Skip to content
Study Hall
Lesson 4 of 6Trends in Marketing
Unit 3 · Lesson 4 of 6

Technology and Marketing

Information technology lets marketers collect data, personalize offers, reach customers through search and social media, sell online, and measure results precisely — but every gain in targeting raises a question about privacy.

4 min read10 practice questionsAsk AI about this →

Key things to remember

  1. 1Conversion rate
  2. 2CPM (cost per 1,000 impressions)
  3. 3Marketing ROI
  4. 4SEO earns unpaid search traffic; paid search buys ad placements, usually priced per click.
  5. 5Influencers must clearly disclose any material connection (payment, free products, relationship) with a brand.
  6. 6Personalization trades convenience for privacy — businesses need consent and must protect the data they collect.

Before the internet, a business placed an ad in a newspaper and hoped the right people saw it. It had no idea how many readers noticed the ad or bought because of it. Today, every search, click, and purchase can leave a data trail. A small online shop can know how many people visited its site, which ad brought them there, what they looked at, and whether they bought. Technology has turned marketing from educated guessing into something that can be tested and measured — and it has created new responsibilities about how customer data is handled.

Data and Personalization

Marketers use data to divide customers into smaller, more precise segments and to personalize what each person sees. First-party data is information a business collects directly from its own customers — purchase history, loyalty program activity, email sign-ups, website behaviour. A customer relationship management (CRM) system stores this data so the business can send relevant offers, such as a reminder when a customer's usual product is probably running out. Recommendation engines suggest items based on what similar customers bought, and retargeting shows ads to people who visited a site but left without buying.

Four ways to divide a market into segmentsDemographicWho are they?Agee.g. 13–17, 18–24, 25–34, 65+Incomee.g. low, middle, or high household incomeFamily life stagee.g. single, young family, empty nesterGeographicWhere are they?Regione.g. Atlantic, Quebec, Ontario, Prairies, B.C.Population densitye.g. urban, suburban, ruralClimatee.g. snowy winters vs. a mild coastPsychographicHow do they live and think?Lifestylee.g. outdoorsy, homebody, gamerValuese.g. eco-friendly, thrifty, status-seekingPersonalitye.g. adventurous, cautious, socialBehaviouralHow do they act toward the product?Usage ratee.g. heavy, medium, light, non-userBenefits soughte.g. low price, convenience, quality, statusBrand loyaltye.g. loyal, brand switcher, first-time buyer
Fig 1Digital data adds detailed behavioural information to the traditional bases for segmenting a market.

Search, Social, and Influencer Marketing

ToolHow it worksCommon measure
Search engine optimization (SEO)Improving a website's content and structure so it ranks higher in unpaid search resultsOrganic visitors, search ranking
Paid search (pay-per-click)Buying ads that appear beside search results; the advertiser usually pays when someone clicksCost per click, conversion rate
Social media marketingPosting content and running paid ads on social platforms targeted by interests, location, and behaviourReach, engagement, CPM
Influencer marketingPaying or gifting products to creators so they present the brand to their followersEngagement, referral sales
Email marketingSending offers and newsletters to subscribers who gave consentOpen rate, click rate, conversions
Major digital marketing tools and how their results are usually judged.
Influencers must disclose
When an influencer has a material connection to a brand — they were paid, given free products, or are related to the owner — followers deserve to know. Hiding that connection can make a post a misleading endorsement, which the Competition Act and the Canadian Code of Advertising Standards both address. Good practice is a clear label such as "#ad" or "paid partnership" placed where people will see it right away, not buried in a pile of hashtags.

E-commerce

  • B2C online stores — a business sells directly to consumers through its own website or app.
  • Online marketplaces — many sellers list products on one large platform that brings in the shoppers.
  • B2B e-commerce — businesses order supplies and wholesale goods from other businesses online.
  • Social commerce — customers buy directly inside a social media app without leaving it.
  • Omnichannel retail — online and physical stores work together, such as buying online and picking up in store.

