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The History and Evolution of Digital Marketing
Ten years ago, digital marketing, an extremely new concept, was highly intricate and complicated, given that very few people owned a smartphone. Fast-forward to today, the world of digital marketing has endless opportunities for businesses and customers alike. You have countless options to choose from when it comes to growing your brand or purchasing a product or service online.
In modern times, even if you are not very tech-savvy, you know how to place an order from a shopping portal. After the pandemic outbreak, people have learned to shop for their essentials from e-commerce sites and mobile apps to mountain social distancing. Therefore, businesses don't want to miss out on the endless online marketing opportunities that come their way.
What is Digital Marketing?
Digital marketing, also known as online marketing, helps promote goods and services over one or more digital channels or electronic media, including emails, social media, search engine websites, mobile applications, and more. E-commerce businesses use multiple digital media to attract targeted buyers and prospective businesses, thus boosting brand awareness.
With the growing popularity of digital channels among Gen Z and millennials, businesses are leveraging this opportunity to target a huge online marketplace. The greatest advantage of digital marketing is that it helps brands to have a global reach, thus increasing their audience base.
As smartphones are becoming more affordable, modern-day consumers are increasingly becoming tech-savvy and, at the same time, impatient. The amount of consuming digital data via different web portals and social channels, like Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, emails, LinkedIn, etc., has increased. Therefore, they have a short attention span and prefer quick checkouts and delivery processes.
This implies that businesses must improve their website’s user interface and shopping experiences to serve customers quicker and more efficiently. It further led to the rise of more advanced tools and technologies, such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, virtual reality/augmented reality, and more. And this is the small story of how digital marketing has evolved in the past few decades.
The Evolutionary Timeline of Digital Marketing
Now that the basic concept of digital marketing is clear, let’s look at its interesting history and track its progress over the years. Here is a timeline to establish the evolution of digital marketing over the past few decades.
1991 − The World Wide Web, or WWW, arrived on August 6, 1991, and its service was made available publicly on the Internet when Berners-Lee launched the first-ever website.
1994 − On October 27, 1994, the first clickable banner went live on hotwired.com. 44% of its viewers clicked on it for over 4 months. This gave a boost to the digital marketing transition.
After Yahoo! was launched in January 1994, the digital era started to evolve, with more technologies appearing around this time. In its first year of launch, Yahoo received around a million visits. As a result, it helped promote many businesses and brands, allowing marketers and business owners to rethink their marketing approaches around digital media. Therefore, they started optimizing their businesses for search engines to boost their rankings and reach.
Later in the same year, web pioneer Lou Montulli invented browser software cookies, which are small data packets developed by a web server. Montulli launched cookies to preserve the users’ privacy on the web when they browse a site. Cookies are placed in the user’s computer system or mobile device, and they help them access different websites, and can also track their activities. It enables eCommerce businesses to track their buying interests and shopping patterns to create better-targeted ads and messages.
1996 − This year saw the rise of new search engines and smart tools like Alexa, HotBot, and LookSmart.
1997 − This year saw the launch of the first-ever social media site, named SixDegree.com.
1998 − 1998 saw the birth of Google, along with Microsoft’s MSN, and Yahoo’s Yahoo! Web Search.
2000 − October 23, 2000, is the date that internet marketers will remember, as it saw the birth of the first-ever online advertising platform, Google AdWords (now renamed as Google Ads).
2001 − In 2001, the first mobile marketing campaign was launched in the name of Universal Music.
2002 − 2002 saw the birth of today’s popular professional social platform, LinkedIn.
2003 − One of the most popular content management systems (CMS), WordPress, was introduced on May 27, 2003. WordPress is used to create any kind of website or blog.
2004 − February 4, 2004, saw the birth of our favorite social media platform, Facebook. In the same year, the most popular email platform, Gmail, was also launched.
2005 − A year after the launch of Facebook, the global online video-sharing platform, YouTube, was introduced on February 14, 2005.
2006 − Microsoft introduces MS Live Search, and in the same year, Twitter was also made live. What's more, in 2006, Amazon’s eCommerce sales hit $10 billion
2007 − Another year of growth and development, 2007 saw the launch of Tumblr, iPhone, and the web streaming platform Hulu.
2008 − Spotify was introduced in 2008 to help users listen to online songs.
2009 − Our all-time favorite messaging app, WhatsApp, was founded in 2009. In the same year, Google launched Instant to help users get real-time search engine results.
2011 − This year saw the launch of Google+, also written as Google Plus, which helped digital marketing to grow. However, currently, the customer version of Google+ has been closed.
2012 − 2012 saw a drastic rise in social media budgets to 64%.
2013 − In 2013, Yahoo acquired Tumblr, the short-form social media channel, specifically used for microblogging.
2014 − The year 2014 marked many advances in digital marketing, one of them being the launch of Facebook Messenger. Also, the year witnessed mobile internet usage exceeding that of PC, mainly for shopping or browsing.
2015 − The year 2015 marked the dawn of smart wearables, active content marketing, predictive technology, and inbound marketing growth. In 2015, Snapchat was also introduced.
Final Words
Looking at the rapid evolution of digital marketing, we are excited to experience and be a part of its exponential growth. As more businesses are switching to the digital mode of promoting their brands and products or services, we hope more companies will make the transition for a better future.
We advise you to stay updated with the latest market trends and technologies to make smarter marketing decisions and strategies. Being a competitive brand, you must also be open and responsive to every opportunity and innovation that may come your way. With the endless possibilities that digital marketing offers, you need to adapt to changes for continuous growth.
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