In the early years of my career, I often found myself doing both product marketing and digital marketing at the same time.
One day, I was mapping out a go-to-market strategy. Next, I was running paid campaigns or writing landing page copy.
It taught me a lot, but over time, I started noticing something. These were not just two sets of tasks. They were two very different ways of thinking.
This distinction has become even more important to me as a Senior Product Marketing Specialist. The more I have worked across different teams and markets, the clearer it has become that product marketing and digital marketing require different tools, different instincts, and different measures of success.
Many people assume that product marketing and digital marketing are the same, and I understand why.
They both involve messaging, growth, and performance and contribute to how a product reaches users. But if you are building something you want people to understand and trust, then the difference between the two becomes very clear.
Digital marketing focuses on reach and distribution. It is about using channels like paid ads, email, SEO, and social media to connect with people and convert them. The job is managing the funnel, running experiments, lowering acquisition costs, and scaling traffic. You are optimising for metrics: impressions, clicks, conversions, and leads.
Product marketing is different. It focuses on meaning and asks the harder questions. Who is this for? Why does it matter? What are we really solving? How do we explain it? Product marketers are close to product, design, and user research.
Their job is to deeply understand the user, shape the story, and ensure the product is positioned in a way that actually resonates. In many ways, product marketing bridges what is built and what is understood.
This difference became even clearer in my role at Propel, a platform that connects digital workers across Africa with access to work, financial tools, and career support. We were not just shipping features. We were building for people with real challenges.
Many were freelancers or contractors navigating unstable income and complex systems. Product marketing was not just about launches. It was about clarity, trust, and confidence.
At Propel, the difference between reach and clarity became apparent in how users interacted with the product across different countries. We support tech talent navigating freelance platforms, contract roles, and new ways of working. What we found was that many users were not struggling with access. They were struggling with understanding.
A feature might be useful, but if it was not framed in a way that connected to a real problem they were facing, it often got overlooked.
We started to pay closer attention to how we communicated value. We moved away from internal phrases and focused instead on outcomes that users could relate to. Wesimplifiedthe language inonboarding.Weclarifiedproductcopy.
We created content that spoke directly to the questions people had. These changes were not part of a major campaign. They happened gradually, through everyday decisions.
But they made a real difference. Users became more confident in how they used the product, and support requests started to shift from confusion to curiosity. That is what product marketing does. It closes the gap between what a product does and what people believe it can do for them.
I often describe it this way. Product marketing defines what we want to say. Digital marketing helps us say it louder and to more people. But if the message is not clear in the first place, saying it louder does not help.
Another misconception I see often is that product marketing ends at the launch, that once the announcement goes out, the job is done. But the real work often begins after the launch. It is about learning from how people engage, where they drop off, what they ignore, and what they come back for. It is a constant cycle of listening and refining.
At Propel, we spent a lot of time looking at user behaviour after launch. We tracked engagement, not just activation. We looked at where users got stuck, what screens caused the most support tickets, and what messages were ignored. That data shaped not just future campaigns but also product decisions. That is another reason product marketing matters. It connects insight to execution.
When digital and product marketing work together, the impact is powerful. The message is clear. The reach is strong. And the experience is consistent. But when one is missing or treated as an afterthought, you feel it. Campaigns underperform. Teams misalign. Users get confused or churn early.
In many startups, one person wears both hats. That is often necessary, and I have been there. But even in those moments, it helps to treat the two functions with distinct goals. When I think like a product marketer, I am focused on understanding. When I think like a digital marketer, I am focused on visibility and performance. Both are important. Both require care.
If you are building a team, a product, or a growth strategy, ask yourself what kind of challenge you are trying to solve. Is it a reach problem or a message problem? Do people not know about your product, or do they not understand it? That question alone can save you time, budget, and frustration.
Looking ahead, the best teams will be the ones that understand this balance. Growth is not just about performance. It is about resonance. You can get clicks and installs. But can you keep users? Can you turn them into advocates? That is where product marketing earns its place.
Clarity is your most powerful advantage in markets where attention is expensive and trust is hard to earn. And that is what product marketing delivers—not noise, not hype, just clarity, from the inside out.
So yes, there is a difference between product marketing and digital marketing. And once you see it, you start to build differently.
About the Author
Adetola Durojaiye is a product marketing specialist with experience scaling fintech and Web3 products across Nigeria, the UK, and Europe. He has led product growth initiatives that have impacted hundreds of thousands of users and helped startups gain traction in emerging markets
This is very helpful and interesting