Challenges for a Digital Marketing Career in Pakistan

Challenges For a Digital Marketing Career in Pakistan

With the dawn of the 21st century, the world became a global village. And with that, the importance of the digital market industry has also increased. The business started growing even more. Digital marketing is a component of marketing that utilizes the internet. The huge development in the digital business, from the 1990s onwards, changed how brands and businesses utilize technology for promotion. With the rising demand for this industry, the world’s top-notch institutions from throughout the world started changing their program.

They began offering different degrees applicable to the digital advertising industry. Companies, to mitigate the fluctuations in the digital world, started hiring these digital marketplace pros. But developing countries like Pakistan still have a whole lot to do in this field. The youth who wishes to go for a career in electronic marketing is facing numerous challenges. This paper talks about those struggles, alongside their own solutions.

The different types of job that can be done in the digital marketing industry are as follow:

● SMO
● SEO
● Blogging
● Content writing
● Web development
● Web design
● Market research.

In Pakistan, many students, after the completion of high school (Cambridge A-level, FSc), want to pursue their career in digital marketing. But it is almost impossible to do because of the present digital market career situation in Pakistan. The challenges in this industry are as follow:

Challenges (relate to institutions)

No professional degree is offered:

If you want to pursue your career in the digital market industry, the most you can do is to enroll on a 5-month course or diploma. No university, in Pakistan, is offering a 4-year degree. There are some institutions with are offering digital market as a minor, but if you want to opt-in as a major you might not foresee your future in Pakistan

Challenges (related to career and work sector)

• Dos and Don’ts aren’t defined
  As this industry is relatively new, things are not formally defined. The newbies struggle to figure out the ‘do’s and don’t in this industry.
• Difficult to find a mentor
  Due to the lack of education in this particular industry, the newbies find it very hard to find a mentor. So, they have to experiment a lot, which further increases their chances of failure. They also take more than average time to learn the skill. So  it gets challenging for someone who wants to join this field passionately.
• Communication Skills/Written and spoken English.
  If you want to join this industry, not only do you have to work on your digital marketing skills, but you also have to master communication skills. You often have to deal with clients who don’t speak your native language. There will always remain a communication barrier if you both won’t be able to understand each other completely. And a little misunderstanding can jeopardize your career. So mastering these particular skills is a must!
• They (Digital marketers) have to create constant content. Or else the audience may go away.
  This is also one of the biggest challenges in a digital marketing career. If you are working for a digital market company, and you are handling their social media, you have a big responsibility. You constantly have to create new and unique content. You have to engage the audience. You have to be trendy about your posts. You have to create polls on Instagram to connect to your audience.
• If you fail to do so, you might lose the audience.A friend of mine started an Instagram photography page. He used to post pictures thrice a week and was able to gain 60-70 likes on each post. But then he took a break for 2 months and on coming back he started again but this time he was only able to gain 20-30 likes on each post. So, if you get inconsistent about the content you post, you might not be able to engage a larger audience and even lose a major chunk of your target audience. Likewise you, as a digital marketer, have come up with innovative ideas regarding your content.

Challenges (related to payments)
Online payment systems in Pakistan are not as effective as in other countries. The key player in online payment is “Paypal”. Paypal operates in more than 190 countries but doesn’t operate in Pakistan. Former Finance Minister, Asad Umer, Asad Umar committed to bringing PayPal to Pakistan, but could not succeed.

Challenges (related to clients)

High Expectations of clients

To deal with the high expectations of the client. Clients who have little knowledge about this industry, expect that their sales will grow as soon as they sign a contract with a digital marketing company or a digital marketing freelancer. But in reality, to make the campaign successful, the digital marketer has to go through several processes. Some of these processes are as follows:

• Primary Research
• Secondary research
• Psychographic Analysis
• Market research
• Audience research
• Strategic planning

When the company goes through these processes, only then can a company launch a campaign.

When the client does not get overnight results, he starts blaming the company resulting in negative publicity for the company. There is one problem in dealing with the client, the representative of the company finds it difficult to convince the client to invest even more money to increase the traffic and engagement and make the campaign successful.

Digital marketing in Pakistan is rapidly changing with new challenges that are mostly caused by business culture, poor infrastructure, and limitations from platform. If you know these challenges early on, then you can make a career that will still be working and making profits in 2024–2025.

1. The “Seth” Mindset & Unrealistic Business Expectations

The most difficult challenge in local market is probably the mindset of traditional business owners which is usually called “Seth culture.” Most local clients consider digital marketing as a kind of magic that instantly solves their problem.

