Antecedents and outcomes of a strategic digital marketing approach

The new digital era requires firms to be explorative by experimenting with new tools, channels and online market trends, and remain focused on customers’ current needs by exploitatively refining existing digital marketing activities. Despite the substantial research on the digital marketing field and the tremendous developments in digital marketing practice, empirical research on strategic digital marketing issues is limited, with no available holistic examinations of the digital marketing strategy and minimal efforts in studying the strategic approaches of exploration, exploitation and ambidexterity within this field. Consequently, marketing managers lack the guidance to effectively implement digital marketing strategies.
Therefore, this thesis examined how explorative, exploitative and ambidextrous digital marketing strategic approaches can be effectively adopted within retail organisations competing in today’s fast-changing digital context. Drawing on the dynamic capabilities theory and the organisational learning theory, a comprehensive model outlining the drivers and outcomes of a digital marketing strategic approach was developed. A cross-sectional study design and a large-scale online survey were used to empirically test the model among 242 large retailers in the UK. The hypothesised direct, moderating and control effects were examined using structural equation modelling.
The results confirmed the positive associations of sensing and integrating capabilities with the explorative digital marketing strategic approach and of responding and coordinating capabilities with the exploitative digital marketing strategic approach. The explorative approach was found to associate positively with the differentiation-based competitive advantage, and the exploitative approach was found to associate positively with the cost-reduction-based competitive advantage. Differentiation-based and cost-reduction-based advantages were related to online customer engagement, which was positively associated with the firm’s market and financial performance. Results also demonstrated that market dynamism negatively moderates the exploitative approach–cost-reduction-based advantage link. These findings have important implications for marketing theory and practice. Limitations and future research directions were also considered.