Digital Marketing Cost: How Much Does Digital Marketing Cost?

Dive into the intriguing world of digital marketing, where tools are often free or offer trial periods, and understanding their professional versions can enhance your marketing campaigns significantly. Explore the various career paths within digital marketing, where the average base salary for a Digital Marketer in the US is $58,500 annually.

Key Insights

Digital Marketing, a highly targeted and measurable field, uses online channels to promote products and services, creating brand loyalty and driving efficiency and profitability.
Businesses, regardless of size, can use digital marketing tools to compete for clicks, with a low entry barrier for paid digital marketing campaigns.
Many digital marketing tools such as Google Analytics, Google Ads, and Google Data Studio are free, while tools like SEMRush and Moz offer both free and professional versions specific to SEO.
Social media tools like Hootsuite and platform-specific tools are available to manage content, schedule posts, and gather data across all social media channels.
Learning digital marketing could result in a rewarding career, with roles such as a Digital Marketer, Social Media Marketer, Web Optimization Specialist, Digital Strategist, Data Analytics Specialist, or Brand Marketer.
Noble Desktop offers hands-on digital marketing courses with small classes and expert instructors. They provide detailed courses on specific channels and a Digital Marketing Certificate for those looking to further their skills.

You can plan and implement a digital marketing campaign for free. It doesn’t cost anything to open accounts and post on social media, and the tools that make digital marketing are either available for free or have some kind of free trial period. However, paying for some tools can be worth your while because the pro versions are so much more powerful than the free ones. Here is a discussion of what tools Digital Marketers use, what they do, and what they cost.

What is Digital Marketing?

Digital marketing uses online channels and tools to promote products and services. As the popularity of the internet continues to grow, digital marketing has become one of the most effective ways to publicize a business and help it succeed. Knowledge of digital marketing can be an asset to entrepreneurs and owners of businesses large and small, and many companies are hiring Digital Marketers to conduct research, build brand loyalty, and create community. Digital Marketers also analyze data collected from online marketing efforts to make a business more efficient and profitable.

Because it is based on data, digital marketing is highly targeted and measurable. With digital marketing, you can adapt and make changes in real-time to reflect your advertising. You can also create targeted ads to ensure products and services reach an interested audience.

Using analytics, you can quickly tell how many people see your ads, how they react, and what action they take. Measuring your success (and where you need to improve) can help overall strategy. Plus, digital marketing levels the playing field, allowing businesses of any size to compete for clicks. Additionally, there’s a low barrier to entry: you can start your paid digital marketing campaign for a minimum amount and build as the company grows.

Read more about what digital marketing is and why you should learn it.

What Can You Do with Digital Marketing?

Marketing has changed drastically since the advent of the internet. While early ways to promote a business included yellow page listings, print advertisements, and ads on buses and billboards, many marketing efforts have now moved online. With digital marketing, you can adapt and make changes in real-time to reflect your advertising. You can also create targeted ads to be sure your products and services reach an interested audience.

Digital marketing efforts are highly measurable. Using analytics, you can quickly tell how many people see your ads, how they react, and what action they take. Measuring your success (and where you need to improve) can help you develop your overall strategy. Plus, organic digital marketing levels the playing field, allowing businesses of any size to compete for clicks.

Additionally, there’s a low barrier to entry to advertise with digital marketing. You can start your paid digital marketing campaign for a minimum amount and build as your company grows. Digital marketing offers the unique chance to control where you spend those crucial advertising dollars.

In-Depth Review of the Cost of Digital Marketing Tools

Digital marketing is data-driven, and you need tools to collect and use that data. The most widely used digital marketing tools come from Google, all available for free. There are others like SEMRush and Moz that are specific to SEO and Hootsuite for social media and content marketing that offer professional versions, but you can get started for free.

Google

Search engine giant Google provides many free tools for Digital Marketers.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics (GA) is the internet's most widely used analytics program. You can use GA to track website visitors, collect data on what they do there, and get numerous reports on users and their actions. GA identifies problems with your web pages to improve performance and sales. Google Analytics can be complicated to learn, but it is free to use.

