About Digital Marketing Explained
Digital marketing has a jargon problem. Most of what gets published about SEO, PPC and content marketing is either written to sell you something, recycled from another blog that recycled it from somewhere else, or so vague it leaves you no better off than before you read it.
Digital Marketing Explained exists to fix that for UK businesses and marketers. Everything we publish is written to answer one question properly, in plain English, with enough practical detail that you can actually go and do the thing afterwards.
Who is behind the site
Digital Marketing Explained is run by Ian Spencer, a Google Partner certified PPC and SEO practitioner who has spent 20 years managing live campaigns for small and medium businesses across the UK.
That matters more than it might sound. This is not a site run by content writers researching topics they have never touched. The advice here comes from managing real budgets, fixing real accounts that have gone wrong, and watching what actually moves the needle for businesses that do not have unlimited money to spend on testing.
When we write about Performance Max, it is because we manage Performance Max campaigns. When we write about technical SEO, it is because we have spent evenings working out why a client's product pages fell out of the index. The mistakes we warn you about are mostly mistakes we have either made ourselves or been called in to clean up.
What we cover
The site is organised around the channels most UK businesses actually use:
- Search engine optimisation, covering technical foundations, on-page work, content strategy, local SEO and link building
- Pay per click advertising, mainly Google Ads and Microsoft Ads, from account structure through to bidding strategy and conversion tracking
- Content marketing, including planning, keyword research, briefs and measuring whether any of it worked
- Email marketing, from list building and segmentation through to deliverability and automation
- Social media marketing, with a focus on the platforms that generate business rather than vanity metrics
- Analytics and measurement, particularly GA4, Search Console and campaign tracking
- Conversion rate optimisation, because traffic that does not convert is just an expense
How we decide what to publish
We do not write to a keyword list and hope for the best. Most articles on this site start life as a question somebody actually asked, whether that is a client, a business owner, or someone posting in a forum at eleven at night because their ads stopped spending.
Before anything goes live it has to pass three tests. Is it accurate today, not two algorithm updates ago. Is it specific enough to act on, with real settings, real thresholds and real examples rather than “optimise your content”. And would we give the same advice to a paying client, which is the honest version of the question.
Guides get reviewed when the platforms change, and platforms change constantly. If you find something out of date, tell us and we will fix it.
Our promise to you
No shortcuts, no secrets, no hacks
If a tactic carries risk, we say so. If something takes six months to work, we will not pretend it takes six weeks.
No pretending everything works for everybody
A tactic that suits a national ecommerce brand can be a waste of money for a local trades business. We try to say who each approach is for, and who should skip it.
Clear labelling on anything commercial
Sponsored content is marked as sponsored. Affiliate links are disclosed. Editorial coverage is never for sale, and no advertiser gets to influence what we say about their product or anybody else’s.
Plain English
Where a technical term is unavoidable we explain it the first time we use it.
Who the site is for
Most of our readers fall into one of three groups. Business owners doing their own marketing and wanting to understand what they are paying for or doing themselves. Marketers early in their career who need the practical detail that training courses tend to skip. And experienced practitioners checking a specific detail before they make a change to a live account.
You do not need to be technical to use the site. You do need to be willing to read something more substantial than a listicle.
How the site is funded
Running a site like this costs money, so it is worth being open about where the money comes from. Digital Marketing Explained is supported by display advertising, clearly labelled sponsored content, and occasional affiliate relationships with tools we actually use.
None of that affects what we publish. Advertisers do not see articles before they go live, they cannot request changes, and paying us has never yet stopped us pointing out that a product is not right for a particular kind of business.
If you would like to reach our audience, the details are on our advertise page.
Get in touch
Questions, corrections, article suggestions and guest post pitches are all welcome. You can reach us through the contact page and we read everything that comes in.