Sanjay Dholakia, chief marketing officer of Marketo, had put it best when he said the statement: “Marketing has changed more in five years than the past five hundred.” This rate of change has triggered advancement in the management roles that oversee marketing efforts and campaigns. Formerly, the digital marketer was expected to be like the regular employee: a spoke in the wheel, smart and effective when it came to the bottom line. Now, businesses need their digital marketers to not just leading and driving in business, but making good connections down the line. Marketing, in general, often finds its identity as either the white knight or black thumb of any given businesses. Success would require a bigger budget; failure leads to negatives. The online age produced a substantial alteration in the way that marketing efforts could be performed, as well as the potential effect they could have. In the time before everyone had a smartphone, laptop and tablet, the digital marketer’s main priority was to increase leads from within designated buyer personas, whether that be subscriptions, mailing lists, memberships or anything else that could be of direct use to generate sales. Technology such as social media, however, has put the power in the hands of the customers. The goal of marketing is no longer to just get people to buy, it’s to convince people that the brand is worthy of their loyalty. Of course, it’s not just consumer end technology that has reformed the accountabilities of the digital marketer. The increase of programmatic advertising and native advertising have both had a heavy influence in the change of the digital marketer’s part. Though the two may seem polar opposites – programmatic is all about algorithm-based automation, while native advertising is all about communicating an experience specific to the platform it is on – they both work toward the same objective: to provide a more personal and engaging experience for customers. Personalizing advertising goes hand-in-hand with establishing brand trust, which is one of the major responsibilities of the modern digital marketer. Customers today are more willing to provide brands and marketers with information about themselves if it results in being shown ads that align with their interests. However, in order to utilize this effectively, the digital marketer must walk a fine line. It can be very tempting to take this data and throw as many ads as possible at someone in an attempt to remain top-of-mind. However, doing this is going to seriously annoy customers, and can quickly drive them to the competition. Even worse, it can drive them to turn to social media or review sites to vent about the frustration they feel from being bombarded with ads from a given company. Negative brand experiences find a far larger audience than positive ones today. To achieve true brand trust today, customers must be treated with respect because they not only have plenty of options to choose from, but they have the platforms to sound off and rally public opinion against even the biggest brands. It is now the role of the digital marketer to plan campaigns and strategies that are designed to promote and maintain relationships, rather than just drawing moths to the flame. As advertising technology continues to advance and achieve capabilities previously unheard of, the digital marketer must be the one to recognize how to utilize it in a way that balances the need for brand awareness with the respect that today’s customers expect, and that can be a difficult task when you know you could simply put your ads in millions of spots in the blink of an eye. Digital marketers have more responsibilities now than they ever have. These responsibilities have been brought on by the incredible power that today’s technology gives marketers and customers alike. Digital marketers are looking to build lasting relationships with people and establish brand trust. Doing this requires attention and patience, but ends up putting those brands ahead of the competition. As programmatic and marketing technologies continue to evolve at a staggering pace, it will be very interesting to see how the digital marketer’s role develops into the future.