Guest Author
Marketing vs advertising — can you tell them apart? Most people use both terms interchangeably without even realizing it.
Last week, a friend told me that the new coffee shop in our neighborhood did a great job at marketing. The reason? They had distributed fliers all around. There’s a tiny problem there – That’s not marketing, it’s advertising.
Marketing is a broad term. It includes everything from profiling target customers to pricing and creating a social media content strategy. It’s not limited to selling your products.
Marketing and advertising are related terms but NOT the same. To clear this marketing vs advertising confusion, we’ll look at both concepts in detail in this post. We’ve also included real-life examples so there is no scope for confusion left!
Access our editable marketing calendar template to easily organize your strategy.
Short Summary
- Marketing is a broad strategy that covers customer research, pricing, social media content, and more.
- Advertising is a specific part of marketing that focuses on promoting products through paid methods.
- Marketing uses diverse channels like blog posts, social media content, and influencer partnerships to build long-term relationships and nurture leads over time
- Advertising focuses on paid platforms like PPC ads, TV commercials, and sponsorships to drive immediate actions.
- When advertising aligns with broader marketing efforts, it reinforces your brand’s identity and helps build trust with your audience. Without cohesion, your messages will get diluted.
Table of contents
What is marketing?
Marketing is the process of identifying, understanding, and satisfying customer needs through strategies that promote your product or service, create value, and drive customer engagement.
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A successful marketing strategy involves 4 main elements:
Product: This includes all aspects that define what you are offering, such as features, quality, branding, packaging, and services. Consider how your product stands out and meets your target audience’s needs.
Price: Pricing strategies encompass more than just setting a number. It involves analyzing allowances, discounts, and payment terms to create competitive yet profitable options.
Place: Place ensures that your product or service is available where your target customers can easily access it. This could involve market coverage, location, and distribution channels.
Promotion: This is about how you communicate with your audience. Tools like advertising, public relations, sales promotions, and direct marketing are used to convey your message effectively.
These 4 Ps form the “marketing mix” that guides the business strategy for all brands, big and small.
Let’s take Airbnb for example.
Here’s how the 4 Ps of marketing apply to Airbnb:
- Product: People can get a unique, local stay experience in an Airbnb that they simply can’t get with traditional hotels. That’s their USP that makes them stand out in the travel industry.
- Price: Hosts set their prices depending on the size of their home and the facilities that they provide. So, users can find places for all budgets, from cheap rooms to luxury homes.
- Place: You can book Airbnb stays through their website or mobile app. So anyone with internet access can book a stay on their platform.
- Promotion: Airbnb mainly uses social media and email campaigns to reach their potential customers. They also encourage guests to leave reviews, which helps promote their service.
You can apply this core framework to any brand to understand how they position themselves in the market and what makes them tick.
What is advertising?
Advertising is the practice of promoting products, services, or brands through paid media to reach a specific audience. It is a key part of the marketing mix, designed to raise awareness, generate interest, and drive sales.
There are two main types of ads:
- Traditional ads: These include TV commercials, radio spots, newspaper ads, billboards, and flyers. They reach a broad audience but are less targeted.
- Digital ads: These appear on social media, search engines, website banners, and in emails. They allow for more targeted campaigns by setting criteria like location, age, and interests.
Traditional ads offer broad reach, while digital ads have precise targeting options and provide real-time performance feedback. You should use a mix of both types of ads to get the best reach.
Marketing vs advertising: what is the difference?
Marketing is the big strategy—it involves understanding your audience, creating products they want, setting prices, and deciding where and how to sell. Advertising, on the other hand, is a specific tactic within marketing. It focuses on paid promotions like TV, social media, or online ads to grab attention and drive immediate action. Marketing builds the plan; advertising executes a part of it.
This is what sets marketing and advertising apart:
- Scope and purpose
- Duration and continuity
- Mediums and platforms
- Measurement and goals
1. Scope and purpose
Marketing has a broad scope that includes everything from market research, product development, pricing, and branding to customer relationship management.
The purpose of marketing is to understand customer needs, create products or services that meet those needs, and build a long-term connection with the audience. Marketing goals aim to establish a brand, drive sustained growth, and develop customer loyalty through various non-paid and paid efforts.
