Marketer/business owner, we’ve come a long way, haven’t we? 

It was only a few decades ago when: 

With these technological constraints, it’s no wonder that traditional marketers were skeptical of moving into the digital space back then. 

But that was then. 

Today, the digital space has taken over most of our lives. 

I’m sitting in a dimly lit cafe right now with the scent of lavender and hot chocolate soothing my nostrils – searching for the word ‘Shiba Inu’ on Google (looking for my future pet 🐶). 

With just that one search alone, I got a total of ‘9,350,000 search results’. 

Crazy, isn’t it? 

Search engines can now store trillions upon trillions of digital content. 

Social media platforms have billions of people engaging regularly.  

Anyone can share opinions, knowledge, creative works and products/services that all have the potential to be seen by millions around the world. 

Is it any wonder then that despite the skepticism of traditional marketers in the past…

Companies are EXPECTED to be online today? 

Because if you are not online, you are in the ‘Marketing Stone Age’.  

As of October 2023, there are 5.3 billion internet users worldwide. 

And this is only the beginning. 

Soon, over the grand horizon of the internet, we are about to enter a new era known as Web 3.0…

Where technologies such as blockchain, virtual reality, augmented reality and advanced AI will change the landscape of how we market forever. 

As innovation progresses, innovation will only get faster and further than even we humans can conceive. 

All these changes can be overwhelming. 

In fact, the Digital Marketing field alone already feels overwhelming with the constant influx of new tech, new trends and new marketing strategies to look into. 

That’s why I’ve written about future-proofing your digital marketing career (amidst AI, recessions & pandemics) to make your journey a whole lot smoother, regardless of future developments. 

For now, I want to share with you a brief history of Digital Marketing. 

Because in order to understand where we are, why we are here and where we are going – we must first understand where we came from. 

To maximise the tools that Digital Marketing provides, we must first understand what those tools are and how they came to be. 

This is my goal with this article. 

We’re gonna step into the time machine cue ‘Back To The Future’ theme song...

And we’re gonna journey through the 1990s when the World Wide Web was first invented all the way back to 2023 and beyond. 

So join me as we explore a brief, no B.S. History of Digital Marketing.  

Before the invention of the World Wide Web in 1989…

The internet was primarily used for text: 

Then Web 1.0 (aka “The Static Web”) came along with its first version of the World Wide Web. 

Back then, websites were static – you could only view content (texts & images). 

You couldn’t interact with the content itself like we can today. 

In 1990, the first search engine was invented – ‘Archie’ – the name stood for “archives”, not the popular comic book character ‘Archie’ like many people assumed. 

Users could make requests to look for specific files. 

However, they had to go through each file one at a time to make sure it was the one they were looking for – it was very time consuming. 

Then came Yahoo Search in 1994.

Yahoo was one of the first search engines to use a web crawler to index pages and provide search results. 

It was also one of the first to provide a human edited directory of websites. 

This allowed users to browse through categories and subcategories to find the information they were looking for.  

Yahoo also introduced relevance ranking – ranking search results based on the number of times the search term appeared on a page. 

The relevance ranking was one of the first developments of what would be known as ‘Search Engine Optimisation’ (SEO). 

And with these developments, Web 1.0 began to establish the earliest foundations for Digital Marketing & E-Commerce. 

Businesses could now explore new ways to reach customers and establish their brand presence online. 

In 1994, the very first clickable web banner was introduced to the web. 

The company ‘HotWired’ was the first to purchase this banner ad. 

This pivotal moment marked the beginning of the transition towards the digitisation of marketing & advertising. 

In 1994, Dan Kohn – a 21-year old economics graduate – sold a CD to his friend, Phil Brandenburger who was 300 miles away. 

Phil had placed the order using a Unix machine loaded with a web browser called ‘XMosaic’. 

Obviously back then, the purchase wasn’t very user-friendly. 

Despite that, the transaction was secure. 

