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What is digital marketing automation?

What is digital marketing automation
digital marketing automation



Digital marketing automation is the process of automating tasks that people do in order to produce results. Digital marketing automation can be categorized as contribution-based or lead-based.


Contribution-based digital marketing automation (DMA) is a type of digital marketing automation where the contributor, who is usually a business owner or a business manager and maybe even a tech company head, will create custom tasks that will be submitted to different digital marketing platforms.


 Lead-based digital marketing automation (DMA) is also a type of digital marketing automation where the contributor, who is usually an individual who does not own or manage a business, will create custom tasks that will be submitted to different digital marketing platforms.


What is digital marketing automation?

Digital marketing automation is the term coined by Mark Schaefer to describe the process of automating various aspects of a digital marketing program. Automation in this context means different things to different people depending on the audience they are targeting.


Viral marketing automation is one type of digital marketing automation that has become popular in recent years and it is often referred to as “automation”. Viral marketing automation is a form of digital marketing automation that uses viral content creation and distribution channels to drive sales. It is designed specifically for online businesses and online audiences who can appreciate viral content, be attracted by creative messaging and respond habitually to ads (e.g., email).


Automation is being heavily used these days with Google, Facebook, Twitter, and other social media giants offering one way or another automated data collection, analysis, and reporting tools for those who use them (check out Medium’s article if you don’t know what it means). If you are wondering about the term “digital marketing automation” what does this mean for you? Is this something you need? How do you go about implementing it? Here are some key takeaways:


  • Automation can be done with any tool or platform that supports collecting data from a variety of sources, such as websites, mobile apps or email/web campaigns/pop-ups/links, etc.
  • Automation can be done on a manual level using a desktop PC or laptop computer or through an online application that interfaces directly with a variety of software platforms.
  • It can also be done via an app on your phone or tablet which runs on your computer usually without requiring any special permissions other than having access to the internet (eg: iOS users must have access permission before they can use any apps while Android users must have permission before they can install apps).
  • Automation can be done by using software applications built into PCs & laptops (these include programs like Microsoft Office) or through online software platforms such as WordPress/GitHub/Squarespace; professionals may prefer web-based tools because these require less “time” per action but for bloggers, their time spent creating new content isn't worth that much normally so I would say it depends on personal preference whether you want to spend time creating content each day instead of running ads.) Once you have decided which tool(s) best fits your needs. 


then here are some tips on how exactly to go about implementing digital marketing automation


Digital marketing automation tools

I’m not sure if this blog post is the best place to answer the question, but it seems like a good time to write it anyway: Digital marketing automation tools are finally coming to market and they’re not cheap. The biggest problem with them right now is that there isn’t a whole lot of them.


The good news is that there are some of them — and a few of them are pretty good. Unfortunately, many don’t offer any sort of automation at all. I will admit up front that I have no idea which one(s) would be the best for my business, but I can tell you what I think you should look for in order to make an informed decision:


  1. Is it really automated? It needs to perform tasks on its own without human intervention (I occasionally want the ability to set reminders in Slack, or send an email at midnight — both automated tasks).
  2. Can you pay for it? This means you need to consider just how much money you will spend on it (I know what my customers want because I am paying for it).
  3. Does it have features that make it better than other tools? Some features are better than others because they allow more real-time data from your database. This is particularly true when dealing with large amounts of data, as well as when managing a large store of historical data (for example, Facebook/Twitter).


The first two are easy enough; any tool with a “mortgage calculator” in its name has no business being useful for me. But I think the third point is important because most tools do not allow you to see your historical data in real-time; they simply scrap what they have already calculated and assume you can figure out how much time each item spent on their shelf before they expire (which could be wrong). If your tool doesn’t allow easy access to historical data then its usefulness depends on how well it can predict future behavior — which requires too much complex analysis or prediction skill (which might require too little modeling capability). That said, there are many tools that do both quite well so long as you know where and how to use them wisely — and those cost less than $100/month!


Digital marketing automation strategies

A lot of people like to ask me how to do digital marketing automation. I’m sure there are many different ways to do it, but I’m not the guy who can tell you exactly how to do it. I don’t know the first thing about digital marketing automation; I only know that you should get started with it.


