The evolution of digital marketing

1. Evolution of Digital
Marketing
By Ewa Sycz

2. Introduction
The Internet is defined as the worldwide interconnection of
individual networks operated by government, industry,
academia, and private parties (Internet World Stats, 2020)
It is hard to credit one individual who created internet, but
one of the earliest thinkers was Nicolas Tesla, a Serbian-
American inventor.
In 1926 he stated “When wireless is perfectly applied the
whole earth will be converted into a huge brain (…).We shall
be able to communicate with one another instantly,
irrespective of distance. Not only this, but through television
and telephony we shall see and hear one another as perfectly
as though we were face to face, despite intervening
distances of thousands of miles; and the instruments through
which we shall be able to do his will be amazingly simple
compared with our present telephone. A man will be able to
carry one in his vest pocket.“(Businessinsider, 2015)
Originally the Internet served to interconnect laboratories
engaged in government research, but since 1994 it has been
expanded to serve millions of users around the world for
different purposes to be easily accessible via various devices.
Fig 1: N. Bosh (2013) How we Imagined the Internet back in the 1960’s

3. Since creating the first Wide Area Network (ARPA) in 1969 and the email program in 1972, followed by developing Transmission Control
Protocol and Ethernet technology(1976) and define Internet in 1982, the Internet has been transformed from the idea stage to the
commonly known tool that is used to connect and communicate. With browsers like the Google, social media and online platforms many
of us cannot imagine life without.
Introduction
Fig 2: Malonemediagroup (2014) History of internet

4. Access to the Internet
Most of Internet users in the world are located in Asia. The continent makes a 55%
of the world’s population.
Far behind is Europe and Africa. Australia and Oceania are the last ones in the rank
with the 0,5% of the world’s population.
According to Internet World Stats at the end of December 2019 there were
4,574,150,134 internet users in the world. This means that more than half of
the world’s population were using internet. (Internet World Stats, 2020)
Fig 3: Internet World Stats (2020) Internet Users in the World by Geographic Regions
Fig 5: Internet World Stats (2020), World Internet Usage and Population
statistics 2019
Fig 4: Internet World Stats (2020) Internet users - distribution in the world

5. Access to the Internet
Each year the number of individuals using the internet is raising, starting from 16.8% of the world’s population in 2005 and more than a
half of the world’s population at the end of 2019.
Fig 6: ITU, 2020, Statistics Individuals using the Internet 2005-2019

6. Access to the Internet
This statistic presents the top ten countries broadband internet. As for January 2020, Singapore is the top country in the world list
with the fastest average fixed broadband speed (measured in Mbps), followed by Hong Kong and Monaco.
Fig 7 : J.Clement, Feb 2020, Countries with the fastest average fixed broadband internet speed 2020

7. Fig 8 S.O’Dea, Nov 2019, Which is the most important device you use to connect to the internet, at home or elsewhere?
The survey on 2,405 respondents in UK showed that smartphones are the most popular device used to
access the internet. 20% of respondents use laptops, 15% use tablets and 9% use Desktop PC.
Digital devices used by audiences

8. How customers search for information
Customers most likely use Goole browser to search for information. Depending on type of information needed, customers use also
YouTube and Facebook, these are the websites with the most visits in October 2019 worldwide. Further, the list includes social media
sites, web services providers, online encyclopaedia but also adult content websites for example - xvideos.com in nineth place and 3.2
billion visits over the month in Asia.
Fig 9: M. Armstrong (2019), The World’s Most Popular Websites

9. What consumers buy online
The customers mainly use the Amazon for the online shopping. Asian representatives will most likely use jd.com website, and the third e-
commerce platform performing in the top 5 ranking, according to Forbes, is Apple.
Fig 10: Nina Angelovska, Forbes (2019), Top 5 ranked world e-retailers

10. What do consumers buy online
In 2019, in the UK, 60 percent of the population shopped online for clothes and sports goods. More than 40 percent of individuals in
the United Kingdom purchased holiday accommodation, household goods and event tickets online. Least popular among British
audience was internet shopping for medicine and e-learning platforms.
Fig 11: T. Sabanoglu, Statista, Sep 2019, Most popular goods purchased online in Great Britain 2019

11. Online video consumption
Globally, the time spent on video consumption is increasing each year. In 2016 the customers would spend approximately 4 hours a
week watching videos, while in 2018 it was also almost 7 hours. Global mobile video traffic also shows increasing tendency from 6
821 petabytes per month in 2017 to 29 149 in 2020. The above graph predicts this number to double in 2022.
Fig 12: Market Research, Limelight, 2018, How many hours of
video content do you watch online each week 2016-2018
Fig 13: Market Research, Limelight, 2018, Global mobile video
traffic from 2017 to 2022 (in petabytes per month)

12. Consumer trends
Email remains the most common internet activity in Great Britain both in 2009 and 2019. Searching for information in the second most
popular activity followed by internet banking. The rank also includes reading online newspapers and making video calls. Compared to 2009
each of these activities have increased, almost doubled for the internet banking.
Fig 14: C. Prescott, ONS, 2019, Internet access – households and individuals, Great Britain: 2019

13. Consumer trends
Fig: 15 Neha, MRMW, 2019, Mapping Digital Consumer Trends and Making Sense of Digital
Consumer Behaviour
Borderless Access (a digital MR products and solutions company), carried out a study on a group of 3500 consumers around the
world, to map global consumer trends. The below infographic is an outcome of the study and explains typical consumers’
behaviours as spending time in the Internet, usage of device, or decision making. (MRMW, 2019)