Phil’s card was charged with $12.48 and a music CD was delivered to his home by FedEx. 

This marked the very first successful ecom transaction. 

No, I’m not talking about chocolate chip cookies – though I do have the cravings for it right now. 

But what I’m really talking about is the very first digital cookie which was invented in 1994 by Lou Montoulli. 

Webpages back then didn’t have the ability to remember the previous web pages you’ve visited. 

Everytime you loaded a new webpage, it treated you like you were a complete stranger. 

So Montoulli created a solution for that – the internet cookie. 

This allowed the user to be tracked by having a small text file be passed back and forth between a website and the person’s computer. 

It was like giving the computer a memory where now it remembers what specific web pages you visited. 

This is how ecommerce sites can remember what users were shopping for. 

And while it proved to be a success…

Digital Marketers were able to hack these internet cookies to follow people around the internet – something that Montoulli tried to avoid due to data privacy concerns.

Marketing innovations such as personalised ads could then be created based on how users interacted with the web. 

As revolutionary as this was to Digital Marketing, it did lead to brands getting cracked down for privacy violations (we’ll come back to this later). 

By 1995, the term ‘search engine optimisation’ was created to describe the act of making websites more friendly to the search engine. 

Today, SEO has become one of the most important organic strategies for long-term traffic growth…

And companies now have their own SEO departments. 

In 1997, the first ever social media site was launched – sixdegrees.com. 

Oh, I’m sorry, did you think that MSN Messenger or MySpace were the very first social media sites? – nah sweetheart…

Six Degrees was the first one. 

With Six Degrees, users could send messages and post on bulletin boards to their first, second and third-degree connections – LinkedIn modeled this exact function.

You could also upload images to your profile and expand your social circle by friending each other. 

The social media site reached 3.5 million users and it opened up a whole new way for buyers and sellers to interact with each other. 

The site was shut down 2 years later and since then, it was acquired by multiple companies. 

The domain sixdegrees.com is still up to this day. 

But the site is not secure, and you can’t do anything on it. 

1998 was when the big three search engines – Google, Microsoft MSN search engine and Yahoo web search – had taken over the seas of the World Wide Web. 

Thus, a new era of search engines was born.

It was now easier than ever to find what you were looking for online. 

Before Google’s debut, all people could do was search through Yahoo’s list of websites. 

But Google was different – it wasn’t just a list of websites you had to choose from. 

Google created an algorithm for matching keyword searches with relevant websites. 

This was revolutionary to the search engine game. 

All you had to do was search for what you wanted, and you’d get a bunch of sites that had the keywords you searched for. 

Soon enough, Microsoft and Yahoo were like, “damn, Google is outclassing us. We need to make our own”. 

Thus, began what I like to call the ‘Search Engine Arms Race’. 

The 90s was the defining period as it had set the stage for all Digital Marketing strategies to come. 

Traditional marketers may have been skeptical about the digital landscape before. 

But with all these developments and new cost-effective ways to reach customers…

And with the mainstream adoption of the internet…

Businesses around the globe couldn’t deny it anymore – the internet was really here and they needed to start moving online…or get left behind. 

Brands needed to get into the search engine optimisation game and pull their sites higher on the search rankings…

They couldn’t just rely on word of mouth and brand placements anymore. 

Thus, more organic methods of marketing started to take off. 

During the 90s, the internet exploded onto the world. 

From there, the new Millennium gave rise to the Dotcom Bubble. 

People were filled with excitement as they saw companies like Amazon, Yahoo and AOL making billions seemingly overnight. 

People with little programming skill were making millions from venture capitalists for their ideas, even for websites that did not exist yet.  

This put investors with big pockets into a frenzy, scrambling to stake their claim on a potential billion dollar ‘dotcom company’ as the digital world was taking off. 

But almost none of these investors really understood the digital world – it was a case of people getting too excited because others were getting excited. 

