In the last decade, the use of Data Sciences, which facilitate decision-making and extraction of actionable insights and knowledge from large datasets in the digital marketing environment, has remarkably increased. However, despite these advances, relevant evidence on the measures to improve the management of Data Sciences in digital marketing remains scarce. To bridge this gap in the literature, the present study aims to review (i) methods of analysis, (ii) uses, and (iii) performance metrics based on Data Sciences as used in digital marketing techniques and strategies. To this end, a comprehensive literature review of major scientific contributions made so far in this research area is undertaken. The results present a holistic overview of the main applications of Data Sciences to digital marketing and generate insights related to the creation of innovative Data Mining and knowledge discovery techniques. Important theoretical implications are discussed, and a list of topics is offered for further research in this field. The review concludes with formulating recommendations on the development of digital marketing strategies for businesses, marketers, and non-technical researchers and with an outline of directions of further research on innovative Data Mining and knowledge discovery applications.
In the practice of Digital Marketing (DM), Web Analytics (WA) and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) can and should play an important role in marketing strategy formulation. It is the aim of this article to survey the various DM metrics to determine and address the following question: What are the most relevant metrics and KPIs that companies need to understand and manage in order to increase the effectiveness of their DM strategies? Therefore, to achieve these objectives, a Systematic Literature Review has been carried out based on two main themes (i) Digital Marketing and (ii) Web Analytics. The search terms consulted in the databases have been (i) DM and (ii) WA obtaining a result total of n = 378 investigations. The databases that have been consulted for the extraction of data were Scopus, PubMed, PsyINFO, ScienceDirect and Web of Science. In this study, we define and identify the main KPIs in measuring why, how and for what purpose users interact with web pages and ads. The main contribution of the study is to lay out and clarify quantitative and qualitative KPIs and indicators for DM performance in order to achieve a consensus on the use and measurement of these indicators.