Digital Marketing in an International Context - Literature review Example

Digital Marketing in an International Context The discussion is focused on different digital marketing procedure based on the online and internet usage of consumers from different parts of the world. The study has mainly evaluated two different types of behavioral targeting advertisement procedure such as interest-based advertisement and search advertisement. The interest-based advertisement assist organizations to analyze the buying behavior and product preferences of different segments of consumers through their online product choice and website visit frequency. On the other hand, search advertisement enable organizations to utilize various search engine keywords to gather the knowledge about consumer search preferences. The study has evaluated a number of research discussions and analysis about the process of the usage of different types of behavior targeting advertisement over the internet. It has also emphasized on the usage of web-cookies for the purpose of gathering an in-depth details about diversified consumer sections. The discussion has illustrated various importance of the usage of cookies in terms of well-designed and successful digital advertising procedure. The further discussion has highlighted the importance of the interest-based advertisement and search advertisement on the development of marketing and sales procedure of different organizations. It has also defined the procedures of analyzing consumer’s preferences and customizing the advertisement and promotional procedure according to that. In the next section it has elaborated the effects of using cookies on the process of altering the consumer behavior and product advertisement procedures. Finally, the discussion has highlighted the importance and efficacy of cookies to develop the digital marketing procedure, to create a global competitiveness for organizations. Name of the Student Name of the Professor Course Number Date Digital Marketing in an International Context Introduction Marketing and technological developments are two inseparable entities. Over 60% of the global organizations are allocating a huge portion of their yearly expenses for the development of their digital marketing technologies (Ryan 42). The importance of digital marketing is increasing within various national as well as international business houses to maintain and improve their competitive market advantages (Charlesworth 56). The digital marketing trend was initiated in the 1990s with the development of computer systems which enabled marketers to store enormous volume of customer information. Nowadays, the digital marketing process enables the marketers to use a wide range of electronic devices, which includes personal computers, tablets, Televisions and smartphones, to strengthen the relationship with the potential constomers (Kaufman and Horton 123). The advancement of consumer relationship marketing through digital media has also enable the marketers to utilize ‘web cookies’ to gather information about the consumer behavior and preferences (Kaufman and Horton 241). The further discussion of this study will evaluate different processes of digital marketing and its effects on the marketing and sales procedure of any organization. It will also illustrate the utilization of cookies to gather the literal consumer data and its efficacy on the marketing decision making procedure of organizations. Discussion 1. Literature Review of Interest- Based Advertising The current development of digital marketing procedure is influencing organizations to get more inclined towards behavioral targeting or the interest-based advertisement procedure. According to McStay (2011), the process of digital marketing is enabling the organizations of current era to customize their advertisement procedures as per the behavior or interest of consumers. The author has mentioned that behavioral targeting enables the marketers to target the potential consumers who have displayed interest on the products or services of the particular company. This procedure assists the advertisers to tailor the ads as per the online user’s interest. McStay (2011) has illustrated that there are generally two types of behavioral targeting advertisement strategies such as analyzing behavior through web browsing or interest-based advertising and assessing search engine activities or search advertising. Web browsing mainly keep the track of website or web page visits of consumers. On the other hand, analysis of the search engine queries is mainly dependent on the usage of keywords by different users (McStay 140). On the other hand, Chatterjee et al., (2003), have evaluated that the online behavioral advertisement procedure was initiated in the early phase of 1990s while interest-based advertising was the default choice for the online advertisers across the world. A report of AudienceScience has also backed up this idea by mentioning that the usage of interest-based advertising procedure is very high in the developed countries mainly in different parts of the US. This report has also elaborated that the practices of interest-based advertising is increasing in different parts of Europe despite of the added pressure of privacy policies (De Mooij 102). The researchers of World Privacy Forum has explained that the behavioral targeting is a procedure of tracking the behavior of consumers in terms of their online activities, preferences and communications to customize advertisements and market the goods accordingly (McStay 142). Smit, et al., (2013) have supported this analysis of interest-based advertising by illustrating that the behavior of consumers are generally determined through their visit to different websites and web pages (Smit, Noort, and Voorveld 21). They have also evaluated that if any user visits different sports websites, then this information assists the marketers of sports products to customize advertisement for that particular consumer. This advertisement will be shown to that person frequently to increase his interest towards the particular brand (Smit, Noort, and Voorveld 19). A huge number of researchers have supported the previous interaction by highlighting that this online advertising procedure is an important determinant in terms of customizing interest-based advertising. In this scenario, organizations display advertisements to the consumers based on the browsers prior interaction with the advertiser (De Mooij 529). Different researchers have explained that, when any consumers select few product items from any particular website, it assists the marketers to analyze their buying behavior and product preferences. Therefore, it enable the marketers to advertise that particular product or product line through different other websites to grab the interest of the consumers (Belanche, Casaló and Guinalíu 127). The analysis of Belanche et al., (2012), has demonstrated that different interest-based advertising procedure has detailed a number of exemplary factors that can indicate the particular interests of any individual consumer. The authors have mentioned that these factors include The web pages visit history of different users. Details of various products and product line searched and clicked by the website visitors. Similarity of the product choices of a particular user through various websites (Belanche et al. 129; Langheinrich et al. 1263). 