Digital Marketing: Channels, Funnels, and Metrics
Core concepts
Digital questions test the owned, earned, and paid media model and how channels map to the funnel (awareness, consideration, conversion, retention, advocacy). Know channel roles: search (SEO organic vs. SEM paid), content, email, social, display, and affiliate. Understand inbound (pull via valuable content) versus outbound (push). Grasp targeting and retargeting, landing page and conversion optimization, and A/B testing as controlled experiments.
Know core metrics and their formulas: click-through rate (clicks ÷ impressions), conversion rate (conversions ÷ visitors), cost per acquisition (spend ÷ conversions), customer acquisition cost, return on ad spend (revenue ÷ ad spend), and lifetime value (LTV) versus CAC. Understand that LTV should exceed CAC for sustainable growth. Know attribution basics - first-touch, last-touch, and multi-touch - and why attribution choice changes reported performance. Understand SEO fundamentals (relevance, authority, technical health) and email metrics (open, click, unsubscribe rates).
Traps
Questions swap CTR (based on impressions) with conversion rate (based on visitors). Watch for ROAS (revenue ÷ spend) confused with ROI (profit ÷ cost). Another trap: assuming last-touch attribution credits the true driver. Do not equate high traffic with high conversion.
Worked rule of thumb
If spend is 1,000, impressions 100,000, clicks 2,000, and conversions 100: CTR = 2%, conversion rate = 5% of clicks, CPA = 10. Compare LTV to CAC, not revenue to CAC, when judging viability.
Key points
- Classify channels as owned, earned, or paid and map them to funnel stages.
- CTR uses impressions; conversion rate uses visitors or clicks - check the denominator.