different types of internet marketing

A blanket term for the whole online marketing landscape. It refers to any internet or online-based technology used to promote, sell, or market goods or services. 

Has been around since the early days of the internet, but only started to become mainstream around 2010. It’s called performance marketing because it’s judged purely by its performance. For example, if you spend $100 on an ad to promote a certain product or service, you would expect to make $150 when you make a sale from that ad – obviously seeking a return on your investment (ROI). You want to make a profit after your expense. This is a completely different goal than that of brand marketing which is often to get your message out to the right audience.

What sets performance marketing apart from traditional online marketplaces like Amazon or Walmart.com? The difference is in these online marketplaces, customers can choose from a variety of products to put into their virtual shopping carts and control things like the number of items they order. The consumer has complete control over the whole process and can choose any number of outcomes.

Not necessarily so with performance marketing. Here, not only is a customer directly being asked to opt into one very specific offer, but that customer’s activity in response to performance marketing is 1) trackable 2) measurable and 3) targeted. This gives the seller a lot of information about how effective their marketing is. On top of that, you can recognize performance marketing when you see these four things.

A performance marketing ad typically makes one very specific offer – like a buy one, get one free offer, or a 25% off deal. It also shows the benefits of that offer to the consumer and makes very clear what action the consumer should take or the call to action (CTA). This is the action that the seller wants a potential customer to take, namely purchasing their product or service. 

Finally, you can recognize performance marketing because it’s often personalized to a specific person or a specific interest group. For example, you know you might be being targeted by a performance marketer when you see a popup on your screen that says, “Today, if you buy one bottle of our super vitamins, we’ll send you a second bottle free – click here to order your vitamins now.” 

1. They knew you care about your health and wellness. 
2. They had a very specific offer, the buy one, get one free 
3. They told you how you’d benefit if you use their vitamins 
4. Clearly told you what action you should take – buy the vitamins

And by clicking on the banner, the seller can automatically track the actions:

• See how long you stay on their website
• Whether you order or not
• If you click on another item on their site
• Or click out of the site altogether

It gives the seller a bunch of feedback into what works or what doesn’t to get people to click and buy. The more feedback like this that a seller can get, the more they can hone and micro-pinpoint their marketing to get the best response from their targeted consumers – buying their stuff.

A business pays a commission to an affiliate every time a customer buys a product or service through the affiliate's marketing efforts. In other words, if you’re an affiliate marketer, who wrote a blog review about the greatest smoothie blender, and a reader clicked the link you included in your post to see the blender and ended up buying one, you get a percentage of that sale or some other reward for your efforts. Entrepreneurs and startups find this is a great way to expand their salesforce without adding to their staff. 

This is the style of marketing where the seller or marketer directly targets a customer or group of customers and asks them to take a particular action, right away related to the seller’s offer. Remember the late-night infomercial phrases “order now” or “act before midnight tonight”? The online version of this is also called direct response marketing.