What Exactly Does a Digital Marketer Do? A Comprehensive Guide for eCommerce Owners

Digital marketing has become an essential part of running a successful eCommerce business. But what exactly does a digital marketer do, and how can they help your online business thrive? In this article, we’ll explore the key responsibilities, skills, and strategies that digital marketers use to drive traffic, increase sales, and build brand loyalty.

What is Digital Marketing?

Digital marketing refers to the use of digital channels—such as websites, social media, email, and search engines—to reach and engage with customers, including different types of digital marketing channels. Unlike traditional marketing methods like print ads or billboards, digital marketing strategies allow businesses to track and measure their campaigns in real-time. This enables marketers to adjust their strategies quickly and efficiently, ensuring maximum return on investment (ROI).

The role of a digital marketer is to craft, implement, and manage these strategies, often to collaborate with other teams such as content creators, web developers, and data analysts. Whether it’s optimizing a website for search engines or creating engaging social media content, digital marketers are responsible for driving measurable growth.

The Key Responsibilities of a Digital Marketer

Digital marketers play a critical role in creating, executing, and managing online strategies that drive measurable results, including utilizing top digital marketing channels for businesses. They are responsible for developing campaigns that align with a company’s goals—whether it’s building brand awareness, increasing website traffic, or converting leads into customers. Below, we dive into the key responsibilities of a digital marketer in greater detail.

1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

SEO remains one of the most crucial responsibilities of a digital marketer. By optimizing a company’s website and content for search engines like Google, digital marketers ensure that their business appears prominently in search results when potential customers look for relevant products or services.

Key tasks involved in SEO include:

• On-page optimization: This involves tweaking individual web pages to make them more search-engine-friendly. This includes optimizing meta descriptions, headers, and keyword density, as well as ensuring proper use of alt tags for images.

• Off-page SEO: This focuses on building the website’s authority through external factors like backlinks from reputable sites, social media signals, and guest blogging.

• Technical SEO: Digital marketers must also ensure that the website is technically sound. This includes improving page load speeds, making sure the site is mobile-friendly, and using structured data markup to help search engines understand the content better.

SEO is a long-term strategy, but when done correctly, it can yield significant organic traffic without the ongoing costs associated with paid advertising.

2. Content Marketing

Content marketing is another cornerstone of digital marketing strategies. Digital marketers work closely with content creators to produce valuable and relevant content that attracts, engages, and converts visitors. The content can take many forms, such as blog posts, eBooks, white papers, infographics, videos, and more.

Some key content marketing responsibilities include:

• Content strategy development: Creating a comprehensive plan for the type of content that will resonate with the target audience.

• Content creation: Collaborating with writers, designers, and video producers to develop high-quality, engaging content that aligns with SEO best practices.

• Content distribution: Making sure the content reaches the intended audience through the right channels, such as blogs, email newsletters, and social media platforms.

• Performance tracking: Monitoring how the content performs and tweaking the strategy as needed to improve engagement and conversions.

By offering informative, entertaining, and engaging content, businesses can build trust with their audience, establish thought leadership, and drive conversions.

3. Social Media Management

Social media is an indispensable tool for digital marketers. Social platforms allow businesses to engage directly with their audience, share content, and build brand awareness. Digital marketers are responsible for creating and implementing social media strategies that increase engagement, followers, and ultimately, sales.

Some social media management duties include:

• Creating platform-specific strategies: Each social media platform (e.g., Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter) has its own strengths and audience. Digital marketers craft specific strategies tailored to each platform's unique audience and features.

• Content creation and scheduling: Developing and scheduling posts that engage the audience, build community, and promote products or services.

• Social listening and engagement: Monitoring brand mentions, responding to customer inquiries, and engaging with followers to foster a two-way conversation and build loyalty.

• Social media advertising: Creating and managing paid ad campaigns on social platforms to increase visibility and target specific audiences based on interests, demographics, and behavior.

Through strategic social media efforts, digital marketers can amplify their brand’s message and connect with customers in meaningful ways.

4. Email Marketing

Email marketing is one of the most cost-effective ways to nurture leads, drive conversions, and retain customers. Digital marketers oversee the planning and execution of email campaigns that deliver personalized, relevant content to segmented audiences.