Measuring Results with Analytics

Three core digital marketing metrics.

A conversion is whatever action the marketer wants — a purchase, a sign-up, a download. The conversion rate shows how well a website or ad turns visitors into customers. CPM (cost per mille, where mille means thousand) is the cost of showing an ad 1,000 times, so it lets you compare the price of different ad placements. Marketing ROI (return on investment) compares what a campaign brought in to what it cost; a positive ROI means the campaign earned back more than it cost. Marketers also run A/B tests: they show two versions of an ad or web page to similar groups and keep whichever version converts better.

AI Tools and the Privacy Trade-off

Artificial intelligence (AI) tools can draft ad copy, generate images, answer customer questions through chatbots, predict which customers are likely to stop buying, and adjust ad bids automatically. They save time, but they can also produce false claims, copy someone else's work, or create realistic fake endorsements. A business is still responsible for everything it publishes, whether a person or an AI tool wrote it, so AI-generated marketing needs human review for accuracy and honesty.

AWhat personalization gives customers
  • Offers and recommendations that actually match their interests
  • Fewer irrelevant ads
  • Convenience, such as saved carts and quick reordering
  • Loyalty rewards tailored to what they buy
BWhat it can cost them
  • Detailed tracking of their behaviour across sites and apps
  • Risk that their data is leaked, sold, or misused
  • Ads that feel intrusive or "creepy"
  • Less control over who knows what about them

Worked examples

Reveal one step at a time and try to beat it to the next line.

Example 1
Northbay Candle Co. (hypothetical) had 12,500 website visitors and 375 purchases in March. After redesigning its checkout, it had 11,000 visitors and 396 purchases in April. Calculate both conversion rates and decide whether the redesign helped.
Example 2
A hypothetical clothing brand ran two social media ads. Ad A cost $900, got 150,000 impressions, and led to 75 sales. Ad B cost $1,200, got 120,000 impressions, and led to 150 sales. Find each ad's CPM and cost per sale. Which ad was the better buy?
Example 3
A hypothetical bakery spent $4,000 on an influencer and email campaign. It estimates the campaign brought in $10,200 of additional revenue. Calculate the marketing ROI.

Where marks get lost

  • Dividing by impressions or visitors in the wrong place — conversion rate is conversions ÷ visitors, not visitors ÷ conversions.
  • Forgetting the × 1000 in CPM and reporting the cost of a single impression instead of 1,000 impressions.
  • Judging an ad only by its low CPM — cheap impressions are worthless if they do not lead to clicks or sales.
  • Calculating ROI as revenue ÷ cost instead of (revenue − cost) ÷ cost, which overstates the return by 100 percentage points.
  • Assuming AI-written marketing or an influencer's post is not the brand's responsibility — the business is accountable for misleading claims either way.

Flashcards 10

Conversion
Conversion rate
CPM
Marketing ROI
+ 6 more

Practice

1
An online store had 8,000 visitors last week and 184 of them placed an order. What is its conversion rate?
%
2
A streaming ad campaign cost $2,250 and delivered 500,000 impressions. What is the CPM?
$
3
A campaign cost $2,500 and generated $3,100 in additional revenue. What is the marketing ROI?
%
4
A social platform charges a CPM of $6. How much will it cost to buy 300,000 impressions?
$
5
What is the main difference between SEO and paid search?
6
An influencer received a free phone from a brand and is posting a review. Which approach to disclosure is best?
7
What is the term for showing ads to people who visited your website but left without buying?
8
Put these stages of an online purchase in order, from first to last.
  1. 1Customer completes the purchase (conversion)
  2. 2Customer adds an item to the cart
  3. 3Customer lands on the website
  4. 4Customer sees the ad (impression)
  5. 5Customer clicks the ad
9
Match each technology term to its meaning.
CRM system
A/B test
Recommendation engine
Chatbot
10
A fitness app wants to personalize offers. Which practice best balances personalization and privacy?

Spot a mistake on this page? Let us know