Digital marketing is the creation and distribution of content via websites, landing pages, social media platforms, email, and mobile applications. It also refers to the promotion of that content via a range of paid, earned, and owned digital channels, including advertising, content syndication, social, email, text messages, and more. Digital marketing strategies help marketers define goals, target an audience, and develop a digital marketing plan that best reaches that audience. These strategies provide direction for a given campaign or program and a framework for evaluating outcomes. Customers now spend a lot of time on social and digital media for a variety of reasons, from information research to actual product purchases. Marketers are allocating a sizeable portion of the advertising budget to digital marketing in response to this trend. As most countries across the world grapple with the effects of the COVID19 pandemic, the role of digital marketing has become central to continued economic and societal activity and to lessening the pandemic’s impact. While research on the contribution of digitization to softening the impact of pandemics is limited, emerging evidence is compelling about its accelerating effects across all areas of people’s lives and sectors of the economy. This article provides an overview of the current status of research in digital marketing, trends and developments in digital marketing, access and use over time in Africa.

Keywords : Digital Marketing, Social Media Platforms, Digital Media, Economy, Africa.