Stop 01 · Digital Marketing FoundationsTopics · 1/9

What Digital Marketers Actually Do

In short

People think digital marketing means posting reels all day. In reality it's a loop of guessing, testing and checking numbers until you know what makes people buy.

Digital marketers plan, run and measure campaigns across online channels to acquire, convert and retain customers — the specific mix of channels varies hugely by role and company stage.

The blob runs a chai stall with two kettles and counts cups on a little tally board.

Think of it like this

The chai stall owner who experiments

A smart chai wala tries adrak chai on Monday and elaichi on Tuesday, counts the cups sold, and keeps the winner. Digital marketers do the same thing, just with ads, emails and posts instead of cups.

Watch it happen

The loop a marketer runs every week

Research

Plan

Launch

Measure

Improve

1/5Find out who the buyers are and what they search, read and worry about.

The big ideas

What you need to know

Bring in customers

The core job is getting the right people to notice you, trust you and buy, then buy again.

Numbers decide

Every click, open and sale is tracked. Good marketers let data settle arguments instead of opinions.

Testing never stops

You run small experiments, like two headlines, and scale the one that wins.

Many channels, one goal

Search, social, email and ads are different roads to the same customer. You pick the mix.

See it in code

Walk through the code

excel

1CTR            =C2/B22Conversion     =D2/C23CPC            =E2/C24Cost per sale  =E2/D25ROAS           =F2/E2

1/3CTR tells you if people noticed the ad. Conversion rate tells you if the page convinced them.

Put impressions in B, clicks in C, sales in D, spend in E and revenue in F, then type each formula in its own cell. That is most of a marketer's daily maths.

Save yourself the pain

Common mistakes

Oops

Thinking the job is mostly making pretty creatives.

Do this instead

Creatives matter, but most of the week goes into planning, tracking and fixing what the numbers show.

Oops

Judging a campaign after one day.

Do this instead

Give it enough time and data to be fair, then decide based on cost per result.

Your mission

Reverse-engineer three ads

~20 min

Quick check

An ad gets lots of clicks but almost no sales. Which number should the marketer look at first?

Go deeper

1Read 2-3 'day in the life of a digital marketer' posts from different company types.
2List the last 5 ads or emails you personally received and guess the strategy behind each.
3Notice how much of the job is measurement and iteration, not just creative ideas.