So I've tracked website data before, but it has always been in the context of the journalism industry, where it basically taught us that people liked round-ups, date ideas, and selfie spots. And, of course, the reviews Jason DeRusha posted (but those might have been due to a lot of self-promotion from Jason). While this was helpful, it also didn't change everything we did because we also had a duty to cover topical lifestyle news even if it wouldn't have gotten us that many hits. Like, sure, a round-up of good brunch spots would be popular, but if I can only write one article this week, it would be embarrassing not to cover so-and-so event, you know?

Anyway, for people who look at website traffic for non-news organizations, are you mostly looking for reactions to various promotional campaigns? How do you establish what a good baseline is, say, for products that live on your ecommerce site forever?

1) It's funny how traditional marketing has been devalued so much as society has evolved. I get it; traditional marketing is so much less precise than digital marketing. But for a time, it didn't need to be because of the selection available--or rather, because there was a lack of online shopping (which has nullified the power of geographical marketing). I would even extend that idea to say there was less saturation of most product markets in general, as department stores were in their hey days, but I'm probably oversimplifying some things.

2) At the same time, because I only have apps (e.g., Netflix, Paramount+) on my TV, I have no knowledge of a good number of movies out right now, and my hype for most of the upcoming Marvel movies isn't the same because I'm not inundated with the knowledge of their one-liners, their cross-over cameos, and (most importantly) their release dates. Perhaps it doesn't matter as much for movies since those are pretty split-second decisions consumers can make, though. For instance, I only realized "Shang-Chi" was an imminent thing a week before it came out, but I still saw it pretty quickly because I was interested in it at its face value--Asian superhero, some mythical bits, less pertaining to the fallout of "End Game." On the other hand, I didn't realize "Black Widow" was out until it was already in theaters, and because it wasn't pushed on me beyond a few social media posts that I scrolled past, I didn't know enough to be more than neutrally interested because of my familiarity with the franchise. In short, this is a very long way of saying, "Even if mass media advertising can bring in fringe people, how much does the probability of conversions pale in comparison to digital marketing's ability among people with similar interest levels?"

Someone willing, please help me out: Is this not also overlapping with sponsored content?

I guess I'm a little confused why this is considered a type of digital marketing and not a tool to enable content marketing, etc. I understand that you can schedule and automate, but you still have to create something--unless this, too, has progressed to be like those web articles that are literally written by AI?

I've scheduled social media posts and newsletters quite a bit, but it still is about building an editorial (or promotional) calendar of content marketing, is it not?