Key email marketing responsibilities include:

• List segmentation: Dividing the email list into different groups based on user behavior, demographics, or other factors to ensure highly targeted campaigns.

• Email design and content creation: Crafting emails that are visually appealing and contain compelling copy, calls to action (CTAs), and offers that encourage engagement and conversions.

• Automation and workflows: Setting up automated email sequences triggered by specific actions, such as abandoned cart reminders or post-purchase follow-ups.

• Performance tracking: Monitoring key email metrics like open rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates, and using this data to optimize future campaigns.

When done right, email marketing allows businesses to maintain regular communication with their audience and foster long-term relationships.

5. Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising

PPC advertising is another core responsibility of digital marketers. PPC campaigns place paid ads at the top of search engine results pages (SERPs) or on social media platforms, allowing businesses to gain instant visibility.

PPC tasks include:

• Keyword research: Identifying high-performing keywords that potential customers are searching for and bidding on them to ensure ads appear in relevant searches.

• Campaign creation and optimization: Setting up ad campaigns, writing compelling ad copy, selecting the right landing pages, and managing the budget to maximize return on investment (ROI).

• A/B testing: Running experiments with different variations of ads to determine which versions are most effective.

• Performance monitoring: Continuously tracking key metrics like cost-per-click (CPC), conversion rate, and overall ROI to refine the campaigns.

PPC is especially beneficial for driving traffic quickly, and it works best when paired with long-term strategies like SEO.

6. Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)

Conversion rate optimization involves analyzing user behavior and making adjustments to a website or landing page to improve the percentage of visitors who take a desired action, such as making a purchase, signing up for a newsletter, or filling out a contact form.

Digital marketers perform CRO through:

• A/B testing: Testing different variations of website elements (e.g., headlines, CTAs, layouts) to see which versions drive more conversions.

• User experience (UX) improvements: Ensuring that the website is easy to navigate, loads quickly, and provides a seamless experience across devices, leading to higher conversion rates.

• Personalization: Using data to offer personalized experiences for different audience segments, such as showing product recommendations based on previous browsing behavior.

CRO ensures that the traffic generated through other marketing efforts is maximized by converting as many visitors as possible.

7. Analytics and Data-Driven Decisions

Data is at the heart of digital marketing. Digital marketers constantly track and analyze data to evaluate the effectiveness of their strategies and make informed decisions.

Some key analytics responsibilities include:

• Tracking KPIs: Monitoring key performance indicators like traffic, conversions, bounce rate, and customer lifetime value (CLV) to assess the success of marketing efforts.

• Using analytics tools: Utilizing tools like Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, and social media insights to track user behavior and campaign performance.

• Generating reports: Creating regular reports that provide actionable insights for stakeholders, helping them understand the impact of marketing campaigns.

By continuously analyzing data, digital marketers can make adjustments to improve campaign performance and ensure that marketing budgets are being used effectively.

Why Digital Marketing is Critical for eCommerce Businesses

Digital marketing is vital for eCommerce businesses because it helps to create visibility in a crowded marketplace through effective digital marketing channels. Unlike physical stores, where customers can walk in and browse, online businesses rely on digital marketing strategies to attract visitors to their websites.

Without an effective digital marketing plan, your website may remain invisible to potential customers. Digital marketers ensure that your brand gets seen by the right people at the right time, whether through organic search, social media engagement, or targeted ads.

How Unblocked Brands Leverages Digital Marketing for Success

At Unblocked Brands, we understand the importance of digital marketing in driving eCommerce success. Our Passport solution enables brands to send push notifications directly to customers without needing a dedicated mobile app. With push notifications defaulted on, customers are immediately informed about promotions, product launches, and personalized offers, making engagement seamless and highly effective.

Unlike traditional SMS or email campaigns, push notifications have higher open rates and instant visibility. This helps brands build a loyal customer base that consistently engages with their products and services. Learn more about how our solution can help your business thrive at unblockedbrands.com.

Conclusion

Digital marketing is an essential function that can drive significant growth for eCommerce businesses. Whether it’s SEO, content creation, social media management, or PPC advertising, digital marketers use a variety of tactics to attract and retain customers. By understanding the role of a digital marketer and implementing these strategies, your business can thrive in today’s competitive digital landscape.

Ready to take your digital marketing to the next level? Sign up for a free trial at Unblocked Brands today and start building a marketing strategy that works.