Rogers (1962) developed the DOI theory to explain how innovations – ideas, technologies or products – propagate through social systems over time. Rogers (1962) conceptualises this as communication of innovations through specific channels among social system members. An innovation represents any idea, process, or technology perceived as novel by potential adopters within a given context (Rogers 1962). Rogers (2003) identifies four elements driving diffusion: innovation (novel ideas, technologies or processes perceived as new), communication channels (mechanisms like digital media and word-of-mouth, through which innovation information spreads), time (reflected in S-curve adoption patterns) and social system (networks of individuals and organisations, whose interactions influence adoption decisions). Valente (1996) emphasises the roles of communication channels, while Mahajan, