How to make money with digital marketing in 2024:
1. Pick a digital marketing niche
2. Take up a digital marketing course
3. Gain digital marketing experience and build a solid portfolio
4. Start marketing your services to more clients
5. Deliver excellent results
6. Stay updated with digital marketing trends
Forbes defines digital marketing as “a means of engaging with likely buyers who use digital technologies.” The site also adds that digital marketing’s “basic goal” is to “attract interest and sales for products and services.” Digital marketing has drastically transformed how businesses promote their brands to their target audience. Case in point, companies today prefer digital marketing because it is cost-effective and brings higher ROI. Online data also says traditional marketing (print, radio, TV, etc) only generates “50% fewer interactions with customers than digital marketing.”
Now there are different digital marketing types such as content marketing, email marketing, social media marketing, and video marketing, among others. You can pursue digital marketing by establishing your own company or by working for others as a full-time, part-time or freelance marketer. As an example, successful Instagram growth expert Vasily Kichigin has set up his own digital marketing business using Fiverr as his main platform.
In this feature, we’ll show you how to make money with digital marketing in 2024. We also tell you how profitable it is and which ones can lead to the best earnings. Finally, we talk about local lead generation - a business model that has helped me jump from a low-paying, dead-end 9 to 5 job to becoming a self-employed online entrepreneur earning up to $52,000 a month.
Step 1: Pick a digital marketing niche
Picking a digital marketing niche is your first step in making money in the industry. As you choose a specific niche, it will be much easier to find paying clients, learn your niche, and establish yourself as an expert in your field. Focusing on a niche also allows you to learn the fundamental concepts of digital marketing. You get a clearer picture of how businesses and brands effectively market their products or services to their target customers online. Some examples of the top digital marketing niches today are:
lead generation social media marketing email marketing content marketing influencer marketing
video marketing managing pay-per-click (PPC) ad campaign
Identify your interests, talents, and skills to see which niche matches you best. For example, Vasily Kichigin is a digital marketing expert who specializes in social media marketing. He started using Fiverr as his platform in 2015, mainly offering Instagram growth, content creation, and content management services.
Kichigin has since worked with small businesses, celebrities, content creators, and Fortune 500 companies. “I've been running my social media marketing agency on Fiverr mostly and I've been able to reach over seven figures,” he says in a YouTube video. So far, he has made over $1.8 million and completed over 24,000 orders on the platform.
Step 2: Take up a digital marketing course
Taking up a digital marketing course helps you become a competent digital marketing professional. While it may not be a requirement for most clients, it can be an advantage especially if you are new in the industry. You can look up free or paid courses online to gain knowledge, acquire skills, advance your career, and earn a significant income.
Free digital marketing courses
How To Start A Digital Marketing Agency in 2024 With No Experience by Jason Wardrop is a free 26-minute tutorial on YouTube. In the video, he shares that it’s possible for new digital marketers to earn up to $10,000 per month by using free content and resources on the internet.
The SMstudy Digital Marketing Associate Certification Course is a free 2hr 2min course on Udemy. Students can learn key digital marketing concepts from the lesson’s 28 videos and even receive a certification upon completion. So far, the course has had over 111,000 students and has received 4.6 stars out of over 5,900 ratings.
Paid digital marketing courses
Supreme Campus by Kirtish Vyas is a paid digital marketing course with prices ranging between $12 and $26. It focuses on the Supreme Trilogy method encompassing blogging, YouTube, and affiliate marketing. Along with its courses, it also offers access to exclusive communities and bi-weekly coaching sessions. So far, Supreme Campus has a 4.8 rating on Trustpilot.
Agency Dominance by Keaton Walker is a 34-hour digital marketing course designed for both aspiring and established agency owners. It teaches participants how to build and scale their agencies with a focus on acquiring and retaining clients. The course is priced at a one-time fee of $1,997 or an option of 5 monthly installments of $450.
To learn more, you may also check out our list of the best digital marketing courses covering different business models.