The Problem

Clients often believe that PKR 10,000 spent on Facebook or Google ads can immediately yield PKR 100,000 in sales, so they get quite disappointed if the result is not that. Terms such as brand awareness, customer journey, and sales funnels are alien to them marketing, in fact, is considered as a cost where few realize it is an investment to scale their business.

The Reality

Quite a big part of the time allocated for the work is spent on client education instead of running their campaigns. If you can’t explain in simple Urdu or English what ROI (Return on Investment) is, clients will not stick to you very much. Marketers who are successful figure out how to change the words data, metrics, and long-term value into language business owners understand.

2. Market Saturation and the Price War Problem

Since 2023, there has been a huge influx of freelancers as well as so-called digital marketing agencies in Pakistan.

The Problem

By way of free YouTube tutorials and short courses, many people declare themselves “Digital Marketing Experts” after very little getting trained. This has resulted in pushing prices for services lower. For example, social media management is offered as low as PKR 15,000 per month making it hard for well-skilled persons to charge their clients properly.

The Reality

Generalists are in deep trouble. You cannot be just a generalist anymore — you have to be specialized. Instead of saying:
“I am doing digital marketing”
Say: “I help real estate agents in Islamabad generate qualified leads using Facebook Ads.”

Niche markets give you the freedom to charge higher rates, lesser competition, and fast authority building.

3. The Payment Gateway Blockade

This is probably the most annoying of the realities for the freelancers and agencies in Pakistan.

The Problem

Big global payment systems like PayPal and Stripe are still not available in Pakistan. Though some alternatives like Payoneer, Wise, SadaPay, and NayaPay are there, international payments and ad spend management are still quite complicated.

The Reality

Being financially literate should be a must-have skill for you at the beginning of your career. Among others, losses due to exchange rates, transaction fees, and government taxes on foreign transactions (especially Facebook and Google Ads) may take away a big part of your profit margin. Wise marketers are including these costs in their prices instead of taking the losses silently.

4. The Theory vs. Practical Skills Gap

The gap between academic teaching and real-life digital marketing needs is widening in Pakistan.

The Problem

Most universities still teach the outdated model of 4 Ps of Marketing, while the industry requires practical skills such as:

• Google Analytics 4 (GA4)
• Meta Pixel and Conversion API
• Server-side tracking
• Performance marketing dashboards
• AI tools and prompt engineering

The Reality

Degrees matter less when you have a strong portfolio. Agencies tend to value more a person who has done the paid campaigns optimization and management than an MBA graduate who never opened Meta Business Manager. Practical execution is the new qualification.

5. Load Shedding and Internet Instability

Though 4G and fiber internet coverage has improved, infrastructure problems still lower the productivity of many cities.

The Problem

Power cuts and weak internet connections can seriously make client meetings, campaign monitoring, and deadlines suffer — especially freelancers who work with international clients.

The Reality

Backups are not optional; they are business necessities. A very dependable setting should have:

• A laptop with good battery life
• A secondary 4G device (Zong or Jazz)
• A UPS or inverter for power backup

Working from home without these becomes very unreliable and stressful.

Digital Marketing Career Progression in Pakistan

In Pakistan, there are a number of digital marketing institutes.

Locally a new sub-stream of marketing has risen within the corporate environment, which is also visible in the digital marketing curriculum in Pakistan. Even though digital marketing has been recognized as a vital component of global trade for some time now, the Pakistani market is still catching up with this new field.

Because of this, digital marketing is a very good option for professionals (marketing or otherwise) who are interested in the amazing world of digital marketing and its application for business promotion in the current technologically advanced environment. Consequently, the last of the digital marketing institutes in Pakistan, either in Karachi or Lahore, is talked about here

Karachi has a number of Digital Marketing Institutes.

• Online Marketing Institute in Karachi – Digital Minds –
• Eureka Digital Marketing Academy is a digital marketing school in Eureka, California.
• Institute for digital marketing education and training
• SEO Internet Marketing Training Institute is a training facility that provides SEO internet marketing training.
• Courses in Digital Marketing in Karachi are available.
• AIMS offers a Digital Marketing Certificate Program.
• In Karachi, there is an SEO training institute.
• Omni Academy is a private educational institution.
• SEO Training in Karachi | Freelance Search Engine Optimization Expert
• IDMPakistan
• DigiDoze
• Website Development Company in Karachi | Digital Marketing Agency
• If you like you can also read Digital Marketing for dummies here

You can also read about Getsocialguide is Pakistan’s SEO Game Changer

Summary

In 2024–2025 the local market will be a very competitive place for digital marketers in Pakistan. Only specialists who continuously educate their clients and have hands-on skills will survive in the long run. They depend less on the position held or the degree earned but more on the actual results, flexibility, and being in good communication with the client. Those who get it right from the start are way ahead of the competition.

Post Written by Muhammad Saad