your broader advertiser strategy and optimise it for the mobile device environment. You need to consider that you have a much smaller screen size to work with and that intrusive interruptions tend to be less appreciated on mobile than any other device.

Once you have prepared everything, you are ready to launch your ad to the mobile device spectrum and begin testing conversions. You can collect data by using key metrics when running your mobile ad campaign and then invest even more time in perfecting your strategy once you know that it is working.

Knowing the fine details will help you pivot and generate a mobile ad campaign that has a high conversion rate. You can collect and analyse this data through sources such as Google Analytics.

12. Audio Marketing

Audio media may not be as glitzy as video media, but it still holds a key role in the online ecosystem. The podcast phenomenon is taking over from traditional talk radio, and music streaming sites such as Spotify and Deezer are incredibly popular.

How it Works

Audio advertisements on these platforms are an effective way to market your products and services. Since these podcasts usually feel more personal and relaxed than traditional radio, when the advertisements are played, they also feel more authentic – particularly when read out and endorsed by the host of the podcast. The increasing popularity of podcasts provides another marketing opportunity. Hosting your own podcast relevant to your products or services is a creative form of brand journalism.

Strategy

For example, if you are a sports apparel distributor, you could host a podcast on the latest sports news. Podcasts are particularly useful for marketing because people often listen to them while doing other things, as opposed to text articles or video pieces, which people must be in front of a screen to consume.

Summary

There you have it. That is our list! Hopefully, now you understand a little more about the types of digital marketing. Which means you will be able to find the right service for you. If you have any questions about digital marketing, you can speak to our team of experts. We will devise a winning marketing strategy to help with your goals!

What to Do Now? Get in touch or start “dabbling yourself”

Just remember you do not have to incorporate all types of digital marketing into your strategy, but you also should not be hyper-focused on just one aspect. Most businesses would do well to start with a mix of content marketing, SEO, SEM, and SMM and then expand to other types as you get a feel for digital marketing including finding an ROI.

We hope you found this both informative and engaging, feel free to share it with your colleagues, friends, or family!