5 Steps for a Data-Driven Online Marketing Strategy

People have been practising marketing, the promotion of brands, products, and services to attract and engage customers, for centuries. Traditional marketing like print, broadcast, or direct mail, recently gave way to digital marketing to meet customers where they are—on their smartphones, tablets, and laptops. 

With the rise of the internet, marketers realised the potential for digital and online marketing. Now, they can target consumers with advertisements in Google search results, online shopping, blog posts, and YouTube videos. Over 92 per cent of global web traffic comes from Google searches, images, and maps [1]. Data can be generated immediately: How many people clicked on the ad? What percentage of shoppers are females who run marathons? Analysing this data helps marketers optimise their efforts. 

This article offers an overview of online marketing, how it works, and how to craft a data-driven strategy in five simple steps.

What is online marketing?

Online marketing is the practice of using web-based channels and platforms to sell a brand, product, or service to potential and existing customers. It involves developing the right strategies for your target audience to translate into sales. The beauty of online marketing is that companies can readily analyse data to measure a campaign’s success and adjust accordingly.

Online marketing falls under the umbrella of digital marketing, meaning it applies to what consumers see and hear on the internet. It includes the following:

• SEO and content marketing

• Pay-per-click (PPC)

• Display advertising (text, image, video, and shopping ads)

• Email marketing

• Social media marketing

• Website design

Along with the above, digital marketing includes any marketing that reaches customers on electronic devices, such as podcasts, electronic billboards, phone apps, and SMS texts.

How online marketing works

Online marketing spreads brand messaging through images, text, or video to reach users who may resonate with it. For some brands, curating an integrated strategy that involves a robust presence with a website, blog, and social media in addition to using a constant stream of targeted ads and email newsletters is needed to draw users to these sites. For other brands, such as a popular restaurant, an Instagram post on Sunday night detailing a list of events for the week ahead is enough.

These days, it’s not uncommon for companies to use a multi-prong strategy to reach diverse audiences with multiple channels. The data collected from click-through rates (CTRs), purchases, and scrolls helps marketers monitor success and modify their content as necessary.

Craft a winning, data-driven marketing strategy 

Crafting an online marketing strategy that is right for your business or organisation may require some trial and error. The internet evolves with its users, so big players like Google, Meta, and Amazon continually adjust algorithms and search displays to win your attention. Your business’s ability to reach the right audience will likely depend on a keen understanding of demographics and purchasing habits, along with the number of resources you’re willing to put toward capturing that data.

Companies that benefit most from online marketing tend to have a presence and purpose on the internet. For example, clothing brands with international shipping benefit from targeting on Instagram, and localised food or takeaway delivery start-ups can leverage location-based targeting—an email reminder from Dominos about a pizza promotion can boost sales on targeted weeks.

Turn data analytics into a career

Using data to drive business decisions can be rewarding, especially when it results in sales conversions. If you enjoy sorting and analysing data, you might be interested in a career as a marketing analyst.

You can learn essential tools like Google Analytics to turn data into profitable marketing strategies with a Google Digital Marketing and E-Commerce Professional Certificate.

Here’s how to use data to craft an online marketing strategy for your business. 

1. Create buyer personas.

As with any marketing strategy, it is necessary to cultivate an understanding of your target market. Based on market research or previous sales data, you can create buyer personas to build fictional representations of your consumer by elaborating on their lifestyle, buying habits, and demographics. 

Questions for creating buyer personas

Place yourself in your imagined customer’s shoes. Detail how they use the internet by considering these questions, which can form the basis of a survey or focus group:

• Does your buyer use social media? If so, which platforms?

• How often do they use social media? For what purpose? 

• Does your buyer define their identity through social media? If so, how?

• Does your buyer use Google search? What do they search for? How often?

• What websites does your buyer frequent? Do they intentionally go to these sites, or did they click on an ad?

Trace your buyer’s roadmap of internet usage. The more accurate it is, the more agile and effective your online marketing strategy is.

2. Apply the digital sales funnel. 

The digital sales funnel is a visualisation for converting leads into customers from a marketing perspective. Each step represents a web visitor’s decisions leading up to a purchase. At the top of the funnel, there’s awareness, then interest, decision, and action.

