The basic variables addressed in the study are: digital marketing (as an independent variable) in its dimensions (Attraction, Engagement, Retain, Learning and Relating), competitive advantage (as a dependent variable), and quality of banking service (as an intermediary variable).

Employees working in all branches of Al-Rafidain Bank in Babil Governorate—Iraq.

Branches of Al-Rasheed Bank in Babil Governorate—Iraq.

From June to August/2024.

A company’s plan outlining how it will use online channels—social media, for the most part—to accomplish its marketing objectives is called a digital marketing strategy. Which channels will be utilized and how much money will need to be invested in them must be decided in the plan ( Ngwa, 2021 ). Digital marketing strategies can take many forms, such as: social media campaigns, search engine optimization, email and video marketing, website and blogs, pay-per-click advertising, voice search optimization, content marketing strategy, and so on ( Craig, 2021 ).

Social media refers to the use of mobile and online technologies to create interactive discourse out of communication ( Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010 ). The goal of social media marketing is to increase brand awareness. Campaigns in this area can be run on a variety of social media platforms or the ones that the target demographic utilizes most frequently. Social media marketing is thought to be the most successful digital marketing tactic because so many people spend their time on it. social media, particularly among millennials ( Craig, 2021 ).

Companies are using social media marketing (SMM), a current trend in which they employ tools and tactics to communicate with customers, to reach a bigger audience with their marketing endeavors ( Paquette, 2013 ). Social media platforms are utilized by businesses as marketing tools in an effort to reach a wider audience and enhance brand awareness ( McCann and Barlow, 2015 ). Customers may use social media to learn how the business stands out from rivals, and when the time comes for them to place an order or make a purchase, the information available online will assist them in making that choice. Additionally, influencers can aid in the promotion of a business’s goods and services because they frequently succeed in recommending goods and services to the target audience ( Alan, 2018 ).

The term “search engine optimization” (SEO) describes a group of techniques used to persuade search engines that your website is worthy of being listed first for keywords associated with your products or services ( Soniya and Santhosh, 2018 ). The process of building your website to rank well for business-related keywords and phrases in search engine results is known as search engine optimization, the higher the keywords rank, the more people will view your website and become aware of your company, this marketing technique aims to increase website traffic by drawing in customers who are primarily looking for the products or services that the business offers ( Alan, 2018 ). The process of making a website rank higher in search results is known as search engine optimization. Making sure the website yields the intended outcome is necessary to improve the business ranking of the organization. The algorithm makes use of specific keywords to guarantee the business’s listing in the top search engines ( Barquin and Hv, 2015 ).

According to ( Malhotra, 2017 ), this is the process by which a company’s website is ranked in search results through organic search results, which are determined by website traffic, keywords, and search queries. According to certain research, a high search engine optimization score can improve the caliber of search engine results and, consequently, the number of visitors that are satisfied (Berman and Katona, 2013 ). Additional research has also demonstrated that search engine optimization significantly and favorably influences the degree of competitive advantage by enhancing the user experience ( Ahmed et al., 2013 ).

One of the fresh and creative methods for enabling interactive marketing is email ( Jacqueline et al., 2016 ). Email marketing is the practice of sending promotional materials to people who have specifically requested them ( Arnold, 2011 ). It entails providing current and potential consumers with product information via email ( Adejoke & Adekemi, 2012 ).

Furthermore, an email marketing strategy tries to always be ahead of the curve in terms of what interest’s customers and to provide them with industry and personalized content, with a focus on preservation. It also focuses on bringing in new business and keeping hold of current ones, as well as increasing brand awareness and encouraging repeat purchases ( Alan, 2018 ). It is the most widely used and affordable form of communication for a vast majority of people, and it can be customized precisely for each recipient ( El-Gohary, 2011 ).

Blogs are online diaries that enable writers to share their thoughts and experiences in a certain field, maintain documentation, and communicate with readers through comments ( Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010 ). It can be based on audio, image, text or video ( Vickery and Wunsch-Vincent, 2007 ). Another type of blogging that is similar in functionality is called microblogging, or micro-blogs. However, the content of these blogs is mainly text-based and is restricted to a specific character count ( O’connor, 2008 ). Research indicates that the correlation between blogs and websites has a moderate impact on competitive advantage ( Muniroh et al., 2023 ).

Digital marketing is helpful in utilizing digital platforms, the Internet, and social media to create marketing strategies through exchanges and communications to draw in new clients Thus, the general view among researchers is that digital marketing focuses on five primary success aspects and the development of a new marketing model for social media and Internet environments. These dimensions are attraction, engagement communication, learning, and retention. As depicted in Figure 2 ( Parsons et al., 1998 ).