(this is what you call FOMO, ladies and gentlemen)

And this FOMO cost investors billions of dollars. 

So much money was going into this digital market. 

Millionaires and billionaires were being created with absolutely no product to show for it.

But did these investors care? 

NOPE!!

As long as these ‘dotcom companies’ SEEMED like they were making profits, more money was poured into them. 

So, it’s no surprise then…

That when many of these ‘dotcom companies’ were expected to show ACTUAL profits based on their product and business model, guess what happened? 

Many of them could not. 

Investors became disillusioned and pulled tons of money out of the market – the Dotcom Bubble had burst. 

Around $5 Trillion was lost between 2000 and 2002 when the Dotcom Bubble took place. 

And when the bubble burst, the smaller search engine companies were either left behind or were wiped out completely. 

As the economy recovered from the boom, many new sites that are well-known today launched during the early 2000s: 

In the year 2000, Google launched ‘Google AdWords’ to monetise their platform. 

This was the start of brands competing against one another to bid on specific keywords for the privilege of advertising at the top of Google’s search results.  

And it set the stage for what search engine advertising would look like. 

In that same year, SMS became popular. 

And in 2002, just as the total internet users grew to 569 million people…

Text message volumes had reached up to a whopping 250 billion around the world. 

SMS Marketing would then become an important part of a brand’s strategy to reach their customer base more frequently. 

And today, SMS marketing is even more important to a company’s marketing strategy as the world spends most of their time looking at their phones. 

Aside from SMS Marketing, 2003 saw the rise of social media platforms such as Myspace and Facebook. 

People flocked to these platforms, sharing their thoughts via social media posts, engaging with each other’s posts and chatting to each other.  

Companies began to see the vast opportunities to get their products and services in front of their consumers through these platforms. 

For instance, they could now share updates about their company and what they’re creating. 

This ushered in a new chapter of marketing via social media. 

And companies had to get creative if they wanted their message to stand out. 

In 2004, the digital landscape was revolutionised yet again with the launch of Web 2.0 aka “The Social Web”. 

Web 1.0 only had static content that you couldn’t interact with. 

But when Web 2.0 arrived, it changed that and gave users the ability to create, collaborate and share content across the web. 

You weren’t just passively consuming information anymore. 

You could now interact freely with other users and businesses across the web. 

This allowed businesses to have a more conversational & personal relationship with their customer base. 

Without Web 2.0, we wouldn’t have websites such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Wikipedia. 

And the great part about these sites is that they are open source. 

You don't need to install software just to use these sites. 

You just head to the URLs, login to your account and you could use these sites right away. 

It’s convenient as users can access their accounts almost instantly on any device. 

Web 2.0 came in and revolutionised the way we interacted online…

From ecommerce to brand building, social networking & Digital Marketing as a whole. 

And by 2004, Digital Marketing had brought in about $2.9 Billion just in the US alone. 

HUGE MILESTONE!! 

But, of course, we were only just getting started. 

In 2004, more companies started to apply internet cookie technology to their marketing efforts. 

This was a huge milestone in Digital Marketing. 

Before internet cookies, advertisers didn't have much information on their customer base. 

This meant that marketing campaigns were quite generic. 

But cookie technology allowed marketers to track every step of how their customers engage with the brand. 

The cookie could track behaviors such as:

It was easier than ever to create personalised marketing campaigns & ads based on all this user engagement data. 

However, these internet cookies would lead to data privacy issues. 

Today, Digital Marketers are facing: 

Companies like Facebook, Google and TikTok have been adapting to this by rolling out their Conversion API technology. 

And if you’re advertising on any of these platforms, installing the conversion API is important if you want higher quality data & better ad performance. 

In 2005, Google launched Google Analytics to enable users to track and report on their web traffic. 

The insights made it so much easier to optimise websites for greater performance and conversions. 

Today, Google Analytics 4 is a staple for brands to track user engagement and conversions. 