Advertising, on the other hand, is a narrower aspect of marketing that focuses specifically on promoting products or services through paid channels, like TV, radio, social media, or print ads.
The purpose of advertising is to quickly grab attention, raise awareness, and generate immediate sales or leads. It’s typically used for short-term goals, like promoting a new product or a limited-time offer, and is one of the many tools in the overall marketing toolkit.
For example, when Coca-Cola conducts research to create a new flavor or adjusts the price of its drinks, those are marketing activities. If they then decide to promote the new flavor with a Super Bowl commercial, that’s advertising. The ad serves a short-term promotional purpose, but it’s just one part of Coca-Cola’s larger marketing strategy, which also includes pricing, product development, and ongoing customer engagement through other channels.
2. Duration and continuity
Marketing is a continuous, long-term process that drives the overall business strategy. It focuses on building brand identity, understanding and identifying customer needs, and maintaining relationships over time. For example, a sportswear company may strategize to boost its market position by improving customer loyalty, developing new products, or increasing engagement through social media.
Advertising, however, is usually more short-term and campaign-focused. It’s about achieving immediate results, like promoting a seasonal sale or launching a new product.
For instance, this same sportswear company might run an ad campaign ahead of a major sporting event, highlighting a new line of athletic gear. Once the event is over, the company may shift its focus to a back-to-school advertising campaign. Each advertising push serves a specific, short-term goal, while the broader marketing plan ensures consistent growth and brand presence.
3. Mediums and platforms
Marketing focuses on long-term engagement and value creation across various platforms. A business might create informative blog posts, tutorial videos, or engage with audiences on social media to educate and build trust over time. These activities help establish the brand as an authority in the industry and nurture leads for future conversion.
Advertising, by contrast, uses direct methods and physical evidence like TV commercials, pay-per-click (PPC) ads, or sponsored social media posts to quickly capture attention and drive immediate actions, such as making a purchase or signing up for a newsletter.
The aim is to deliver a concise message that prompts consumers to take action now, rather than gradually nurturing a relationship.
4. Measurement and goals
Marketing looks at long-term metrics to assess success. For instance, a subscription-based skincare company might track customer retention rates, overall revenue growth, and brand awareness over the course of a year to understand how well their marketing strategy is resonating with their audience. Their focus is on building a lasting relationship with customers.
Advertising focuses on short-term results. The same skincare company could run a paid search ad campaign to promote a seasonal product launch. They would measure success by tracking metrics like click-through rates, cost per conversion, and sales generated from the campaign. Power BI report templates can help visualize these metrics, ensuring efficient analysis.
Examples of marketing tactics
Let’s look at some examples of different types of marketing strategies you can use:
- Inboud marketing
- Content marketing
- Social media marketing
- Influencer marketing
- Word-of-mouth marketing
- Affiliate marketing
- Email marketing
- Search engine marketing
1. Inbound marketing
Inbound marketing is about attracting customers by providing valuable resources and content that help solve their problems, rather than directly pushing products or services. The focus is on drawing people in through helpful information and guidance, engaging them at various stages of the buyer’s journey. It often includes strategies like creating tools, webinars, or guides that answer customer questions or solve specific pain points.
For example, Ahrefs a SEO tool, has created a Domain Authority checker, which helps users evaluate the strength and authority of their website’s backlink profile on a scale from 0 to 100. This type of content builds trust and positions your brand as an expert in your field.
Andriy Shum, Head of SEO at SeoProfy adds: “Inbound marketing aligns with modern decision-making habits, where people research online, read reviews, and look for helpful information before they buy anything. By giving them helpful information, you also gently nudging them further down the funnel.“
2. Content marketing
Content marketing, while part of inbound marketing, focuses specifically on creating and distributing relevant content like blog posts, videos, or infographics to engage a target audience.
The key difference is that content marketing can exist on its own as a strategy to educate and engage, whereas inbound marketing is a broader approach that encompasses content marketing but also includes tactics like lead nurturing, SEO, and customer engagement that guide potential customers further down the sales funnel.
Take ClickUp, for example. Their blog posts show how their product can help readers become more productive and organized using their features.
Even though their content promotes their product, it’s pitched as a solution for a specific problem that readers have.