Customers engage with interactive applications and websites linked to the brand by offering services that live up to their expectations and building a foundation to draw them in, this keeps the brand fresh in consumers’ minds and ensures that advertising windows and associated links receive attention ( Simmons, 2007 ). Digital marketing, in contrast to traditional and direct marketing, depends on users willingly increasing the number of interactive applications—like websites—on the Internet in addition to subscribers or website visitors, by meeting their clients’ first needs for the service offered by the business, marketers might draw in new business, this is accomplished by means of linked links, advertising windows, and on-site advertisements ( Chan and Guillet, 2011 ).

The attraction process has two main components, the first is the brand when using and correcting applications, as the process combines digital marketing (DM) and the marketing mix, which requires the brand to develop an interactive application for the service it is promoting ( Parsons et al., 1998 ). The second component pertains to the economics of consumer attraction, as it involves costly digital applications, and aims to lower the cost of customer acquisition. Certain businesses employ diverse strategies to draw in clients, such as collaborating with nonprofit organizations, offering customer loyalty initiatives, or creating eco-friendly merchandise ( Chan and Guillet, 2011 ).

Once consumers are attracted to the digital marketing platform, marketers must arouse their interest and encourage engagement in order to facilitate communication with the service, this is achieved by creating highly advanced applications or highly precise models that arouse the interest of the consumer and encourage engagement with these influencers ( Dovaliene et al., 2015 ).

According to ( Hub, 2021 ), delivering valuable content to customers and developing creative programming skills for interactive media (form) are the two essential components that make up the secret to customer engagement. Consequently, certain businesses endeavor to foster customer interaction by encouraging them to communicate with one another and form a virtual community of people who share an interest in the same marketing service; on the other hand, they focus on customers interacting with them to offer recommendations or develop the digital program that delivers the service ( Chong et al., 2010a , 2010b ). There exist alternative strategies to guarantee client involvement, such offering a user-friendly webpage with a substantial.

The importance of repeat visits by customers to the service provider’s website increases as they start engaging with relevant content and staying in touch with them over time, as building relationships and staying in touch with customers is even more important once they enter the site ( Omar et al., 2012 ). User retention highlights the need for marketers to comprehend that, as opposed to being a one-time undertaking, digital marketing requires consistent resource commitments over time ( Parsons et al., 1998 ).

The majority of studies show that customers won’t return to a website unless there is a compelling reason to do so, so marketers need to focus on the process of regularly updating the content that is made available to them or offering dynamic, ever-changing content, this will eventually give customers the option to purchase a good or service for less money (which is the most effective way to keep customers), or to introduce deals that will benefit them ( Ghiselli and Ma, 2015 ). Businesses may also occasionally hold competitions for their patrons, send out announcements about events happening there, or take part in festivals to give the impression that they are providing everything the customer could possibly need to retain him ( Chan and Guillet, 2011 ).

The utilization of learning and development resources in banks is regarded as one of the most significant sources of digital marketing, since the application is no longer restricted to training materials. It is now possible to take advantage of distance learning by offering courses through platforms for training and education, which makes the trend globally accepted and enables employees and customers to see, learn from, and interact with the internal and external worlds in a professional manner ( Atshaya and Sristy, 2016 ).

Social media has made it possible for marketers to gain more insight into the views, behaviors, and demographics of their clientele, emails to advertisers containing this information may be sent, and surveys on consumer opinions are posted on billboards and digital screens ( Omar et al., 2012 ). Regarding behavioral data, it can be retrieved from client records stored in computerized electronic files or by using the computer to capture mouse clicks, all of this aids in monitoring consumer behavior and then identifies the data that will best help improve digital marketing ( Parsons et al., 1998 ).

Relating is one of the most significant chances for adding value in digital marketing; it is, in essence, the chance to tailor the product or marketing campaign to each individual customer and personalize the contact ( Parsons et al., 1998 ).

Social media offers a unique chance to have two-way conversations and distribution with customers. Most businesses aim to post information about their activities on social media and blogs and maintain constant contact with their clients by organizing engaging activities and subjects that prompt them to share their experiences using the company’s services along with some basic details about it, or by posting a bulletin about the most recent events the business is hosting to keep clients informed ( Henderson et al., 2014 ).

According to ( Ghiselli and Ma, 2015 ), interacting with customers offers a chance to add value to digital marketing (DM) by facilitating interactions between the services rendered and reducing the time and effort required for multiple customers to market simultaneously, either singly or collectively. Additionally, customers can learn how to overcome obstacles they may encounter or how to take advantage of upcoming opportunities. As a result, marketers should constantly be thinking of new methods to incorporate social media into their offerings to the fullest extent possible ( Dorman and Daoud, 2021 ).