Google Ads

Google Ads is an online advertising platform that allows you to purchase targeted ads on Google’s search pages. These are Pay Per Click (PPC) ads, where a business sets a limit on how much they want to spend, and Google charges a small fee every time someone clicks on the ad. People focus more on attracting organic search activity because they don’t have to pay for it, but PPC is the fastest way to see digital marketing results. Google Ads is free to use, but you must open an account and pay for the ads.

Google Data Studio

Google Data Studio allows you to take the data from other Google tools and turn it into reports and data visualizations to help plan digital marketing strategies.

Google Business Profile

Google Business Profile is connected to Google Maps, a tool that provides street view photos and directions. Business owners can provide information on bricks-and-mortar locations and create a free website. Your business will come up in searches for the business name or description. Google Business Profile is free.

SEO Tools

SEMRush

SEMRush is a powerful SEO tool to help you with content marketing, market research, advertising, and social media marketing. Digital marketing depends upon driving organic traffic to your website, and SEO helps you do that. SEMRush offers a seven-day free trial, after which there are three paid subscription levels.

Moz

Moz is another SEO tool that does similar functions. Moz offers a less powerful free version and a pro version. After a 30-day free trial, you can purchase Moz at four different levels subscription levels. There is a substantial discount if you pay upfront for a year of service.

Social Media Tools

HootSuite

HootSuite helps you plan content and schedule posts on social media. You can moderate and reply to comments and messages, promote organic content, manage paid ads, and collect data across all of your social media channels. After a 30-day free trial, HootSuite currently costs between $50 and $750 a month, depending on the subscription level.

Platform-Specific Tools

Each social media platform has its own built-in analytics tools. Twitter and TikTok each offer free analytics tools. Meta Analytics covers Facebook and Instagram, and users can monitor YouTube data through Google Analytics. It is free to post on social media, but you can buy ads on all of the platforms.

Why Learn Digital Marketing?

Digital marketing can help you reach across the world to drive traffic to your website, increase sales, build a brand, or educate the public. Using the principles of Search engine optimization can help you determine your target audience, choose keywords to track content performance, engage with potential customers on social media, and gain organic search results. The best thing about digital marketing is that most of its tools are free.

Another benefit of digital marketing is that it can be the basis of a great career. You can work for other businesses as a Digital Marketer, Social Media Marketer, Web Optimization Specialist, Digital Strategist, Data Analytics Specialist, or Brand Marketer. Careers in marketing are in demand, and the average base salary for a Digital Marketer in the US is $58,500 annually.

Read more about why you should learn digital marketing.

Free Introductory Digital Marketing Course Online

If you are unsure if digital marketing is for you, free courses and tutorials can help you decide. You can check out Noble Desktop’s YouTube channel, where you will find The Pillars of Digital Marketing Success and other introductory tutorials.

You can find plenty of free digital marketing video courses online. Google offers a class called Fundamentals of Digital Marketing as well as free tutorials on its digital marketing products. HubSpot Academy offers a free course on search engine optimization, as does SEMRush. If you want to explore social media marketing, you could watch a free video on the subject from Constant Contact.

Read about more free digital marketing videos and online tutorials.

Learn Digital Marketing with Hands-on Training at Noble Desktop

Noble Desktop’s digital marketing courses teach skills that can help you start a career in the industry. Classes are small, with expert instructors, and you can retake a course for free up to a year after you take it. Those ready to dive into the field can attend in-person classes at Noble Desktop’s New York City location or attend live online digital marketing courses from anywhere in the world.

Noble Desktop also offers more detailed courses for those looking to hone their skills on specific channels. Students can take individual classes on Facebook Marketing, Email Marketing, Social Media Content Marketing: Blogs & Twitter, and Video Marketing: TikTok & YouTube. Students can also study for a Digital Marketing Certificate and learn a comprehensive set of tools and skills for digital marketing. Another Noble Desktop resource that can help prepare for a career in digital marketing includes its digital marketing blog, which has detailed articles about social media marketing, SEO, and other essential tools for digital marketers. Students can also watch Noble’s seminar on The Pillars of Digital Marketing Success, which is available on YouTube.