With digital marketing automation, we look at a few things:

  • Which campaigns have we run and have run before?
  • If we have any data on which campaigns have worked before and which ones haven’t worked.
  • What products or services we might be working on in the future (this is often referred to as a “pivot”).


We use these things along with the idea that digital marketing automation is a mix of technology, data, and people (the “three Ls”). Let’s look at them in more detail!


The Three Ls: Technology – Technological resources are expensive and hard to find. You need access to an infinite number of them or you will run out of money pretty quick. Data – Just as important as technological resources, you need access to lots of them! With all of your customers: 

email addresses; phone numbers; IP addresses; social media handles if they are Facebook or Twitter accounts and so on… And keep in mind that there are two types of data: historical data (often called “historical insight data”) and predictive data (sometimes referred to as “dynamic insight data”).

 Predictive data is good for identifying patterns in past behavior and good for predicting future behavior based on what happened before. 

Historical insight data is great for predicting future behavior based on current behavior but depending on where your business is going, it could be an expensive proposition if you don't have access to a vast amount of historical insight data already... People – There are lots of different kinds of people out there — engineers, marketers, salespeople, etc. We need lots of different kinds of people! 

Team members are awesome because they can provide "depth" but understanding their motivations and goals can also be helpful for understanding how well or poorly they perform when it comes time to optimize our tools… Product Managers can help us understand what types of campaigns work best for our customers so we can determine where resources should go — this is called a Pivot. Data Scientists typically bring a deeper level of understanding than any other person involved in


Marketing automation articles

Marketing automation, or marketing automation software, is a growing business segment and includes a lot of different products.


It can be very useful in some cases but it is also important to understand what you are getting into when deciding whether to use digital marketing automation software. For example, you can use Google Analytics to track visitors to your website and then display them on the site in more detail. However, Google Analytics is not actually an automation solution.


What we are talking about here are automated systems that will automatically do things like sending emails to customers as they come in and checking if they have done something that needs attention (see below). Also included in this list of marketing automation software is:


  1. Facebook Like Pages.
  2. Facebook Page Likes.
  3. Google +1s.
  4. Google +2s.
  5. Twitter followers.
  6. Twitter hashtags.


The first three of these are often referred to as "organic" or "natural" traffic because they come from people who have previously visited your site or friended you on Facebook. Another type of traffic is referred to as "junk" or "spam" traffic because it comes from search engines such as Google and Yahoo which are not affiliated with the content creator (in other words, these users may visit your website only because they were looking for something else).


The fourth type of traffic can be classified as "referral" traffic — that refers to people who have been referred by someone else who has visited your website before them. If you want visitors to show up on your website and then buy something from you, there are two ways this can happen: 


through direct sales or through referrals. The easiest way for direct sales is by visiting the website of the merchant you would like people to buy from then checking out their product with the help of an automated system. There may be a fee involved with this but it tends not to be too expensive. The second way for referral sales happens when someone visits your site by clicking on one of many links that appear on your site when someone visits another page (e.g., Twitter, Facebook) using advertising-based tools such as AdWords/AdSense/or similar programs (e.g., Google AdSense). 


These ads may appear once per day or at other times depending on how much money they make and how much time they spend viewing any given ad (and so forth). It makes sense that these referrals could lead to more sales.


What is an example of marketing automation?

Digital marketing automation is a pretty new phenomenon. It got its start in the digital marketing sphere but now has extended to other areas too. That’s because it can be used for so many different things, from improving customer service and increasing revenue to building a digital presence and engaging with customers on multiple levels.


The idea behind digital marketing automation is simple: automate the work that is typically involving humans. The key skills differ depending on what you are automating (for example, building websites, managing social media profiles, sending emails, or interacting with customers online).


It sounds simple enough, but as you might have guessed by now, it tends to be a complex subject to master. But that’s why we created this post: to get you started with some of the basics.