Step 3: Gain digital marketing experience and build a solid portfolio
Gaining digital marketing experience and building a solid portfolio gets you in the door. Potential customers will begin trusting you as you prove you can get the job done. Get practical experience by finding internship opportunities. Shadowing digital marketers gives you an insider’s perspective in your chosen niche. You get a clearer picture of what the work entails as you learn standard practices, which digital marketing tools to use, and more.
Another idea is to start accepting freelance gigs on Fiverr, Upwork, People Per Hour, Freelancer, and other similar platforms. Through these services, new digital marketers can do one-off and short-term projects for clients. These sites also have a review system, which allows clients to leave reviews for freelancers they use.
With this, you can start building a digital marketing portfolio that showcases your best work, customer testimonials, certifications, and awards, if any.
Step 4: Start marketing your services to more clients
Marketing your services to more clients will be much easier once you have the training, experience, and portfolio to back you up. Create your own website and maintain active social media profiles to boost your credibility. Doing so allows your customers to find relevant information on your business when they look you up online Other strategies to consider include cold calling, cold emailing, social media advertising, and creating targeted content. As you reach out to more potential customers, you increase your chances of making money with digital marketing and find long-term, high-paying customers.
Step 5: Deliver excellent results
Delivering excellent results allows you to make money with digital marketing. You get to retain existing clients and attract new ones. According to a FutureLearn blog, the “ultimate aim” of a digital marketing strategy is to “deliver campaigns that support the company’s wider goals and ambitions, using the numerous digital tactics and channels you have at your disposal.”
That said, your work as a digital marketer mainly revolves around helping companies boost brand awareness, reach a larger audience, and increase their revenue. Provide detailed reports regularly to show the status of your campaign efforts.
According to SmartSheet, your monthly report should feature “website traffic, social media engagement, conversion rates, ROI” and other key performance indicators (KPI). Additionally, your report should also “highlight notable campaigns, analyze trends, and provide insights to demonstrate the effectiveness of your marketing strategies.” Here’s a digital marketing report template from their website:
To sum up, win-win relationships with business owners are built on trust. When you provide value and have tangible evidence to support the influx of leads you are bringing to the table, you can win over even the biggest skeptic. Your customers only care about results. So if you're able to bring, say, $20,000+ in additional business to them each month, they will have no issues paying for your services on a regular basis.
Step 6: Stay updated with digital marketing trends
Staying updated with digital market trends helps you determine which strategies and technologies are currently in high demand. The industry is constantly evolving and so hopping on to current trends can help open new doors for you as a digital marketer. It will also allow you to remain competitive, expand your customer base, and diversify your income source. Some of most popular and profitable digital marketing trends today include:
- conversational marketing (the use of AIs and chatbots)
- in-feed shopping (a Google Shopping app feature)
- interactive content (animated infographics, ebooks, quizzes, etc.)
- influencer marketing (collaborating with social media influencers to promote brands)
In a Business.com feature, Jennifer Dublino encourages marketers to check out “web-based publications dedicated to digital marketing.” According to the writer, some reliable sources of information include the Search Engine Journal, Marketing Week, eMarketer, and Social Media Today.
Additionally, marketers can use social media (Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, and X) to connect with other digital marketing professionals. Setting Google Alerts is another idea to stay in the loop of any market trends and updates.
How profitable is digital marketing?
Digital marketing is profitable, with top-performing companies making 50% to 60% delivery margin. Meanwhile, startups and low-performers earn anywhere from 20% to 30%. On a global scale, experts anticipate the digital advertising market to reach $667.6 billion in 2024 and over $730 billion by 2025.
Digital marketing services continue to be in high demand among small, medium, and large-sized businesses across the world. However, it also comes with its own challenges. As new digital marketers will discover, there is high competition in the industry. This can directly affect possible earnings. Moreover, the business model relies heavily on technology, plus the rapid changes can make it difficult for some to catch up.
Which type of digital marketing makes the most money?
