The evolution of marketing technologies timeline

Learn just how much marketing has changed in the last few centuries

Today’s marketing tactics have drastically evolved over the last few hundred years and, luckily, most of these changes have been for the better. But in order to appreciate the present, we must first appreciate the past.

Think about what marketing looked like only a few centuries ago. In the past, consumers were limited to doing business with whatever vendors they could reach by foot or horse. These limitations meant that businesses didn't need marketing as customers had no choice but to shop with them.

But as technology improved, goods and information could be transported vast distances quickly, giving consumers more choice in who they shopped with. Marketing quickly became a way businesses could differentiate themselves from the competition and convince consumers to purchase their goods and services.

This kicked off a whirlwind of change. Marketing moved from word of mouth to print to TV and radio and finally to the Internet. And today, marketers can reach millions of users with just a few clicks — quite different from their early predecessors.

In this interactive timeline, we’ll explore the many ways marketing has evolved in the last five centuries. From the printing press to the death of third-party cookies, here’s the inclusive marketing technology timeline every marketer needs to know.

Analogue marketing

Although the origins of the printing press are rather ambiguous, the oldest known printed text originated in China around 868 A.D and was created using a wood block printing technique. It wasn’t until 1450 that Johannes Gutenberg created the Gutenberg Press, which replaced wood blocks with metal and used a new type of ink.

Following the refinement of the printing press, print media flourished in the following century. Newspapers popped up around the world, and publications quickly realized they could subsidize the cost of production by including print advertisements. The Boston News-Letter was the first to capitalize on the idea, publishing a real estate ad in 1704.

In the 1730s, the first magazine was published—a term stemming from the Arabic word "makhazin," or storehouse. Magazines of this time consisted solely of text and typically included essays, poems, stories, and political commentaries. Publishers didn’t incorporate illustrations until the 1840s. 

During the 1830s, small businesses started using roadside posters and signs to advertise their wares. The first large-sized poster (measuring more than 50 square feet) was installed in New York in 1835 to advertise upcoming circus shows.

These outdoor advertisements became a popular way for businesses of all sizes to reach their local communities and travelers.

Emerging channels

Alexander Graham Bell filed for and won the first patent in the United States in 1876, just barely beating out fellow inventor Elisha Gray by a matter of hours. It is said that the first words Bell spoke into the telephone were, “Mr. Watson, come here. I need you," to his assistant in another room.

The radio boom began in the 1920s. Consumers embraced the channel since it gave them the ability to access news and entertainment directly from their homes. Marketers quickly took notice of this growing audience base and started sponsoring show segments and buying ads as a way to reach new customers. 

While advertisements were initially prohibited on radio, one of the first paid radio advertisements in America aired in 1922 thanks to a loophole. Instead of outright selling real estate, a representative from the company spent over 10 minutes on air painting a rosy picture of their new apartment complex.

By 1930, nearly 90% of all radio stations in the country were broadcasting radio advertisements, and by 1933, half of all US homes had a radio, ushering in the golden age of radio advertising.

TV advertisements were banned in the United States until 1941, when the Federal Communications Commission granted 10 stations commercial advertisement licenses.

That same year, Bulova Watch Co. purchased the first official TV commercial. The 10-second placement aired before the first pitch of a baseball game and cost the company $9 to air (or about $181 in 2022). 

While variations of user to user messaging existed before, the first version of email we know today was created in 1972, which allowed users to send messages to others using the @ symbol on ARPANET, the predecessor of the Internet.

Marketers were quick to realize the potential of this new channel and in 1978, Gary Thuerk sent out the first email marketing blast (and the first spam message) to 400 recipients marketing his company’s new computer model. While the unsolicited message caused quite a stir, it resulted in over $13 million in sales for the business. 

"Hi there! Do you have a moment to speak right now?"

Popularized in the early 1980s, telemarketing, or marketing by telephone, took off as a way to reach potential customers and drive sales. While businesses embraced telemarketing as a cheap and effective way to promote their products and services, most consumers found the unsolicited nature of these calls to be invasive. 

Anti-telemarketing sentiment continued to grow into the 1990s, until an increase in telemarketing fraud and scam activity led to the creation of state-run “Do Not Call” lists (with a national list created in 2003) and the eventual decline in popularity of this marketing method. 

Rise of the internet

In the late 1960s, the US Defense Department funded the creation of the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET), which allowed multiple computers to communicate with one another on a single network.