And it’s become an absolute must have skill for any Digital Marketer who wants to create better marketing campaigns. 

In 2007, the very first iPhone was released – this began the ‘Smartphone Era’. 

And it led to people around the world spending way more time online…

On social media, search engines, chatting with friends, etc. 

It also led to the creation of the ‘App Store Ecosystem’ – by 2022, this ecosystem has generated $1.1 Trillion in total billings and sales. 

I mean just think of what you can do on a smartphone today…

You have a clock, a calendar, access to the World Wide Web & countless different apps for almost every purpose you can think of…

All in just one small device you can put in your pocket everywhere you go. 

People take it for granted but it’s actually insane if you think about it. 

Your smartphone can do millions of things. 

Is it any wonder then that people check their smartphones an average of 96 times per day? 

Everywhere you go in public, people are glued to their phones – like zombies, checking them every 10 minutes. 

For marketers, this was like heaven on Earth. 

You could reach your target audience more directly and for much longer. 

And it’s no wonder then that SMS Marketing today yields an average of 19% click through rate. 

That is a phenomenal payoff, considering that email marketing averages only 4% click through rate.

So as a Digital Marketer, the websites, funnels, emails and any digitised marketing material you work on should look and feel great on mobile. 

That is where most people spend most of their time. 

And SMS Marketing should definitely be in your marketing strategy – think of how you can integrate it with your email marketing campaigns (HINT: email & SMS automations). 

The 2010s marked the next stage of the digital revolution. 

It was a decade of big data, deep consumer-seller interaction and user empowerment…

Which allowed for countless new digital innovations. 

First off, it’s astounding the amount of data that is in the digital space today. 

As of 2020, the amount of data on the internet reached 64 Zettabytes. 

One Zettabyte is already a trillion Gigabytes. 

We had 64 trillion Gigabytes worth of content…

Articles, videos, posts, images, etc…

Swimming around the internet. 

The human mind can’t even conceive how massive that really is. 

What’s more – that number is only going to grow exponentially every year. 

Kinda scary, but exciting at the same time. 

As big data became even bigger throughout the decade…

Marketers were able to tap into new levels of marketing segmentation, personalisation and customer insights…

The kind of which traditional marketers could only dream of. 

Second, mobile marketing became the most important channel for marketers. 

Smartphones have now become the go-to device for accessing the internet since it is super convenient and you can take it wherever you go. 

In 2011, Americans engaged with mobile media for an average of 46 minutes a day. 

In 2023, the Global average time spent per person on mobile is 3 hours and 43 minutes a day. 

Look at the analytics of any company and you will most likely find that mobile engagement is way higher than computers/laptops. 

Third, social media sites and search engines have empowered the way consumers make shopping decisions. 

No longer do people need to just rely on brand advertising to make a buying decision. 

No longer are brands the only ones controlling perceptions of their products or services. 

With the click of a button, anyone can look online for reviews and advice before purchasing something. 

And as the decade went through a social media boom…

With social media platforms such as Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Snapchat, Telegram, TikTok and many more exploding onto the scene…

Brands could not afford to only rely on advertising to educate consumers about their product/service. 

The consumer base can now look up any piece of information they want.

This meant that the consumer base had become way more skeptical. 

As a result, brands had to ensure that creating customer advocacy and word of mouth was a key part of their marketing strategy. 

This also led to the rise of influencer marketing. 

As social media took off during the 2010s, so did influencer marketing. 

When influencers began to amass large followings on social media….

Brands saw that as a key avenue to promote their offerings. 

And it paid off because the influencer’s fanbase valued their recommendations. 

Influencers could tell stories or share how the brand’s offerings can be used in their day-to-day life…

Thus, creating a more personal connection to the brand’s offering. 

This meant that celebrities were no longer the only ones that could get paid big money by brands to help promote their offerings. 

Anyone with a large (or considerable) following around the world could now turn this into a career. 