3. Social media marketing
Social media marketing involves promoting your products or services using both organic and paid strategies on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, X, and more. It focuses on driving engagement through posts, interactions, and content that resonate with your audience.
However, it goes beyond simple promotion. Effective social media marketing focuses on building relationships, fostering community, and increasing brand loyalty by interacting with followers, answering questions, sharing relevant content, and listening to feedback.
One of the biggest advantages of social media marketing is the ability to use both organic and paid strategies to reach a highly targeted audience. Brands can share posts, videos, stories, or run contests to engage with their audience organically, while also leveraging paid ads for more precise targeting and quicker results. It also provides a platform for businesses to humanize their brand, showcasing their values, personality, and responding directly to customers in real-time.
When creating a mix of educational, entertaining, and promotional content as well as by incorporating market trends, businesses can build trust with their audience, foster deeper engagement, and even turn customers into brand advocates.
Consistency is key to keeping followers engaged over time, and social media tools allow businesses to track campaign performance, monitor engagement levels, and adjust strategies based on real-time data.
PRO TIP
One of the biggest challenges businesses face with social media marketing is managing the constant need for fresh content and staying consistent across multiple platforms.
Here’s the solution: with tools like SocialBee, you can easily schedule and create content in advance, ensuring your brand maintains a steady online presence without the stress of last-minute posts. SocialBee allows you to organize your content, set posting schedules, and target specific audiences, all while tracking campaign analytics in real time.
This gives you precise insights into your performance, helping you optimize your strategy on the go and ultimately making social media marketing more efficient and manageable.
Schedule content across your social media channels from one place: SocialBee!
4. Influencer marketing
Influencer marketing capitalizes on the trust between influencers and their followers. People often look to influencers for authentic recommendations, and when influencers promote a product, their followers are more likely to take interest and make a purchase.
While the company pays for influencer collaborations, influencer marketing is distinct from traditional advertising. Unlike ads, which are often perceived as overtly promotional, influencer marketing feels more like a personal recommendation.
Influencers share products they claim to use and trust, blending these promotions naturally into their content. The relationship between the influencer and their followers is built on trust and authenticity, which is why followers may perceive these promotions as more genuine than a regular ad.
Gymshark uses this strategy to drive their sales. For example, they often collaborate with Instagram influencers who post workout videos wearing their clothes.
For an added incentive, they also add special discount codes in their posts.
5. Word-of-mouth marketing
Word-of-mouth marketing relies on getting referrals from happy customers. If done well, this strategy can help you grow your business quickly.
Many companies, like Dropbox, choose to create a referral program that encourages users to share their product with their aquintances. They’ve used word-of-mouth marketing to gain over 2 million referrals in just one month. They offered 500 MB of free bonus storage for each referral, which their loyal users loved.
6. Affiliate marketing
Affiliate marketing is a strategy where you partner with individuals or businesses, known as affiliates, who promote your products using unique referral links. These affiliates—often bloggers, influencers, or niche content creators—recommend your products in their content, whether it’s blog posts, social media posts, or videos. When someone makes a purchase using their link, the affiliate earns a commission.
Though brands pay affiliates based on performance, affiliate marketing differs from traditional advertising because it’s low-risk and results-based. Instead of paying upfront for visibility like in advertising, businesses only pay affiliates when a sale is made through their unique link.
For affiliates, it’s an opportunity to earn money by recommending products they genuinely believe in, making the relationship more trust-based and organic than a straightforward paid ad.
For example, SurveySparrow’s affiliate marketing network is provided with a variety of promotional resources for individual usage, including email templates, innovative banners, badges, and infographics.
Gianluca Ferruggia, managing director at DesignRush explains that “affiliate marketing expands on the concept of referrals. The key difference is scale and precision. Affiliates use special links, so you can track every sale they generate and reward them accurately. It’s referral marketing but amplified for the digital age. It lets you tap into much larger networks than traditional referrals.”
7. Email marketing
Email marketing is a strategy that involves sending targeted messages directly to a person’s inbox to build relationships, promote products, and encourage conversions. Unlike other forms of marketing, email provides a more personalized experience, allowing businesses to segment their audience and send tailored content based on their preferences, consumer behavior, or stage in the customer journey.
For example, a company might send a welcome email series to new subscribers, offer exclusive discounts, or share helpful resources that guide them toward making a purchase.
