I’m not a professional marketer so perhaps my opinion is meaningless, but in this day and age, unless you’re part of some giant team and your only job is the archaic billboards and bus ads, how can you be a marketer and NOT do digital marketing? The percentage of purchases that are made in the year 2023 with zero digital involvement anywhere in the process has to be like, what 5-10% tops? Even people buying clothes in a b&m are getting notifications about deals via apps or email, people research dentists and appliances and lawn mowers on Google before they buy, and on and on.

Right there with you. Stick anything onto marketing's ass ... content, social, search engine ... the result is worthless. Too much focus on technology as magical (this holds true for client or provider). Not enough focus on strategy and plain vanilla marketing fundamentals.

i personally think we've all become over-obsessed with numbers in digital marketing. is it just because it's so easy to get all the numbers? as the old saying goes: what gets measured gets managed.

Best part about Branding: Its hard to put it into numbers. Disclaimer: I am a growth marketer with 13 years of experience (just so that the next anegdote makes sense). A couple years ago the company I worked for as head of growth hired a "Brand and Communication" expert. She proposed an out of home campaign which we agreed to do and we were looking forward for the results. 3 months.... Of salaries for our designer and copywriter who were mostly engaged with this project, countless iterations, meetings, discussion rounds. All for 3 banner on a single subway station in Berlin. No visible impact on customer acquisition. To make matters worse, her claim was that the estimated media value generated through this campaign was north of 200k euro. Based on our blended CAC at that time, this should have resulted in 7k new customers... Well it didnt. Taking months for a campaign, focusing more on the feel than the result, might be something a medium sized or large company with healthy customer acquisition flow and revenue can afford and probably should afford (I will not go deeper into the topic of what actually a brand is). But startups and small companies can not afford to do it that way. Fast iterations, better done than perfect, breaking and remaking stuff,... Its a fight for survival. Without meassurable results a startup is bound to fail. Digital marketing is what allowed most startups to grow and flourish, Im not sure any of the big ones did it through classical marketing and branding.

It feels almost like a buzzword, everyone wants to learn “digital marketing” or have “digital” in their title.

It takes, oil, vinegar, and spices to make an outstanding vinaigrette. You have the people dimension, the business dimension, and the technical dimension to consider when talking about marketing. Digital marketing applies to marketing channels ruled by algorithms. And that's where most target audiences are found. Maybe you could be more specific about your likes and dislikes.

You’re not alone, and agree with a lot of what you’re saying. Most of my career has been in the B2B space, still kind of is, and it amazes me how many times my former bosses want to waste time and money doing, basically, B2C tactics, including non-boosted social posts to a small, non engaged following. Further - say minimally nothing exciting, new, or helpful to our audience compared to our competitors. Our offerings we almost never better, or so niche that marketing wasn’t necessary. “Oh but we need to “grow”, and just figure out how to do it digitally with little to no budget please…”. Let alone spending countless hours designing collateral and graphics that were solid but never reached the right eyes.

At the risk of sounding like an old man yelling at a cloud, I think it's a shame so few marketers have ever plunked down their money to run an ad that they depended on to generate more money than they spent. Before entering the agency side, I ran a retail and promotions operation. I learned a lot more about advertising doing that than I did in any seminar or from any book. I spend a fair amount on digital now on behalf of clients (well into the six figures). There are times that the numbers indicate a campaign is doing well when the cash registers don't. I am fortunate enough to be close enough to my clients to help them drill down. Sometimes the problem is the creative or the offer; other times, it's operational.

I like to know how much money my efforts and tactics are actually worth.

I absolutely agree with OP. Digital marketing, especially in this day and age, just feels so… automated and rushed. Like it’s all about just getting stuff out there quickly instead of taking the time to really understand what each unique brand, product, or client needs that will help meet their specific expectations. This is why I also got into marketing, because I love being a creative problem solver on a case-by-case basis. I truly enjoy making each project and client stand out in their own way. Digital marketing sometimes feels like more of a “one size fits all” type of thing.