A key example of this is Michelle Phan – one of the biggest beauty Youtubers who started posting makeup tutorials from a “humble grainy webcam in 2007”. 

She gained popularity and was then signed by Lancome as their first official video makeup artist. 

Her notorious following propelled her to start multiple companies including her own makeup line, Em Cosmetics with L’Oreal & Ipsy – a subscription beauty business which was valued at $500+ million. 

Stories like this are what helped to propel the influencer era. 

Nowadays, you see many of these Instagram accounts where the creators travel around the world and their sponsored IG posts pay for their trips. 

Heck, recently I heard of a school where kids were asked by the teacher, “what do you want to be when you grow up?” 

And if I remember correctly, 30-40% of them said they wanted to become influencers. 

Such is the alluring dream to become famous (except today, anyone has the potential to do so within their own living rooms). 

By 2019, Google had 800 million users…

Thereby solidifying its position as the world’s number one search engine. 

Despite that, Google attempted to create its own social media platform, Google+. 

And while it did amass 400 million+ signups…

Low engagement and software issues leading to data leaks caused this platform to be shut down around 2019. 

Today, Microsoft Bing (with its integration of ChatGPT) and Google are having a fierce battle for the future of search engines. 

We’ll get to that shortly. 

But for now, let’s talk about…

In 2017, digital ad spend finally overtook television advertising for the first time. 

While TV brought in $178 billion, digital ad spend reached $209 billion worldwide…

Solidifying the rapid growth of Digital Marketing in which companies could not afford to ignore any longer. 

And a big part of that was the development of automations, AI and machine learning. 

These technologies gave ad platforms like Facebook and Google the ability to match your ads with the right audience at the right time. 

Facebook’s machine learning, for example, now has access to trillions of data points which you can use to show your ads to the right people based on their online (and even offline) purchase behaviors. 

When you know how to use the ad platform’s machine learning to your advantage, you can greatly reduce costs and get better results. 

These technologies also allowed you to measure your marketing results with ease (from click through rates to conversion rates). 

Aside from that, it also sped up the bidding process for advertisers. 

With traditional advertising, ad placement and bidding were a long process that involved contracts, negotiations, etc. 

But with digital, that process takes mere seconds as AI can use your marketing goals and budgets as a guide to purchase ad space in real time, saving businesses tons of time and resources. 

Bottomline – digital advertising makes it super convenient for you to target your ads to the right people. 

Plus, it gives you the kind of data about your customer’s behaviors that traditional advertisers can only dream of. 

So, it was only inevitable that digital took over the traditional. 

Despite all these achievements, the decade was not without its challenges. 

One such challenge was the issue of data privacy.

In 2015, Ashley Madison – the world’s biggest online dating service for affairs and discreet dating – suffered a major hack where all user information was leaked to the public.

Incidents like this made people wary of how their data was being used by these companies. 

It got to the point where in 2016, the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) was approved by the European parliament – this gave Europeans a higher level of protection over their personal information. 

This law is now the gold standard for data protection. 

Another such case of data violation was the 2018 Cambridge Analytica data scandal. 

Facebook was sued for failing to protect the 87 million Facebook profiles that were harvested for advertising to influence election results. 

And aside from paying the hefty fines, Zuckerberg had to make a keynote speech in 2019 to assure the public that Facebook would take data privacy more seriously. 

I remember around 2020-2021, many Facebook advertisers struggled to run ads and some even had their ad accounts shutdown due to compliance issues. 

As time goes by, data privacy regulations will only continue to get stricter. 

Practices like putting an option on your site for the user to accept or reject internet cookies became standard…

Regulations like the GDPR will continue to get stricter. 

Digital Marketers must adapt and find other ways to gather customer data. 

Fortunately, there are three types of customer data you can acquire – 1st party data, 2nd party data & 3rd party data. 

2020 came out of nowhere, didn’t it? 

With the Covid pandemic and the lockdowns taking place, the world stood still. 