Take a look at this drip email from Grammarly:
The key to effective marketing strategies via email is providing valuable content that resonates with the audience, while also maintaining a balance between promotional and informational messaging. Metrics such as open rates, click-through rates, and conversions allow businesses to measure the effectiveness of their email campaigns and refine their strategy over time.
8. Search engine marketing
Search engine marketing (SEM) is a digital marketing strategy focused on increasing a website’s visibility on search engine results pages (SERPs). It includes both paid and organic tactics, but the primary goal is to ensure that a business shows up when potential customers are searching for relevant products or services.
Search engine optimization involves selecting and optimizing specific keywords that align with what users are searching for.
For instance, a clothing retailer might focus on optimizing their content and website structure around keywords like “affordable winter jackets” to increase their chances of appearing in search results when users search for these terms. By doing this, they ensure that their website becomes more visible to their target audience, leading to more clicks and visits over time.
To improve SEM results, businesses analyze search trends, user behavior, and keyword performance, adjusting their strategy to better match customer search intent. This ongoing effort is a key part of a larger marketing plan, as it helps attract users who are actively searching for products or services, guiding them toward the business organically.
Examples of advertising efforts
Now, let’s look at different examples of advertising efforts:
- PPC advertising
- Display advertising
- TV advertising
- DOOH advertising
- Print ads
- Sponsorships
- Social media ads
- Retail advertising
1. PPC advertising
PPC advertising is a performance-based model where you can get your ads featured in search engine results, on websites, in apps, or on social media platforms.
What sets PPC apart is its cost structure. Unlike traditional advertising, where you pay for ad space or impressions, with PPC you only pay when someone actively engages with your ad by clicking on it.
For example, here are some skincare ads:
Jason Hennessey, the founder of Hennessey Digital notes that “PPC works best when you want quick visibility or want to target specific audiences. As soon as your campaign goes live, your ads can appear at the top of search results or on relevant websites and you start getting traffic. There’s no waiting period to build authority or organic rankings.”
2. Display advertising
Display advertising is like renting out ad space on another website or app. These ads can appear in the form of banners, videos, or interactive elements placed on high-traffic websites. Unlike PPC ads, which are often text-based and keyword-targeted, display ads are more visual and can be shown to users based on their interests, browsing behavior, or demographics.
Here’s an example of display ad from NH Hotels:
For instance, if you’re promoting a new tech gadget, you might place a display ad with an eye-catching banner on a technology-focused website. This helps increase visibility among people interested in that niche. You pay to place the ad for a set period, and it may appear regardless of whether the user clicks on it.
While PPC ads can also be displayed on websites, they differ from display ads in that they are generally triggered by specific search terms or user actions, whereas display ads are often shown to build awareness and drive interest based on the user’s browsing habits.
3. TV advertising
We’ve all seen advertisements between our favorite shows on TV – that’s what is TV advertising. You pay to get your ad broadcast all over the country, so you can reach a vast audience quickly, especially during high-profile events like the Super Bowl, where millions of viewers tune in.
But getting an ad spot on TV is very expensive – think millions of dollars for 30 seconds on air. Plus, producing them is also expensive. So, they’re more suited for big brands.
4. DOOH advertising
Ads that you see in high-traffic public spaces like airports, malls, and city centers are all
Digital Out-Of-Home or DOOH ads. Just like TV ads, they give you a broad reach but are expensive. So, even DOOH ads are suitable mostly for big brands.
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Coca-Cola, for example, uses DOOH extensively. They’ve run animated billboards in major cities, often tailoring content to location or weather. This smart approach makes their DOOH ads more relevant and engaging to people passing by.
5. Print ads
Print ads refer to traditional forms of advertising found in newspapers, magazines, brochures, or flyers. Though not as widely used as digital methods today, print advertising remains an effective way to reach certain audiences, especially those less active online.
Print ads can be particularly useful for local businesses or retail stores, helping them connect with customers in a specific area. These ads are often part of broader advertising campaigns, coordinated by advertising agencies to ensure consistency across various mediums.
6. Sponsorships
Sponsorship ads are about supporting an event, organization, or individual to get your brand noticed. Since you provide financial backing or resources, you can gain visibility through association.