14. Summary • Internet (shortly: Interconnection of networks) was initially created to support government
researches but became most known and used tool to search, communicate, shop, and
entertain
• According to Internet World Stats at the end of December 2019 there was 4,574,150,134
internet users in the world. That means that more than half of worlds population is using the
internet
• Most of the internet users are in Asia
• Singapore is the top country with the fasted average fixed broadband speed (measured in
Mbps)
• Globally preferred device used to connect to internet is smartphone
• Three most popular websites around the world are: google, YouTube and Facebook
• Most popular e-retailer is Amazon
• People in Great Britain shop mainly for clothes and sport goods (60%), household goods
(49%) and holiday accommodation44%) in 2019
• Least popular for online shopping in Great Britain are e-learning platforms in 2019
• Video consumption is increasing rapidly both in the amount of time spent as well as traffic
• Most common activity in 2009 was: sending emails, searching for information and banking.
The activities remained most popular until 2019, and they have increased compared to 2009
The internet has dramatic impact on consumers’ lives. Online shopping without the need to
visit physical shops saves time and is convenient. In previous years, to access information
people needed to look for it in encyclopaedias or visit libraries, These days they access
information searching via browsers. The internet became a most common tool for education,
entertainment and communication. More then half of the world’s population nowadays use
the internet irrespective of the development of the country. It is no longer a luxury; it is a
simplified and achievable lifestyle to anyone almost anywhere.

15. Bibliography
• Internet World Stats, 2020, Available at: https://www.internetworldstats.com/emarketing.htm (accessed 20.04.20)
• Celena Chong, Business insider, , 2015, The inventor that inspired Elon Musk and Larry Page predicted smartphones nearly 100 years ago,
Available at: https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-predicted-smartphones-in-1926-2015-7?r=US&IR=T(accessed 20.04.20)
• Evolution of Internet, 2015, Available at: https://fastnetpacing.wordpress.com/evolution-of-internet/ (accessed 20.04.20)
• MRMW, 2019, Mapping digital consumer trends, Available at https://mrmw.net/mapping-digital-consumer-trends-making-sense-digital-
consumer-behaviour (accessed 20.04.20)

16. ReferenceList
• Fig 1: N. Bosh, 2013, How we Imagined the Internet back in the 1960’s, Available at: https://www.amongtech.com/how-we-imagined-the-internet-
back-in-the-1960s/ (accessed 20.04.20)
• Fig 2: Malonemediagroup, 2014, History of internet, Available at: https://fastnetpacing.wordpress.com/evolution-of-internet (accessed 20.04.20)
• Fig 3: Internet World Stats, 2020, Internet Users in the World by Geographic Regions, Available at: https://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm
(accessed 20.04.20)
• Fig 4: Internet World Stats, 2020, Internet users - distribution in the world, Available at: : https://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm
(accessed 20.04.20)
• Fig 5: Internet World Stats, 2020, World Internet Usage and Population statistics 2019, Available at: : https://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm
(accessed 20.04.20)
• Fig 6: ITU, 2020, Statistics Individuals using the Internet 2005-2019, Available at: https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Statistics/Pages/stat/default.aspx
(accessed 20.04.20)
• Fig 7: J. Clement, Feb 2020, Countries with the fastest average fixed broadband internet speed 2020, Available at:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/896772/countries-fastest-average-fixed-broadband-internet-speeds (accessed 20.04.20)
• Fig 8: S. O’Dea, Nov 2019, Which is the most important device you use to connect to the internet, at home or elsewhere? Available at:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/387447/consumer-electronic-devices-by-internet-access-in-the-uk (accessed 20.04.20)
• Fig 9: M. Armstrong (2019), The World’s Most Popular Websites, Available at: https://www.statista.com/chart/17613/most-popular-websites
(accessed 20.04.20)

17. • Fig 10: Nina Angelovska, Forbes, 2019, Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/ninaangelovska/2019/05/20/top-5-online-retailers-
electronics-and-media-is-the-star-of-e-commerce-worldwide/#32519b7a1cd9 (accessed 20.04.20)
• Fig 11: T. Sabanoglu, Statista, Sep 2019, Most popular goods purchased online in Great Britain 2019, Available at:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/275973/types-of-goods-purchased-online-in-great-britain (accessed 20.04.20)
• Fig 12: Market Research, Limelight, 2018, How many hours of video content do you watch online each week 2016-2018, Available at:
https://www.limelight.com/resources/white-paper/state-of-online-video-2018 (accessed 20.04.20)
• Fig 13: Market Research, Limelight, 2018, Global mobile video traffic from 2017 to 2022 (in petabytes per month), Available at:
https://www.limelight.com/resources/white-paper/state-of-online-video-2018 (accessed 20.04.20)
• Fig 14: C. Prescott, ONS, 2019, Internet access – households and individuals, Great Britain: 201, Available at:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/householdcharacteristics/homeinternetandsocialmediausage/bulletins/internet
accesshouseholdsandindividuals/2019 (accessed 20.04.20)
• Fig: 15 Neha,MRMW, 2019, Mapping Digital Consumer Trends and Making Sense of Digital Consumer Behaviour, Available at:
https://mrmw.net/mapping-digital-consumer-trends-making-sense-digital-consumer-behaviour (accessed 20.04.20)
Presentation available at: https://www.slideshare.net/EwaSycz/assingment-2-task-1
ReferenceList