While ARPANET is considered the predecessor to the modern-day internet, it wasn’t until 1983 that ARPANET officially switched on the Transfer Control and Internetwork Protocols, marking the birthdate of what we know today as the Internet. 

British Scientist Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web (WWW), an information system that made it easier to access information on the Internet.

The WWW made the Internet accessible to anyone, not just scientists and academics, and set the stage for people to share and access information via personal websites, video hosting and social networking sites, blogs, and more.

The first ever search engine, Archie (short for archives), was created in 1990 and used to search for files on File Transfer Protocol servers. Over the years, other solutions like ALIWEB, WebCrawler, Excite, AltaVista, and Yahoo popped up, each giving users new, better ways of finding information on the web.

This additional competition in the search engine space led companies to develop more sophisticated search algorithms in order to surface the most relevant information to their users. Google, one of the most widely used web-based search engines today, was created in 1998.

What did the first SMS message say? A very festive “merry Christmas.” The message was sent by engineer Neil Papworth to the then Vodafone director Richard Jarvis. Of course, Jarvis had no way of responding to the message at the time because mobile phones lacked the ability, but it was still an important moment that would significantly change communications in the future.

With search engine algorithms becoming more advanced during the 1990s, the need for search engine optimization also arose as websites fought to rank on the first page of results. Many early HTML websites turned to black-hat SEO tactics, like keyword stuffing, to attempt to rank higher. 

As search engine technology adapted and became better at filtering out these methods and prioritizing user experience, marketers began to discover the proper ways to use SEO. Eventually, using keywords properly, investing in on-page hierarchy, and focusing on the user experience allowed more deserving content to rise to the top of results.

In June 1994, Louis Montulli II of Netscape Communications Corporation invented the HTTP cookie, a way to check whether visitors to the Netscape website had previously visited the site. They were first incorporated into version two of Internet Explorer in October 1995.

Personal blogs started appearing in the mid-1990s, as early Internet adopters started publishing content on their personal websites. Blog publishing platforms like Blogger.com and LiveJournal made it even easier for people to create and publish their own ideas, which helped increase the number and popularity of blogs. 

Eventually, commercial blogging platforms like TypePad and WordPress made it easier for corporate businesses to get in on the action and create their own customized blogs. In 1999, there were approximately 23 active blogs on the Internet, while there are over 600 million today.

In the late 1990s, search engines found a way to monetize their platforms: ads. OpenText was the first search engine to introduce pay-per-click ads in 1996, with Google following suit in 2000.

With the launch of Google AdWords (known as Google Ads today), businesses could bid on specific keywords and have their text ads shown on Google’s search pages, allowing them to connect with high-interest customers. Display ads were built in 2005. 

While the cell phone was first invented in 1973, it wasn’t until 1992 that the world’s first SMS message, “Merry Christmas,” was sent by Neil Papworth. It then took another 8 years for the tool to be adopted by companies.

In 2000, a Finnish news channel provided subscribers news headlines for free thanks to advertising sponsors. Eventually, more companies discovered the emerging channel’s potential and began using it to send time-sensitive marketing messages to their prospects and customers. 

Digital boom

While there had been a few niche social media websites, it wasn’t until the early 2000s that these platforms took off. In 2005, 5% of American adults used social media. Today, that number is 72%. When many of these platforms first began, they were intended as a way for people to connect with friends. Now, they’re a place for receiving news, learning more about companies and their products, shopping, finding entertainment, meeting new people, and so much more. 

LinkedIn, Twitch, Twitter, WhatApp, TikTok — there are so many different and unique platforms today that your business can use to reach new audiences and engage existing customers.

Looking to upgrade your own social media presence?

Check out our blog post on How to Market Your Business With Social Media for some helpful tips.

The CAN-SPAM Act, signed into effect in 2003, established rules for commercial email to protect recipients.

As laid out by the Federal Trade Commission, the 7 main CAN-SPAM requirements are:

  1. Do not use false or misleading header information
  2. Do not use deceptive subject lines
  3. Identify the message as an advertisement
  4. Inform recipients of where you are located
  5. Inform recipients of how to opt-out of receiving future messages
  6. Honor opt-out requests as promptly as possible
  7. Monitor messages that are sent on your behalf

Following these requirements can improve your email sending reputation and help lower spam reports. 