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For example, Adidas will be sponsoring the FIFA World Cup 2026. So, they’ll feature their logos or taglines throughout the tournament, from stadium signage to player uniforms.
Sponsoring high-ticket events is very expensive, so only big brands go for it. Small brands can choose local events or community initiatives to connect with their target audience and build local support.
7. Social media ads
Social media ads involve placing paid advertisements on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, and Twitter. These ads come in various formats, including image-based, carousel, and video advertising, and allow businesses to reach highly specific audiences based on interests, demographics, and online behavior.
Take a look at this business to business LinkedIn ad, for example:
Social media ad placement is a key part of paid media strategies, as they enable businesses to amplify their message, increase brand awareness, and drive engagement or sales. By leveraging the targeting tools available on these platforms, companies can ensure their ad spend is used efficiently to connect with the right audience.
8. Retail advertising
Retail advertising refers to promotional activities that take place within retail stores to engage shoppers and drive purchases. This can include signage, product displays, in-store promotions, and digital advertising within stores. Retailers often work with advertising agencies to design in-store ads that encourage impulse buys or highlight special offers.
Additionally, owned media, such as store newsletters or branded apps, can be used to push ads directly to loyal customers, ensuring they are informed of new products or sales, further optimizing ad spend for tangible in-store results.
Marketing vs advertising: Why we need an integrated approach
Marketing is your overall game plan for reaching potential consumers and turning them into customers of the products or services your business provides. It involves everything from understanding who your potential customers are and what they want, to communicating with them in various ways. Marketing strategies cover a broad range of activities including product development, market research, content marketing, customer support, and much more.
Advertising, on the other hand, is specifically about getting the word out. It’s a subset of marketing and is focused solely on creating messages about your products or services. The main goal of advertising is to influence buying behavior by promoting a product or service. It’s more direct and is the tool you use to push the message out via various media like TV, online ads, billboards, and more.
Here’s how to decide when to use each:
- Use marketing when you’re trying to understand your market, develop your product to fit the market, maintain relationships with your customers, and build long-term brand loyalty. This is a continuous process that involves strategic thinking about your brand’s place in the market, even before a product is launched and long after it’s sold.
- Use advertising when you have a specific message you want to communicate widely. For instance, if you’re launching a new product or having a sale, advertising is the way to go. It allows you to broadcast your message to a large audience quickly and efficiently. This is crucial for creating immediate awareness or driving quick increases in sales.
In terms of campaign specifics:
- During the awareness phase of a product or a brand, use both marketing and advertising. Advertising can help introduce your brand to new customers, while broader marketing strategies can start to engage them at a deeper level.
- When aiming for conversion or sales, lean more on advertising. Direct response advertising, for example, is designed to evoke an immediate buying action using strong calls to action.
- For customer retention and loyalty, this is more the realm of broader marketing. Here you’ll use email marketing, customer service, and loyalty programs more than straight advertising.
Frequently asked questions
Align your advertising strategies and marketing efforts!
In terms of a Venn Diagram, advertising can be considered a subset of marketing.
Marketing is the larger circle, encompassing everything from product development to customer engagement. Advertising is the smaller circle inside, focused specifically on promoting products or services through various channels, like social media ads or sponsored posts.
For example, marketing might involve creating a comprehensive social media strategy to build brand awareness and engage with followers by sharing valuable content, running contests, or responding to comments. Advertising, within that strategy, could be a paid Facebook or Instagram ad campaign designed to drive traffic to a special offer or a new product launch. Both are different, but they need to work together to achieve the overall business goals.
So, schedule regular meetings between both your advertising and marketing team and use data insights from your social media campaigns to adjust your goals and strategy. This ensures both marketing and advertising efforts stay aligned and effective.
Consider using tools like SocialBee to streamline your social media management. SocialBee helps you schedule and publish posts across platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and more, all from one easy-to-use dashboard.
With features like AI-powered content creation, advanced analytics, and a unified inbox, SocialBee ensures your campaigns are consistent, engaging, and effective. Try SocialBee free for 14 days and see the difference for yourself!
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About the author: Victor Karpenko is the Founder & CEO of SeoProfy, a data-driven digital marketing agency. His agency has a team of over 200 SEO specialists, working with clients across 45 countries.
