Defining Digital Marketing

What is it about?

This chapter aims to provide a definition of what digital marketing is and to introduce forms in which digital marketing commonly appears. At each step, the specificities of digital marketing and its components in the context of interest groups, lobbying, and public affairs are elucidated.

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Why is it important?

Over the last decades, closely correlated with the advent of the Internet and associated platforms/environments, digital marketing has become a much talked about topic in academia and among practitioners. This is the case not only in the context of classic marketing that traditionally deals with the exchange of goods and services between business and consumers as well as between different businesses. Digital marketing is also much discussed in fields that are outside the traditional paradigm of commercial marketing, such as in the area of interest groups, lobbying, and public affairs. However, often it is not clearly and unanimously understood what is meant when talking about digital marketing. Furthermore, it is frequently neglected that digital marketing in the context of interest groups, lobbying, and public affairs might differ from its more classic cousin in commercial marketing contexts.