In this dimension, the company concentrates on cutting down on time so that it can create new items or alter existing ones’ designs in response to consumer demands as quickly as feasible, three factors are taken into account by the organization: delivery speed, delivery on time, and development speed ( Assaf, 2015 ). It is the entire amount of time needed to carry out the task from beginning to end, so businesses may consider this when vying for customers ( Hayes et al., 1988 ). It is also a measure of companies’ commitment to delivery schedules agreed upon with customers, as the speed of product development also refers to the time factor, which is the period of time between generating the product idea until achieving the final design or production ( Evans, 1993 ).

When businesses aim to shorten the time between receiving and accepting orders from customers and providing them with goods or services, delivery time can create a competitive advantage. In other words, lead time can give businesses a competitive edge when they strive to reduce the amount of time it takes to receive and accept orders from clients and deliver goods or services ( Stonebrake and Leong, 1994 ).

Cost is a vital feature since most organizations analyze cost components to rationalize them and help determine competitive prices in an effort to obtain the lowest cost relative to their rivals ( Bin Dida and Boucheqifa, 2021 ). There are three types of costs associated with quality: failure costs, evaluation costs, and preventative costs ( Juran, 2004 ).

“Fitness for use” is how ( Juran, 2004 ) defined quality, where the client determines what is fitness. Two aspects contribute to quality: the first is design quality, which is essentially function-driven design ( Adam and Elbert, 1996 ). The second is conformance quality or the capacity of the organization to convert inputs into outputs that are compatible ( Hill, 1993 ). Accordingly, a quality-focused approach will help the organization’s profitability and competitive advantage ( Abou-Moghli et al., 2012 ).

Consequently, when a company produces goods or services of a high caliber, this raises the value of those goods and services in the eyes of the company’s clients. This gives the company the leverage to set a fair price and create its own competitive advantage, since every client wants high-quality products, and companies want to satisfy their needs by offering goods and services that live up to their expectations ( Boubah, 2021 ).

The capacity to adapt to changes is known as flexibility ( Forster, 2006 ). This refers to the ability to adjust output to changes in the environment or market demands ( Evans, 1993 ). For a business to have a competitive advantage, flexibility is a crucial component. It illustrates how quickly the company responds to client requests by creating products that meet their needs ( Obeidat et al., 2021 ).

According to ( Grönroos, 2001 ), there are two aspects of the quality of banking services, which are as follows:

It emphasizes the parts of financial services that are quantitative, when it comes to ATMs, the precision, speed, and lack of malfunctions of the device serve as indicators of the technological quality of this service.

When making a bank deposit, a customer’s desired quality is reflected in the manner in which service providers behave, present themselves, and interact with one another.

The Cronbach test was used to assess the reliability and validity of the questionnaire used in the study, both for the individual study variable paragraphs and for the entire questionnaire. According to the Cronbach test, all values are approved because they are more than 0.6 ( Mohajan, 2017 ). As shown by the results shown in Table 1 .

The demographic characteristics of the research sample, which consisted of (55) people, are displayed in Table 2 below:

**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). *. Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).

The findings of the correlation study between brand loyalty and personality are shown in Table 3 above, and they clearly show that:

First hypothesis (H1)

1) The correlation coefficient (0.752) and the probability value (Sig. = 0.000) are less than the significance level (0.05), which indicates that the two variables (digital marketing variable and quality of banking service) have a significant positive association.

2) The findings of the basic linear regression analysis between (the digital marketing variable and the banking service quality variable) show that the linear regression accounts for 56.5% of the changes in the banking service quality variable, with the remaining 43.5% potentially coming from the influence of other variables not included in this analysis. The value of R² = 0.565 indicates this.

Based on the above, it is clear that there is an impact of digital marketing on the quality of banking services. This indicates the acceptance of the proposed hypothesis that states: “There is a significant impact of digital marketing on the quality of banking services in Rafidain Bank—Iraq at a significance level of (0.05)”.

Second hypothesis (H2)

1) There is a substantial positive association between the two variables (digital marketing and competitive advantage) according to the probability value (Sig. = 0.02), which is less than the significance level (0.05). Furthermore evident is the correlation coefficient value, which equals (0.813).

2) By means of the basic linear regression analysis’s findings It is evident from the value of R² = 0.660 between the two variables discussed above that the linear regression accounts for 66% of the changes in competitive advantage, with the remaining 34% potentially coming from the contribution of other variables not looked at in this study.

Based on the above, it is clear that there is an impact of digital marketing on the competitive advantage. This indicates the acceptance of the proposed hypothesis that states: “There is a significant impact of digital marketing in achieving competitive advantage in Rafidain Bank—Iraq at the sig. level of 0.05”.