Businesses typically use these online marketing strategies to attract customers at each stage:

• Awareness: SEO and content marketing, social media marketing, paid advertising

• Interest: Landing page, email newsletter

• Decision: Email marketing, promotions on website

• Action: Shopping cart (email reminders), reviews, referrals

One or more strategies can be applied to your brand at the same time. This tactic can help you penetrate customers at different levels of their buying decision.

Your brand may also have multiple goals in mind. At times, you may want sales conversions, while at other times your goal might be to improve brand recognition. These can occur simultaneously on different platforms too.

3. Map out your online marketing strategy.

With your buyer personas and digital sales funnel in mind, it’s time to map out your online marketing strategy. Here are some examples of each type of online marketing:

• SEO and content marketing: Improving the quality and quantity of (unpaid) traffic to your website, usually through Google searches. Content marketing, such as articles and blogs written to reach top search results, typically accompanies SEO.

  • Craft marketplace Etsy’s blog is full of articles showing you the best gifts, trends and easy, do-it-yourself (DIY) ideas to spruce up the home. [2].

• Pay-per-click (PPC): With pay-per-click, advertisers pay the publisher (search engines or web page owners) each time a visitor clicks an ad. 

  • Global footwear brand Converse increased online engagement with teenagers by using Google AdWords to target search terms such as “first day of summer,” “how to talk to girls,” and “how to kiss” [3].

• Display advertising: Display ads appear on websites or banner ads as text, images, and video, to link to a brand’s website so customers can learn about and buy products (or services). 

  • Nivea promotes their age reverse cream with a simple ad showing a clock, to signify that with the help of their cream, you can “turn the clock back on ageing”. [4].

• Email marketing: Using email to send messages to mass groups of potential customers to build brand awareness and loyalty.

  • UK clothing retailer New Look used the headline “Party like it’s payday” as part of a successful Halloween email marketing campaign. [5].

• Social media marketing: Creating customised content for each social media platform to promote a business and engage users.

  • Snag Tights use plus size models in their ads on Instagram and Facebook to reach a wider audience and promote inclusion [6].

• Website design: A website’s user experience and the software and platform used to power the website can be optimised to convert sales. 

  • Virgin Atlantic airlines’ website detects when customers have abandoned their shopping cart and sends an email reminder with their specific desired flight, saying, “[your name], you’re so close…” [7].

Multiple strategies can be used simultaneously on several different channels for an integrated marketing strategy that targets potential customers at every stage of the buying process. 

Based on the six types of online marketing strategies above, think about your business model, the types of products or services you deliver, and your budget. Consider your competitors—where do you stand in terms of price point and value compared to them? What are they doing to reach their audience? Are you focused on local geo-targeting, or are you a global brand that will rely on Google ads? Write down the options that suit your brand.

4. Plan and implement your strategy.

A strategy is just ideas without a plan in place. Once you have decided on your online marketing strategy, create a timeline for your campaigns. Your plan should include a calendar, the person responsible for executing each campaign, and key performance indicators (KPIs).

You may wish to run A/B testing (experimenting with different parts of a campaign to figure out what will work best), before going forward with implementing your plan. Once executed, it can take a while, up to six months or a year, to see the results of your implemented plan.

5. Analyse and adjust your plan to maximise ROI.

After your online marketing plan has been implemented for a year, or a given timeline, analyse monthly sales. Based on data compiled and analysed from your online marketing efforts, what was the return on investment (ROI)? 

If you used a multi-prong approach, your team might consider evaluating the ROI of each part of the strategy. For example, you might evaluate the percentage of sales generated from SEO and content, from social media (broken down by platform), and from display ads. Consider conducting your analysis monthly, and troubleshoot as necessary.

Finally, revise your online marketing plan for the following year or time period, based on the first year’s data.

Use data to drive marketing

If you love data, you can use this to amplify your business efforts by understanding how to use analytics to boost your online media marketing campaigns, whether these are email campaigns, display ads, or through social media content. The Google Digital Marketing and E-Commerce Professional Certificate will guide you through what you need to know in six months or less.