Online marketing by industry

Demand, buying process and measurement differ by business model. These pages describe what matters in each.

The four models

What actually differs between them

The channels are much the same everywhere: search, ads, content, email. What changes is how long the decision takes, how many people are involved in making it, and what counts as a result.

• Small and medium businesses: demand is mostly local or regional, the decision is short, and the outcome is a phone call or an enquiry form.
• B2B: a long cycle with several people involved, where the same material has to serve a researcher and a decision-maker, and the result is a qualified lead rather than a sale.
• E-commerce: demand exists at category and product level and is measurable through to the order, so product data and page speed matter as much as the campaign.
• SaaS: demand is often for the problem rather than the product, the result is a trial or a demo, and what happens after signup decides whether any of it paid off.

This is why a plan lifted from another industry tends to underperform: it optimises for the wrong step. Each page below starts from the decision the buyer is actually making, then works back to the channels that reach them.

If your business sits in more than one of these categories — a B2B supplier running its own online store, say — read both pages. The priorities are not mutually exclusive. What settles it is which completed action you count, because that is what the budget should follow.

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