It was a very jarring moment for us all. 

And it didn’t just change our lives. 

It changed the way businesses operated. 

According to a report, 49% of global consumers now shop online more than they did in the pandemic. 

On top of that, Digital Marketing grew exponentially during those times. 

Social Media Trends Report stated that global social ad spend rose by 56.4% in Q3 2020. 

And in 2021, it has been shown that 99% of Digital Marketers use social media sites for marketing purposes. 

As people were stuck at home, they’ve had to learn to embrace the digital landscape even more. 

Even after the lockdowns were lifted, the world had grown more accustomed to the digital space. 

For instance, many companies have now embraced the hybrid model of working…

Typically, 3 days in the office, 2 days working from home…

Due to seeing how productive and beneficial working from home has been for the staff. 

Then, in early 2023, the rise of ChatGPT and the AI boom took place…

Changing the digital landscape yet again. 

Marketers and companies worldwide are now utilising these technologies to increase their productivity and output. 

Countless articles, videos and social media content have been posted online sharing how you can integrate ChatGPT into your marketing process.

Only the future can tell how AI will continue to develop. 

But all in all, the digital marketing landscape will continue to move forward and shape-shift. 

What started out as just a simple page with text on a screen over two decades ago has now become an entire universe in itself. 

Over 4.66 billion people in the world have become internet users. 

And the Digital Marketing industry is now valued at around $200 billion. 

Huge opportunity for anyone wanting to become a Digital Marketer. 

Over the horizon of the internet, we are looking at the coming of Web 3.0. 

Though it most likely won’t be coming until the next 5-10 years…

When Web 3.0 arrives, it’s going to once again change the entire digital landscape forever. 

The basic premise of Web 3.0 is that it’s supposed to be built off the foundations of decentralised blockchain technology. 

Data will be stored not just on one server anymore. 

When data is stored in multiple servers, it's impossible (or at least really difficult) to tamper with it…

As opposed to the data being stored in just one server. 

Don’t put all your eggs in one basket, as the saying goes. 

Decentralised data means that consumers can be more protective over their data. 

It also means that people can make transactions with each other without a third party or the government getting involved. 

On top of that, virtual reality, augmented reality and advanced AI will make Digital Marketing even more dynamic. 

AR and VR will make the shopping experience and the relationship between seller and buyer more interactive and immersive. 

Imagine a virtual store where you can walk around, pick up every product you see and explore it from every angle. 

That could be one of the many things in store for the digital future. 

One thing to take note of is that we are heading into a cookieless world. 

As we discussed before, data privacy has become a hot topic and the regulations for getting digital data on your customer base seem to be getting stricter. 

The decentralisation of data will also make it easier for consumers to be more protective over their data. 

Like I said earlier, you will need to have multiple different ways of gathering customer data – first party, second party, third party data. 

Plus, you will need to install conversion apis into your advertising platforms for the best results. 

There is currently a fierce battle between Microsoft Bing and Google for the future of search engines. 

For starters, Microsoft Bing has integrated ChatGPT with its search engine system. 

This means that their AI search engine can answer questions to the user’s search instantly. 

The purpose was to make it more convenient for users to find what they need vs having to go through all those blue links on the search results and then checking each webpage to see if it has the answers or not. 

However, the big issue with Bing’s AI is that, just like ChatGPT, it tends to get the facts wrong. 

You’ll need to check if what the AI is giving you is factual or not, which defeats the purpose of having it in the first place. 

Time will only tell how factually accurate ChatGPT will be. 

Otherwise, it doesn’t really help as much as they hoped it would. 

Aside from that, Google has been accused of illegally gaining a monopolistic advantage. 

How? Well for years, they’ve paid Apple up to $15 billion a year to be the default search engine on more than 1 billion iPhones and other Apple devices. 

Google also paid to be the default engine for the Android devices and Chrome.  

