In this article we will indicate the main online marketing channels, each of which has its own rules and tools. As a brief summary, we see that online marketing is divided into 8 main channels, 9 if we include when we use offline marketing to promote our online actions.

1. Search Engine Marketing (SEM): The main objective of SEM or search engine marketing is to increase visibility in search engine results by including ads that are paid when the user clicks (pay per click). click or CPC). The major search engines have their own platforms to manage advertising, although the country may change. The main platforms are Google AdWords SEM, Yahoo Search Marketing (YSM), Microsoft Advertising and Ask, with AdWords and YSM being important in Spain.

2. Search Engine Optimization (SEO): The objective of SEO is to improve the position on our pages by showing up in the natural results that search engines show for certain searches. In this case, the fact that users click on the results does not imply any cost to the companies, but it does not mean that they are free either, since in a competitive market it is necessary to hire SEO specialists to achieve good positions.

Importantly, we show only a “handful” of keywords, while in advertising we show our ads on tens of thousands of keywords, and the SEO just failed after months of hard work, so if you need fast results and will use For SEM on a permanent basis, it is advisable to combine both strategies so as not to lose market share in the search for our products.

3. Display ads or Rich Media: All the ads we see in online media can be grouped here, although for example the Google AdWords network includes display in most of the media that are managed from within Google AdWords. Said advertising includes all kinds of formats commonly called banners (static or dynamic images, flash, video ads, interactive ads,…)

4. E-Mail: E-mail marketing is a strategy in which e-mail becomes a powerful marketing tool to obtain instant results, which, when well managed, allows highly advanced segmentation. It is important to differentiate what is a good email marketing (periodic communication strategy aimed at users to send personalized offers that are really interested) from the massive email spam that can scratch or in many cases are really annoying as it can offer to our clients products that they are not interested in, already have them or at a higher price than what they bought, which is a good definition of “Anti Marketing”.

5. Partners and Sponsors: Affiliate programs are the dream of any seller, since they allow you to have a wide commercial network (websites with all their possibilities) that are paid only if they meet the objectives set (eg for sales or lead generation). ). Well, sponsorships are an excellent tool to generate a brand image, especially after a web analytics study, we see which are the best places to sponsor a certain web service.

6. Directories: Specialized directories, although in general, and with few exceptions, they usually have little volume of traffic, they are excellent for addressing a niche in the industry that interests us. Directories exist of all kinds and in our product or service we must select the mix that interests us the most (thematic directories, local search, price comparison, etc.)

7. Social Media Marketing (SMM): Booming since the birth of YouTube, Twitter and Facebook, but it is not exclusive to these platforms as there are dozens of tools to manage for a successful SMM (blogs, communities, content aggregators, etc. .). .) In addition, there are advertising opportunities and promotional tools to highlight our presence and products on these social networks.

8. Social Media Optimization (SMO): It is the optimization in online social networks or positioning in online social media by participating in chats, creating profiles, adding content to them, etc.

9. Offline media: Here we gather all the participation in traditional media (from press, radio, TV or events… to our business cards, etc…) that we use to promote and launch our online marketing efforts.