Founded in 2005, Youtube started as a platform that was meant to easily share videos and clips on the internet. Today, it’s one of the top advertising platforms and is responsible for 37% of the world’s mobile traffic.

Marketers quickly identified the platform’s potential, with many brands creating, uploading, and hosting their own content on the site. In fact, the first YouTube video to ever reach one million views was a Nike ad featuring Brazilian soccer player Ronaldinho. 

While it’s hard to imagine a life without push notifications, they weren’t popularized until the late 2000s. To set the scene, in the past, users had to proactively refresh their email inbox or an app to see new messages or fresh content. That all changed in the early 2000s when Blackberry started alerting users in real-time when they’d received an email.

Apple saw the potential of this new technology and launched its own version in 2009 called the Apple Push Notification Service (APNS). With APNS, users could receive push notifications from any app — not just Apple — giving marketers a new way to reach and engage customers. Android launched its own push notification functionality in 2010.  

Modern marketing

In 2018, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), or what is known as the toughest privacy and security law in the world, took effect. GDPR is a set of regulations that determines what companies can do with European Union citizens’ personal data, meaning it affects businesses all around the world with European customers. It establishes requirements of organizations that process data, defines the rights of individuals to manage their data, and outlines penalties for those who violate these rights — all of which you can learn more about in our GDPR guide.

Need help with GDPR compliance?

Twilio’s Professional Services team can help you navigate the law’s many complexities, so you can focus on engaging your customers. 

The 2020 global pandemic was a catalyst for digital transformation, pushing companies to rethink their business models and bring the way we work, learn, shop, and connect with others all online. In fact, according to Twilio’s COVID-19 Digital Engagement Report, 79% of respondents said COVID-19 increased their business’ budget for digital transformation. 

Many customers became accustomed to the ease and convenience of shopping and working online that they held onto their new digital behaviors, even when a sense of normalcy returned. But, with more users and businesses online than ever before, it’s more challenging than ever to win customers’ attention and loyalty and keep up with evolving digital consumer expectations. In order to stay ahead of the competition, companies must continue to understand their customers so they can build engaging experiences that stand out. 

Twilio’s State of Customer Engagement Report 2022 can help keep you updated with the latest trends in engagement.

Today’s customers expect personalization. They want businesses to know their interests and anticipate their needs. In fact, Twilio SendGrid’s 2022 US Messaging Engagement Report found that 49% of US consumers said they’d be open to sharing more info with brands in exchange for more personalized content. In order to send the right person the right message at the right time, many marketers are partnering with customer data platforms (CDPs). These solutions help consolidate customer data in one place, allowing marketers to deliver more targeted and meaningful campaigns to their customers. 

Looking to invest more heavily in personalization?

Check out Twilio Segment’s The State of Personalization 2022 report for a closer look at current personalization trends and evolving customer attitudes.

2024 will mark a pivotal point in the digital marketing world as marketers will no longer be able to rely on third-party cookies. While companies like Apple and Mozilla have already removed third-party cookie tracking from their browsers, Google has extended its deprecation timeline to 2024. 

While the death of third-party cookies is a win for customer privacy advocates, many marketers worry this loss will affect their ability to create and measure the impact of highly targeted advertising and retargeting campaigns. This is pushing many businesses to lean more heavily on first-party data, or information collected directly from users. First-party data is more reliable and accurate than third-party data and still allows you to create personalized customer experiences that drive loyalty. 

Are you ready for third-party cookies to vanish?

Check out our 7 Ways Marketers Can Prepare for a Cookieless Future for ways to get prepared ahead of the change.

Conclusion

Marketing technologies have come a long way since the creation of the printing press, and they will only continue to evolve as we enter this new digital era. Especially as new regulations arise and the death of third-party cookies approaches, marketers will need to become more creative about how they collect and use customer data.

But, change shouldn’t be scary. If anything, having the right solutions in your marketing technology stack can help your business overcome whatever challenges come its way. And when it comes to collecting and activating first-party data to power personalized marketing campaigns, Twilio Engage is a marketer’s best friend.

Twilio Engage uniquely puts the power of a native customer data platform (CDP) and native omnichannel together in one solution so marketers can build data-first, personalized experiences that reduce costs and grow lifetime value—all without relying on engineering resources. Watch a Twilio Engage demo now and learn how to easily create and scale multi-step customer journeys across any digital channel and deliver more engaging, relevant experiences to your customers.