There’s a chance that future laws may somewhat restrict Google’s ability to be the default search engine on many of these platforms.  

Otherwise, Microsoft may model what Google did to gain their own advantages. 

At the time of writing, Google holds 93% market share in the search engine space vs Microsoft’s 3% market share. 

Time will only tell whether Google will continue to reign supreme or if Microsoft will somehow overthrow Google and become the new supreme ruler of search engines. 

One area of marketing to look out for is Voice Search Optimisation. 

Voice search through devices such as Alexa, Siri and OkGoogle are becoming more and more popular. 

A study done by Oberlo showed that 71% of consumers prefer to conduct search queries by voice instead of typing. 

Once again, it’s all about convenience. 

It’s more convenient for users to speak their search queries vs having to turn on their phone, head to their web browser and then type it up with their fingers. 

For now, voice search gives you listings of the best results on the web for your search query. 

However, in the future, I suspect that the technology may be able to speak the answers to you. 

Imagine taking a shower and you say, “Alexa, give me a sample itinerary for my upcoming trip to Tokyo”. 

Alexa then takes the top pages on the search engine that can answer your request, analyses them and then speaks the answers to you…

Without you needing to look at your phone and read a bunch of articles. 

This is what the future of voice search may look like. 

With voice search optimisation, marketers will need to upgrade and streamline information on web pages so they have a chance of getting their webpages read by the voice search.

In this article, I covered the brief history of Digital Marketing as it pertains to the West. 

Companies such as Google, Facebook, YouTube, etc were created in the US and the majority of the world adopted their technology. 

However, China is one such exception where they do not abide by the US digital ecosystem. 

In fact, China has their own separate digital ecosystem.

Instead of Google being their number one search engine, China has Baidu. 

Instead of Facebook being their most populated social media site, China uses WeChat. 

And no matter how successful you are in Western created digital platforms…

The Chinese cannot access them due to ‘China’s Great Firewall’ and one of the most impenetrable forms of digital censorship in the world blocking Western apps from their view. 

So, if you’re someone who wants to tap into the Chinese market…

You will need to learn about China's digital ecosystem. 

Not too long ago, the only purpose given to the World Wide Web was to exchange data between computers. 

Not too long ago, the internet was just a simple webpage with a bunch of text.

We’ve come a long way since then. 

Today, people can search for any information they want…

Connect with billions of people around the world…

Share opinions, advice and experiences to their heart’s content…

And shop for just about anything from the comfort of their living room. 

Chinese takeaway? Check. 

New clothes? Check. 

A new scooter? Check. 

Anything you want in just a click of the button. 

AI, automation and machine learning technologies have allowed marketers to gather data on how customers interact with brands. 

And this data is far richer and more accurate than anything traditional advertising could have achieved. 

Plus, machine learning has become so advanced that it can serve your ads to the right people at the right time (as long as you clarify your goals and provide the machine the data it needs). 

It used to be that you needed a massive budget just to advertise. 

Now, even the common man can spend down to $1-2/day to advertise on social media platforms. 

It’s great because anyone can start a business. 

It’s also a challenge because anyone can start a business…

Which means competition skyrockets. 

And as the internet transitions to Web 3.0 with the advanced integration of blockchain, Augmented & Virtual Reality technologies…

The Digital Marketing space will only get crazier. 

With new tech developments comes countless new opportunities we’ve never even seen before. 

Only time will tell what happens within the next 5-10 years. 

For now, stay vigilant Marketer – you never know what new opportunities will come to you today or in the future. 

P.S. If you’re a business owner or hiring manager, first off, I hope this article blew you away. 

Second, if you would like my help to optimise your own digital marketing funnels, then let’s have a chat. 

Shoot me a message over on my LinkedIn profile with the word ‘History’ so I know you came from this article. 

P.S.S. For more Digital Marketing & Career tips, consider subscribing to my newsletter to know when new articles come out: https://digital-job-formula.beehiiv.com/subscribe.

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