How digital marketing evolved over time: A bibliometric analysis on scopus database

Heliyon. 2021 Dec 14;7(12):e08603. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2021.e08603. eCollection 2021 Dec.

Abstract

Nowadays, a large number of customers are spending their time on social and digital media for a variety of purposes ranging from information searching to the final purchase of products. Responding to this shift, marketers are spending a significant part of the advertising budget on digital marketing. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to review articles on digital marketing to identify top themes, determine the current status of research in digital marketing and indicate how influential works have shaped it. This research has reviewed 925 papers published between 2000 and 2019 in Scopus by applying bibliometrics analysis. These results show that on average 2.18 authors have contributed to every single paper on digital marketing and the collaboration index is 2.71. The top contributing countries in the digital marketing field are USA, India and UK. The study also identifies three dominant clusters in digital marketing research, e.g., 1) strategic planning with digital marketing 2) mobile marketing with apps development and 3) dealing with demographic profiles of customers.

Keywords: 4th industrial revolution; Bibliometric analysis; Digital marketing; Scopus database.

Publication types

  • Review