Digital marketing in South Africa can be quite challenging and demanding at the same time. This is due to the fact that this form of marketing is still new to marketers and businesses in the country. In fact, 70% businesses and marketers in South Africa don’t have the skills needed to run profitable digital marketing campaigns.

Most marketers are still doing traditional marketing as opposed to digital marketing. This makes digital marketing a highly demanded skill, with shortage in supply.

Due to ever changing nature of customer journeys on digital platforms, keeping up with digital trends is challenging arena for marketers. Some of the issues relating to the current advertising practices include:

1. The majority of advertisers are not adhering to the media budget limits in place, which hinders the effectiveness of a campaign
2. This mainly comes from the need to expand a business, and extend its reach
3. More advertising in some sectors of the economy has pushed out other sectors, such as agriculture and manufacturing.
4. About 76% of South Africans have access to the internet.
5. Digital marketing can be challenging when there is an absence of a structured Digital Advertising Law.
6. The local eCommerce sector has a huge percentage of active users on their site, but the payment options are still minimal compared to countries that have adopted the system.

But, the growth in digital advertising has brought a lot of competition, resulting in rapid evolution of the industry. As marketers strive to learn about this rapidly evolving environment, it becomes a challenge to maintain both a competitive edge and maintain the necessary knowledge to develop a successful digital marketing strategy for a brand.