Third hypothesis (H2a)

1) There is a strong positive association between the two variables (attractiveness and competitive advantage), as it turns out that the probability value (Sig. = 0.017) is less than the significance level (0.05), and the correlation coefficient is equal to (0.721).

2) By means of the basic linear regression analysis’s findings It is evident from the value of R² = 0.519 between the two variables discussed above that the linear regression accounts for 51.9% of the changes in competitive advantage, with the remaining 48.1% potentially coming from the contribution of other variables not looked at in this study.

Based on the above, it is clear that there is an impact of attraction on the competitive advantage. This indicates the acceptance of the proposed hypothesis that states: “There is a significant impact of digital marketing based on attraction in achieving competitive advantage in Rafidain Bank—Iraq at the sig. level of 0.05”.

Fourth hypothesis (H2b)

1) There is a weak negative correlation between the two variables (engagement and competitive advantage), which is indicated by the probability value (Sig. = 0.363) being greater than the significance level (0.05), and the correlation coefficient being (0.125).

2) The findings of the basic linear regression analysis between the two variables discussed above demonstrate that the linear regression accounts for 1.5% of the changes in the competitive advantage variable, with the remaining 98.5 percent potentially attributable to the influence of other variables not included in this analysis. This is indicated by the value of R² = 0.015.

Based on the above, it is clear that there is no effect of engagement in achieving competitive advantage, which indicates (non-acceptance) of the proposed hypothesis, which states: “There is a significant impact of digital marketing based on engagement in achieving competitive advantage in Rafidain Bank—Iraq at the sig. level of 0.05.

Fifth hypothesis (H2c)

1) There is a strong positive correlation between the two variables (retention variable and competitive advantage variable), and this is indicated by the probability value (Sig. = 0.029) less than the significance level (0.05), and the correlation coefficient is (0.795).

2) By means of the basic linear regression analysis’s findings The value of R² = 0.632 between the two variables mentioned above makes it evident that the linear regression accounts for 63.2% of the changes in competitive advantage, with the remaining 38.8% potentially coming from the contribution of other variables not looked at in this study.

Based on the above, it is clear that there is an impact of retain on the competitive advantage. This indicates the acceptance of the proposed hypothesis that states: “There is a significant impact of digital marketing based on retain in achieving competitive advantage in Rafidain Bank—Iraq at the sig. level of 0.05”.

Sixth hypothesis (H2d)

1) There is a strong positive connection between the two variables (learning and competitive advantage) based on the probability value (Sig. = 0.040) being smaller than the significance level (0.05). The correlation value is 0.777.

2) By means of the basic linear regression analysis’s findings It is evident from the value of R² = 0.603 between the two variables discussed above that 60.3% of the changes in competitive advantage can be explained by linear regression, with the remaining 37.7% potentially coming from the contribution of other variables not looked at in this study.

Based on the above, it is clear that there is an impact of learning on the competitive advantage, this indicates the acceptance of the proposed hypothesis that states: “There is a significant impact of digital marketing based on learning in achieving competitive advantage in Rafidain Bank—Iraq at the sig. level of 0.05”.

Seventh hypothesis (H2e):

1) The two variables (relating and competitive advantage) have a significant positive correlation, as indicated by the probability value (Sig. = 0.002) being smaller than the significance level (0.05), and the correlation coefficient is equal to (0.797).

2) By means of the basic linear regression analysis’s findings, the relationship between the relating variable and the competitive advantage variable is evident in the value of R² = 0.635, which suggests that 63.5 percent of the changes in the competitive advantage are explained by linear regression, with the remaining 36.5% potentially coming from the contribution of other variables not looked at in this study.

Based on the above, it is clear that there is an impact of relating on the competitive advantage. This indicates the acceptance of the proposed hypothesis that states: “There is a significant impact of digital marketing based on relating in achieving competitive advantage in Rafidain Bank—Iraq at the sig. level of 0.05”.

Eighth hypothesis (H3)

1) The “quality of banking services and competitive advantage” have a strong positive link, as indicated by the probability value (Sig. = 0.000) being smaller than the significance threshold (0.05) and correlation coefficient (0.842).

2) By means of the basic linear regression analysis’s findings The value of R² = 0.708 between the two variables mentioned above makes it evident that the linear regression accounts for 70.8% of the changes in competitive advantage, with the remaining 29.2% possibly coming from the contribution of other variables not looked at in this study.

Based on the above, it is clear that there is an impact of quality of banking services on the competitive advantage. This indicates the acceptance of the proposed hypothesis that states: “There is a significant impact of the quality of banking services in achieving competitive advantage in Rafidain Bank—Iraq at the sig. level of 0.05”.