Digital project management is the type of digital marketing that makes the most money. According to ZipRecruiter, a digital project manager has an average annual salary of $116,035 in the United States. Other top-paying digital marketing jobs in the country are:
Digital marketer $77,381 per year (ZipRecruiter) Video marketer $72,204 per year (Glassdoor) Content manager $73,600 per year (Glassdoor) Email marketing specialist $65,590 per year (Glassdoor) Social media marketer $64,845 per year (ZipRecruiter)
What are the challenges of being a digital marketer?
1. Fierce competition
Continuous industry growth brings fierce competition among digital marketers. Newer companies may have a hard time competing with larger, established marketing agencies with bigger budgets and better reputation online. As a potential workaround, startups should focus on niche markets and offer their services at competitive costs. If you can show customers that you can deliver quality results while helping them save money, they will likely take a chance on your marketing business.
2. Heavy reliance on technology
As a business model, digital marketing heavily relies on the use of technology. The industry’s landscape constantly evolves as new marketing practices and tools are introduced over the years. That said, experiencing technical issues can disrupt your operations and earnings. You need to learn troubleshooting techniques so you can solve technical problems as you encounter them. Otherwise, you’ll have to hire experts who will handle these tasks for you.
3. Short attention span of online users
Digital marketers will also have to live with the fact that people online now have short attention spans. In fact, a study by Microsoft indicates that internet users lose interest in about 8 seconds. This means digital marketers often need to come up with creative and compelling ways to reach their audience. Capturing and maintaining the attention of online users today is never easy, so digital marketers definitely need to level their game up in terms of marketing and content strategies.
4. Budget limitations
Running a digital marketing company can be costly, depending on your chosen niche and business model. Having a digital marketing agency, for example, often means hiring employees who will work under your brand. Additionally, subscribing to several software tools is often an important investment to keep your operations going. Taking advantage of free or low-cost means to get the work done can be extremely helpful. For instance, an active presence on various social media platforms works as an effective marketing tool in expanding audience reach. Partnering with relevant influencers can also yield positive results.
5. Time consuming
Digital marketing can also consume much of your time. Again, this depends on the type of business model you pursue. For example, content marketing requires spending long hours researching and writing.
In most digital marketing strategies, you will need to spend valuable time managing current clients and chasing after new ones. Plus, you’ll also have to monitor your competitors and stay updated with new industry trends.
Conclusion: Why Lead Generation Is The Best Digital Marketing Strategy on the Internet
Digital marketing is surely profitable and as long as you have the motivation and technical know-how, you can achieve industry success. Speaking from personal experience, I’d say lead generation is the best type of digital marketing business online. Since starting in 2014, the rank and rent method has taught me how to go into any niche in any city in the world and showed me a much better digital marketing strategy.
Compared with other types of digital marketing businesses, lead generation is also much easier and less complicated. Ranking sites on search engines is not as difficult as running paid ads or social media marketing campaigns.
With lead generation, you build business websites from scratch. Your sites should focus on a specific area and business niche such as, say, Grand Rapids Tree Care. Your next move is to work on boosting the site’s presence on Google. Once you achieve top search engine ranking, you can then offer your services to potential clients. Local entrepreneurs will take an interest in your work as you bring organic traffic and leads for their businesses. Your websites are your digital assets and the possibilities are limitless. Scaling is easy since You can target hundreds of possible business keywords and thousands of areas as you create multiple websites and target more customers. To illustrate, there are 41,683 unique zip codes in the US alone.
Of course, another distinct advantage of lead generation is that you are in the driver’s seat and are in total control of your operations. Since you own the sites and leads, you can offer your services to other businesses in case your client suddenly stops paying. Currently, I make $2,000 per month from my tree care site. Overall, owning multiple lead gen sites generates me an income of up to $52,000 per month. If you set it up properly from the start, you can leave your lead gen site for months without having to tweak it. The FREE organic traffic from Google can provide you with a passive income.
If you’re curious about how I make this business model work, you can check out our lead generation coaching program.
Hi there i have seen your illustration on how to make money online, and now I am having sleepless nights. i will like to learn this new way of marketing. I do own a magazine that I publish every month, the thing is its competitive and eats into my profit, namely (fuel costs, phone calls and time) I have to go client to client convincing them to come on board. Im interested in the Digital approach. Im base in South Africa.