For example:

  • Automating tasks that are already done – emailing customers when they order something online (which can be done automatically through our email marketing offering).
  • Automating tasks that involve manual human interaction – analyzing data from customer feedback forms or from social media interactions (or using an analytics tool).
  • Automating tasks that involve software – creating reports for sales and marketing teams; automating workflow processes; creating CRM systems based on data from these systems; automating reporting processes for your company's finance department (or using an analytics tool).

What are some examples of digital marketing automation? Let us know in the comments section below!


Can we automate digital marketing?

In a recent interview with LinkedIn, Ben Horowitz (the co-founder of Andreessen Horowitz) said that in order for digital marketing to work, it needs to be automated.


He specifically mentioned a few tactics which are well suited for automation:

  • Social media scheduling – like scheduling a meeting from your calendar or from Google Calendar.
  • Social media monitoring – like using a tool like Buffer or Product Hunt to watch for content relevant to you and post it when you want.
  • Social media scheduling and monitoring tools – like Zapier and Buffer made specifically for automating marketing tasks


This sounds great on paper, but there’s no easy way to automate what is mostly an admin task: 


scheduling social media posts. There are many options out there, but they all come with their own set of trade-offs: Facebook’s scheduling is slow, expensive, and more complicated; Buffer’s scheduling is not very good at detecting new content; and so on.


The question is whether these are the right tools for the job and if so, how do we automate them? The answer seems to be “yes” – which means we should definitely automate them! However, this requires us first to figure out what automation means to us in the first place (is it about speed? budget savings?) and then figure out how best to go about it (what kind of automation do we want?). This is a pretty big topic explaining one small part of what digital marketing automation can offer online marketplaces like Shopify or Wufoo or Squarespace. 


If your company does not have any data science expertise at all, it may not be worth delving into or saving yourself some money by hiring someone who does (as long as you think this person will be able to guide you through the process). But if your company does have some data science skills, then spending time researching any specific tool is probably worthwhile because otherwise, you may end up spending more time than necessary adjusting one small part of your automation strategy than making significant improvements in other areas. 


Here are three great resources I would recommend reading before diving into the topic: Digital Marketing Automation by Steve Blank  (this book sits atop my list as both being highly recommended by me and being one of several titles I strongly recommend reading) Automate Your Startup by Cory Doctorow A Primer on Automation: Introducing Slack, Zapier, Google Calendar, etc. Automation Does Not Call For A.


Conclusion: digital marketing automation

Digital marketing automation is, first and foremost, a way for marketers to automate business processes. But there are a lot of different ways to automate everything, so what exactly is digital marketing automation?


The term “digital marketing automation” covers a lot of different tools, but here I will focus on the two most important ones: Search engine optimization (SEO) and social media marketing (social media) because these two areas of digital marketing are absolutely crucial to any company’s ability to grow.


It’s easy to get frustrated with technology when it feels like nothing is changing. Instead of taking big steps forward, we spend all our time trying to keep up with our competitors. Now, I understand that there may be some reasons for this:


When searching for something like “digital marketing automation” you have to do a lot more than just type in the name. Once you start typing in keywords like “digital marketing automation software” you will find it harder and harder for people to remember what field you are talking about. However, if we want our industry to be able to compete head-on against the rest of tech, then we need new and better ways of thinking about digital marketing that doesn’t require us to think so much about the technical aspects of it all. This means that we need ideas that focus on making us actually money in the long run rather than on helping us stay ahead at the moment.


One particular fact has become clear since I started working on this post (it was mentioned by a previous author): search engines are losing their relevance as an advertising vehicle! For many years now search engines have been used as an advertising vehicle because they were easy to use and didn’t require any additional manual work from marketers – but that is no longer true anymore! In fact, Google recently announced that they saw search traffic drop by almost half from last year; this isn’t even counting other factors such as search volume or link building initiatives which also might be considered an impact factor. 


And while Google isn’t reversing their strategy on this point just yet (they still provide search ads), they have already started experimenting with new ways of driving revenue through other channels such as paid content. Furthermore, Google owns 90% or more of all mobile traffic (although interestingly enough there doesn’t seem to be any correlation between mobile usage and SEO performance). And while a majority or even all of these groups.

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