10 Things Everyone Hates about Digital Marketing

Digital marketing is one of the most revolutionary and effective ways to reach a large-scale audience with a minimal monetary investment. With the average person spending more time online than they do watching TV and reading newspapers and magazines combined, it’s easy to see why this is the go-to marketing strategy for so many people.

While there’s no denying the immense impact that digital marketing can have, it’s by no means unicorns and rainbows all of the time. In fact, there are numerous pain points that I and other digital marketers encounter on a consistent basis.

Here are 10 things that everyone hates about digital marketing, plus some quick-and-easy solutions.   

1. Failing to Redirect Traffic to Your Site

When you break it all down, the sole purpose of digital marketing is usually to spark the interest of leads and send them to your website so that they’ll inevitably convert. But one of the most frustrating things for digital marketers is to bring prospects to a social media page, blog post, whitepaper, etc., but fail to redirect them to their site.

It can create confusion and doubt as to what you’re doing wrong and why exactly visitors aren’t taking the next step in the sales funnel. Fortunately, this can often be remedied by utilizing an analytics platform to gain specific insights into the process. For example, you could determine which social networks are bringing in the lion’s share of traffic and which just aren’t carrying their weight.

You can also perform split testing on CTA buttons and other elements that influence visitors to visit your site.

2. A High Bounce Rate

For me personally, there’s nothing more frustrating than driving legitimate traffic to my site only to have a sizable percentage of visitors leave immediately. Although it’s not realistic to expect every single person to thoroughly browse and peruse your site in its entirety, you definitely don’t want your bounce rate to exceed 70 percent. That’s just embarrassing.

If your bounce rate isn’t what you’d like it to be, you need to pinpoint what the specific problem is. Maybe your site’s speed is too low -- or maybe your web design needs a touch up. While this is an exhaustive topic that I can’t adequately address in this post, there are some simple ways to lower it.

3. A Low Conversion Rate

Equally as frustrating is to swiftly and smoothly move leads through the sales funnel and do everything within your power to convince them to buy, but they simply won’t take the bait. This has caused me overthink things at times and try to do too much.

However, it’s important to keep in mind that  even the top 25 percent of landing pages only get a conversion rate of around 5.31 percent. On average, the typical landing page conversion rate is only 2.35 percent.

That’s not a lot, so you shouldn’t be too disillusioned if your conversion rate isn’t off the charts.

In order to raise it, you can take the following measures:

• Simplify the shopping process so that it’s as thoughtless as possible.
• Create clear CTAs.
• Experiment with split testing.
• Offer several payment options.

4. The Often Time-Consuming Nature of the Process

Although I can honestly say that I enjoy the process of digital marketing, there are only so many hours in the day.

Sometimes, I feel overwhelmed by the mountain of work that I need to complete. Fortunately, there are numerous marketing automation tools that help ensure that you consistently deliver great content while minimizing the arduous, manual tasks.

This guide from Capterra highlights some of the best software products currently available and can point you in the right direction.

5. Not Getting Enough Natural Backlinks

Natural backlinks are the lifeblood of a successful SEO campaign, but getting them is often easier said than done. I know I’ve been disheartened by creating what I thought was epic content, but only earned a minimal number of backlinks.

While there’s no end all be all solution for gaining backlinks, people tend to respond to the following:

• Creating numbered lists (like this post)
• Capitalizing on viral events
• Create legitimately unique content
• Writing long-form posts (even 3,000 words or more) that covers a topic in-depth

6. Grinding Out Content

Have you ever been to the point where you just can’t seem to come up with any new ideas that are remotely worthwhile? I know I’ve been there, and I’ve felt like I’m “grinding out” content in a way that’s completely against the grain.

If you’re looking for some ideas and inspiration, here are some techniques that can help:

• Set Google Alerts to notify you when interesting stories surface
• Use Google Trends to see what’s going on in the world
• Browse through the various categories on All Top to generate ideas
• See what’s trending on Twitter

7. Rising Above “the Noise”

Let’s face it, the Internet is a noisy place where a seemingly infinite number of resources are vying for the attention of a finite number of consumers. As a result, it continues to become increasingly difficult to stand out.

If you’re in a hyper-saturated niche/industry, it’s even more important to be diligent about quality when creating content. When it comes to SEO, the digital marketers that are finding success are usually the ones who are semantic-centric, meaning they focus on user intent rather than simply keywords.

At the end of the day, effective marketing is about delivering a great user experience and not getting caught up in the generic fluff.  

8. Staying on Top of New Trends

I’d like to think that I’m the type of person who “gets it” and is always on the cutting edge. But considering that things continue to move exponentially faster, it’s nearly impossible to stay on top of every single new trend. But what you can do is keep up with some of the major digital marketing resources that will keep you updated on the essentials.

9. Search Engine Penalties

I totally understand that Google wants to provide the best possible user experience and stay on top of the search engine totem pole.

It’s challenging, however, whenever algorithm updates bring about penalties, and search rankings drop as a result. While there’s no way you can ever be certain that you’re site will never take a hit with a Panda or Penguin level update, there are several ways to “algorithm proof” your site to some extent.

For example, you can:

• Avoid black hat SEO techniques like the plague.
• Not get caught up in schemey SEO techniques that attempt to manipulate search engines.
• Vary your anchor texts.
• Just create great content, or hire someone who can.

10. Dealing with Trolls

Although you obviously can’t please everyone all of the time, trolls who are out to simply spew negativity and create conflict and are something that many digital marketers will encounter at some point or another. Or as Bruce Wayne’s loyal butler Alfred eloquently put it, “Some men just want to watch the world burn.”

When you’re facing this unsavory breed, there are a few things you can do:

• Create a policy regarding comments.
• Moderate your comments.
• Ignore trolls, and there’s a good chance they’ll go away.

Conclusion

Like most things in life, there are both pros and cons to digital marketing. While there are plenty of annoyances, there’s almost always a remedy waiting in the wings.

By correcting inefficiencies and problem points, you can eliminate a lot of headaches and keep your campaign on track.   

What absolutely irritates you the most about digital marketing?