Digital and affiliated marketing refers to advertising delivered through digital channels such as search engines, websites, social media, email, and mobile apps. While this term covers a wide range of marketing activities, all of which are not universally agreed upon, we’ll focus on the most common types below.
By using Internet platforms, businesses can create competitive advantage through various means. To reach the maximum potential of digital and affiliated marketing, firms use social media as its main tool to create a channel of information.
Users with access to the Internet can use many digital mediums, such as Facebook, YouTube, Forums, and Email etc. Through Digital communications it creates a Multi-communication channel, affiliated means where information can be quickly exchanged around the world by anyone without any regard to whom they are. 

Benefits of Digital Marketing
  1. Wide outreach
  2. Lower cost compared to traditional marketing
  3. Easy to measure results
  4. Decreases the selling cycle
  5. Helps build brand loyalty
  6. Retains customers
  7. Stimulates sales
To make use of these benefits, one should define the types of digital marketing to use. They are the channels at the same time. Each type helps achieve different goals, so while crafting a strategy, it should be taken into account. 
Types of Digital Marketing

  • Search Engine Optimization(SEO)
  • Paid Search
  • Email Marketing
  • Display advertising
  • Affiliate Marketing

Search Engine Optimization

This involves creating useful and relevant content to rank high on the search engine results page. By optimizing your website or blog content, you get more organic traffic. This way, the page will have more chances to attract users’ attention.

Paid Search

This is sponsored advertising, where you only pay if a user clicks on your ad, that’s why it is also called “pay-per-click.” Website owners choose a keyword that, as they think, will be typed by the target audience in a search engine and place a bid on it.

PPC channels
  • Google Ads
  • Paid ads on Facebook
  • Sponsored messages on LinkedIn
  • Promoted tweets on Twitter
Advantages of paid search
  • Allows to get conversions quickly
  • Provides with detailed statistics: you can find out which ads bring you income, which ones are loss-making, hence, remove them from the search engine results page
Disadvantages of paid search
  • Expensive
  • Highly competitive keywords require higher bids
  • Not easy to implement
  • Customers’ clicks do not mean sales
  • Click fraud
  • People tend to trust organic search results rather than paid ads
Social Media Marketing
  • Social Media Marketing is establishing relationships with customers and gaining traffic via social networks. Every social site gives its high chances to attract new customers, promote your brand, and boost sales.

Email Marketing

With email marketing, you can establish trusting relationships with the clients, build brand awareness, retain customers, stimulate repeated sales, re-engage the passive clients, treat each client individually.

Display advertising

Display advertising is a kind of pay-per-click advertising, shown on related websites. It aims to grow the target audience by appealing to visual perception, create brand awareness, and monetize the traffic.

Affiliate Marketing

Digital and affiliated type of marketing allows promoting goods and services on the Internet by paying money for actions that facilitate promotion and sales.
Usually, the mechanism is the following: website owners create links, and after a customer clicks it to buy something, they get referral fees. It is a common practice in Amazon.

How Digital Marketing Works

To illustrate the mechanism of digital marketing, remember the last purchase you’ve made. Suppose it was online. Try to recall all the stages you had come through before making a buying decision.
Firstly, we usually look for reviews and testimonials. So, think over the websites which provide them. Then, we examine a particular site that gained the highest mark based on reviews and find it on socials. Meanwhile, don’t forget about SEO — it should be easy for users to find your website. Make sure that your product page answers all the questions a potential buyer may have. At this point, a user contacts you if they’re interested, and email marketing comes into play. It gives lots of opportunities to turn a user into a client.
  1. Offer a lead-magnet for a subscription. It may be a discount, free shipping, a check-list, etc.
  2. After subscription, greet them and share the most favorable goods or content that you’re proud of.
  3. Send triggered emails. They are sent automatically and based on subscriber behavior so that each user will be treated differently. Don’t be afraid. It’s not rocket science — SendPulse takes care of all the technical side of things.
This is just an example of how digital marketing works. Indeed, it depends on the industry, type of business, target audience, and the buyer persona.

How to Do Digital Marketing: Digital Marketing Strategy

  1. Analyze your current marketing situation
  2. Set the goals
  3. Work out a strategy
  4. Manage the workflow
Before choosing a digital and affiliated marketing strategy, make sure that you need it. Research to discover the number of your potential customers online. After that, choose the most relevant digital marketing channels. Certainly, you may combine them but don’t get into each one of them — find out the most beneficial types for your business.
Now, it’s high time to plan a strategy. No matter which one you choose, the general algorithm is the following:
  1. Analyze your current marketing situation. First of all, assess what you have: your current business model, the essence of goals, competition, online presence, strengths, and weaknesses. This analysis will allow you to compare it with a new digital marketing strategy further and discover if the game is worth the candle.
  2. Set the goals. This is a crucial stage. Make sure that your goals are realistic, measurable, specific, assignable, and time-related. Decide upon KPIs to monitor and control the fulfillment of the purposes.
  3. Work out a strategy. It is a plan following which you’ll manage to accomplish your goals. Specify all the tactics and methods to do it, taking into account the period needed. Describe in detail how you’re going to attract new leads and move them down the sales funnel.
  4. Manage the workflow. Delegate the responsibilities among your team, hire the specialists if you lack them. Mind that every digital channel needs a person to be responsible for it. Correct and optimize your strategy on the go to avoid the pitfalls.