This course kicks off the specialization (SBWL) "Digital Marketing" by discussing how advances in information technology and digital media have already changed our understanding of marketing and will very likely continue to shape marketing in the future. As a core component of the SBWL, this course provides a basic framework for understanding digital marketing. We discuss the specific implications for brands when interacting and engaging with customers in digital environments and highlight fundamental differences between online and offline settings. Other topics covered include the marketing/technology-interface, specifics of the digital purchase funnel, customer-centricity and metrics for managing customer value.

The course also covers the most important digital marketing instruments (i.e., traditional banner advertising, targeted banner advertising, real-time bidding, search engine advertising, affiliate marketing, social media marketing, funnels, influencer marketing and conversion optimization) and aims to teach students the skills needed to analyze, build and improve digital marketing campaigns using state-of-the-art tools with the aim to make better marketing and business decisions.

The aim of this course is to develop an understanding and appreciation of the challenges and opportunities advances in information technology and digital media offer for marketers. More specifically, the course will provide students with insights on:

1. Understanding the major differences between online and offline marketing settings and implications for business practice.

2. How outbound and inbound marketing are integrated in a basic framework for digital marketing and evaluate their significance in digital customer journeys.

3. How the concept of customer centricity and related metrics can be utilized to manage acquisition and retention in online business settings.

4. Using digital marketing jargon (i.e., CPC, CPM, CPO, CTR, CR, etc.) and comfortably participate in discussions with digital marketing professionals.

5. Explaining how digital marketing instruments work (i.e., display advertising, search engine advertising, affiliate marketing, social media
marketing, influencer marketing, funnel marketing and conversion optimization) and how they differ in their mechanics and revenue models.

6. Understanding how data is crucial to the success of digital marketing and know how to use it in order to make better marketing decisions.

7. Understanding the relationship between digital marketing channels, the customer journey, and website performance7

According to WU rules, you have to attend 80% of the sessions in this course. This means you can miss one class. Presence and participation in class discussion are monitored by short in-class quizzes and is included in the grade accordingly.

The course integrates various teaching methods such as interactive lectures, class discussions, group work, short quizzes and a digital marketing (DM) challenge. The DM challenge offers students the opportunity to put digital marketing into life and to translate the concepts and content discussed throughout the course into an operational marketing plan.

To this end students will work in teams of 5 students and develop a blueprint of a digital marketing plan for a real life digital service provider that is currently in the process of entering the market (more details are provided in the course intro session).

Substantial classroom discussion is encouraged and expected. Attendance and participation in class discussions are critical to the success of the course. Classes will begin on time so do not arrive late. Students are required to turn in assignments at their scheduled times.

• To get prepared for in-class case discussions a reading package will be provided.
• Daily student packages including reading assignments, course slides, datasets, case questions for the respective days will be provided via the learn@wu platform in due course.

The course has 4 ECTS, which translates into a workload of 100 hours, 22 hours of which are contact hours in the classroom. That means that you’ll need to work for about 78 hours outside the classroom. The workload (in hours) that you can anticipate for every grading component is approximately proportional to the weight that each grading component has for your final grade (i.e., expect a workload of approx. 7.5 hours for a case that has a 10% weight for your final grade).

Weights for each grading component used to compute your final grade:

● Written final exam: 35%
● Digital marketing (DM) challenge (video-taped presentation): 25%
● Short presentation slide decks: 20%
● In-class participation and short intermediary quiz: 20%

According to WU rules, you have to attend 80% of the sessions in this course. In case you can‘t come to class, you don’t have to send us an email since your attendance will be monitored in every session.

Your in-class participation will be a combination of how often you’ve interacted in class with questions and the quality of your comments. You will have multiple opportunities to contribute in class participation.

We also want to ensure equal contribution of group members to the group work. Thus, a peer assessment will be conducted among group members, which enters into the computation of the individual grades for your group work. This means that the members of a group are required to assess other students regarding their relative contribution.

Overall             Points Grade
90-100             1.0
80-89               2.0
70-79               3.0
60-69               4.0
Below 60         5.0

This course is designed as a core component for students of the WU's Bachelor program spezializaiton (SBWL) in Digital Marketing. Admittance to the SBWL is a prerequisite for successful participation of the course. For more information on how to obtain admission to the SBWL visit the program's website.

Please log in with your WU account to use all functionalities of read!t. For off-campus access to our licensed electronic resources, remember to activate your VPN connection connection. In case you encounter any technical problems or have questions regarding read!t, please feel free to contact the library at readinglists@wu.ac.at.

Please make sure that you have access to all course materials via Learn@WU! Also, please monitor your WU email address regularly as some (additional) information and your questions will be answered in emails every now and then. If NOT, please contact us via e-mail!

For details about when to prepare what, see the tentative course schedule!

I am happy to answer your questions so feel free to send me a short email if you would like to talk to me in person. I will also try to be available in the classroom after each class or during the breaks of each class. Please do not expect that I answer long emails with numerous questions to topics of the class or that is answered here! Please always check the Syllabus first (PDF version) or the slides uploaded to MyLearn. However, I’m happy to discuss questions in class.