Digital marketing versus digital advertising

Learn the difference between digital marketing and digital advertising!

Digital marketing definition

According to the American Marketing Institute (AMA), Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large. To take it a step further, digital marketing consists of marketing tactics using the internet and mobile devices.

Examples of digital marketing:

  • PPC (pay-per-click)

  • Email

  • Content

  • Social media

  • Affiliate

Digital advertising definition

According to Adjust, the definition of advertising is an industry used to call the attention of the public to something, typically a product or service. Oftentimes, these take the form of paid ads across multiple online platforms.

Examples of digital advertising:

  • Social media ads

  • Display ads

  • Native ads

  • YouTube ads

  • Commercials on streaming services

What is the difference between digital marketing and digital advertising?

Digital advertising is a subset of digital marketing. A digital marketing strategy is a full-funnel approach that typically starts by identifying your overall goal and target audience, grabs the attention of that audience with a digital advertisement, nurtures the audience until they become paying customers, then supports them after a sale.

What is local digital marketing?

Local digital marketing is an online marketing strategy that takes place and targets people within a geographic area. All SMBs with a brick and mortar location or a community presence should have a local digital marketing strategy in place to recruit and retain customers.