2. Literature review of Search Advertising The current technological researches of Yao et al., (2011) have described that, in the current business scenario the interest-based advertising is not enough to attract a huge traffic of consumers towards the marketing procedure of any global organization. The authors have detailed that along with the website and web page visit history of consumers; their usage and behavior over different search engines also play a vital role in terms of analyzing the consumer behavior and designing customized advertisement for them (Yao et al. 193). Various researchers have supported this view point by describing search advertisement procedure as a technique to connect search engine users to different product and services as per their search preferences. This procedure generally influences marketers to introduce various online advertisements in reference to the consumer’s usage of different search engines (Katona and Sarvary 205). The research report of Mangani (2004) has supported this analysis by providing a number of instances of search advertising vendors that possess their own advertising management platform such as adCenter for Microsoft and AdWords for Google advertising services. According to this research report, search engine advertising procedure generally utilizes a pay-per-click format which directs the advertisers to pay for every user’s click on their advertisements (Mangani 301). The analysis of Rutz et al., (2012) has illustrated that the procedure of assigning for the pay-per-click advertisement procedure enable organizations to bid on a number of keywords related to their industry and product line. This procedure ensures that when any user will search for those specific key words the advertisements of those particular organizations will appear (Rutz, Bucklin and Sonnier 316). 3. Analysis of the effect of behavioral target advertising on the sales and marketing The different views of various research analyses has evaluated the importance of interest-based advertising as well as search advertising in the overall sales and marketing procedure of the global organizations. The researches have also emphasized that the interest-based advertising and search advertisements have extensive effects on the digital sales and marketing procedure of various organizations. These procedures allow the organizations to increase their visibility through different websites and search engine advertisements. These procedures also assist the organizations to customize the advertisement as per the preferences of the consumers. The activities of consumers in different web pages generally depict their product preferences and buying behaviors. These details allow the marketers to design advertisements as well as product lines as per the requirements of consumers (Van Noort, Voorveld and Reijmersdal 230). Interest-based advertising process assists organization to segment the online user market in different categories as per their geographical location, gender, age and product consumption type (Weiser 172). Various large and international organizations are using a number of data management platforms such as Demdex and Red April to collect about the user’s behavior to segment the potential consumers. These methods not only allow the organization to easily segment the market in the traditional manner, it also assists the organizations to focus on individual consumer needs (Van Noort, Voorveld and Reijmersdal 234). The increased frequency of customer focused advertisement through different websites has assisted a number of marketers to attract a wide range of consumers towards their products. The pay-per-click advertisement procedure can be considered as one of the essential processes to enhance the ranking of the company owned website within different search engines. For instance, Amazon.com Inc. widely uses the interest-based advertisement procedure to engage their regular consumer as well as attract new consumers to their product line (Lee, Park and Han 192). The organization generally gathers all the details of the interactions with the consumers during their visit to the particular website. Amazon.com Inc. designs various innovative ad campaigns as per the details about the frequency of consumer visit and their purchasing pattern. It also uses the information from different payment services. Therefore, this procedures assist them to advertise through their own websites, other sponsored links and various third party websites (Lee, Park and Han 203). 4. Literature review on Web-Cookies A huge number of researches have been conducted over a period of time to analyze the usage of web-cookies in the effectiveness of interest-based as well as search advertising. According to Manchanda et al., (2006) all these interest-based advertising and search advertising systems generally collect the information of the users through cookie enabled web browsers such as Microsoft Internet Explorer, Google Chrome and Mozilla’s Firefox. The research report has also mentioned that web cookies assist organizations to gather information about the types of visited websites and web pages and the keywords utilized by different consumers (Manchanda et al. 102). Different researchers have defined cookies as the “small text file” which can be stored in the computer system of any user by web browser. This facility generally stores identifiers that assist marketers to recognize all the sessions between the web browser and the user (Srivastava 23). The researchers has also evaluated that the cookies are generally used by the marketers to observe different web activities of a number of users over a certain