Digital and internet marketing

Dig­i­tal and inter­net mar­ket­ing: under­stand­ing the dif­fer­ence. When it comes to mar­ket­ing, many peo­ple get con­fused with ter­mi­nol­o­gy. Dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing? Inter­net mar­ket­ing? What’s the difference? 

In most cas­es, when peo­ple say “Dig­i­tal,” they actu­al­ly mean web mar­ket­ing. But there are real dif­fer­ences, and I’ll explain them in sim­ple terms.

Internet marketing: everything in your browser

Let’s start with some­thing famil­iar. Inter­net mar­ket­ing refers to all activ­i­ties that hap­pen online — specif­i­cal­ly, in your brows­er. Here are some key components:

• Pay-per-click adver­tis­ing (Google Ads, Bing Ads).
• SEO and web­site optimization.
• Social media mar­ket­ing (SMM, tar­get­ed ads).
• Email cam­paigns and newsletters.
• Con­tent plat­forms such as blogs and forums.

If your mar­ket­ing revolves around web­sites and online plat­forms, it’s inter­net mar­ket­ing. Sim­ple, right?

Digital marketing: beyond the browser

Now, let’s talk about dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing. This approach is broad­er and more diverse. It may include inter­net mar­ket­ing but isn’t lim­it­ed to it. Here are some examples:

• Inter­ac­tive dis­plays in stores (DPOSM).
• Dig­i­tal bill­boards along high­ways (DOOH).
• Mobile apps that work offline.
• Logis­tics or ware­house man­age­ment systems.

In oth­er words, dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing uses any dig­i­tal tech­nol­o­gy, not just the internet.

Comparison Table

Why does terminology matter?

In many coun­tries, peo­ple don’t both­er much with pre­cise ter­mi­nol­o­gy. Dig­i­tal and inter­net mar­ket­ing are often used inter­change­ably. And that’s fine for casu­al con­ver­sa­tions. How­ev­er, inter­na­tion­al­ly, this dif­fer­ence is more respect­ed. For exam­ple, if you refer to “Dig­i­tal” while mean­ing SMM, you might polite­ly be corrected.

The key is con­text. If your work revolves around the inter­net, no one will blame you for using these terms inter­change­ably. But if you’re col­lab­o­rat­ing with glob­al part­ners, it’s worth being more precise.

A simple formula

To make things easy, remem­ber this formula:

Internet Marketing ⊆ Digital Marketing

This means that web mar­ket­ing is a sub­set of dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing, but dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing cov­ers much more than just the web.

Conclusion

To sum­ma­rize, inter­net mar­ket­ing is a nar­row­er field, while dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing takes a broad­er approach. In some places, the dis­tinc­tion is over­looked, but inter­na­tion­al­ly, it’s tak­en more seri­ous­ly. What mat­ters more to you: being a stick­ler for ter­mi­nol­o­gy or focus­ing on results? The choice is yours.

What do you think? Share your thoughts in the com­ments. Let’s fig­ure it out together!