period of time. They have conveyed that cookies are one of the major tools for the digital marketing and E-commerce procedures (Rodgers and Thorson 48). A number of consumer personalization techniques and digital marketing are hugely dependent on cookies. The analysis of Park et al., (2000) has also emphasized the usage of web-cookies in the digital marketing procedure. According to the author, the web-cookies allow the organizations to collect and store a huge amount of data regarding the buying behavior of their potential consumers. This stored data allow the websites to recognize the users every time they visit to the specific pages. It also stores all the interactions and specifications between that user and the website page. Most of the cookies are managed and controlled by different website owners while few of them are administered by various third party controllers (Park and Sandhu 41). For information about the usage of cookies please go through the following link- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I01XMRo2ESg For further information about the usage of cookies in digital advertising please visit the following link- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zoEXifWBtAs 5. Analysis of the effect of Web-Cookies on the sales and marketing Cookies play a major role in this behavioral advertising procedure. It assists various businesses to analyze the consumer behavior. Cookies provide a number of benefits to the marketers as well as the users (Lohse, Bellman and Johnson 22). It assists organizations to recognize each consumer by their username or passwords in different websites. The process of using cookies also allows the marketers to alter consumer behavior through frequent and innovative advertising. This process increases the visibility of organization and its product lines to the consumers in a unique manner (Büchner and Mulvenna 58). Cookies assist marketers to register all the previous preferences of the users. These details allow the marketers to assess the consumption pattern of each users or visitors. Therefore, the marketers can customize the advertisement content and procedure as per the visit frequency and product choice of the consumers (De Mooij 93). For instance, if a user has visited a particular website for a certain range of female clothing products, it will assist the marketers to evaluate the age, gender and clothing preference of the customer. Therefore, it will allow the advertiser to display similar range of product line to the particular consumer frequently, to influence their interest to buy the same (De Mooij 129). It also allow the marketers to design individual discount schemes to increase the consumer loyalty and engagement. Cookies also assist marketers to analyze the purchasing behavior of consumers during the different festive seasons. It allows the marketers to segregate consumers from different cultural backgrounds. Hence it assists them to alter their product advertisements and selling schemes as per the cultural differences of the consumers. For example, EBay utilizes different discount schemes for the Christmas Eve and Easter celebrations. The usage of cookies assists them to analyze the cultural background of each consumer therefore it allows them to offer discount schemes accordingly (Belanch, Casaló and Guinalíu 127). Simultaneously, it helps the organizations to restructure their product line as per the requirements and demands of different geographical locations and cultural background. These details collected through cookies also encourage organizations to alter the product advertisement types and frequency as per the interest and behavior of the consumers (Hsu, Chang and Chen 312). For example, GE Appliances Company only wants to target those consumers who already had searched for this brand of products over the internet within the last few years. Their cookies details help them to gather the information about their interactions with the consumers within the last few years. This information also help them to target all the potential consumers based on their past product preferences (Belanch, Casaló and Guinalíu 129). 6. Restrictions towards the usage of Web-Cookies The usage of cookies has also various limitations. A number of consumers have complained against the usage of cookies by organizations as it is violating their privacy over internet (Goldfarb and Tucker 59). For instance, Google used to provide the details of consumer behavior pattern for the last 30 years. Due to various legal issues and complaints, the organization has cut down the time limit to 2 years (Miyazaki 31). Various users may disallow and block the cookies on their systems which will restrict the organizations to analyze the preferences of the consumers. The cookies generally identify the computer and not the consumers. The usage of single computer by multiple users may create ambiguity to the marketers about the specific preferences and consumption behavior of each consumer. Conclusion The discussion has highlighted a number of behavior based advertisement procedure of organizations such as search advertisements and interest based web advertisements. The analysis of different research reports and organizational usage has illustrated the importance of these advertisement procedures in the digital marketing and sales procedure of different organizations. It has also emphasized on the importance of web cookies to understand the individual tastes and preferences regarding different product segments. The usage of cookies has also introduced a number of limitations which includes the privacy violation of consumers as well as website restrictions by users. Apart from these limitations, the study has evaluated a number of benefits of using cookies in terms of segmenting the market in an efficient manner. This process allows the marketers to redesign their promotional procedures as per the geographical segmentation, age, gender and cultural background of the consumers. Therefore, it can be said that the behavioral advertisement procedure and usage of cookies can provide a huge competitive advantages to the consumers in the diversified global market. It also assists the consumers to minimize their product searching cost. Works Cited Belanche, Daniel, Luis Casaló and Miguel Guinalíu. "Website usability, consumer satisfaction and the intention to use a website: The moderating effect of perceived risk." Journal of retailing and consumer services 19.1 (2012): 124-132. Print. 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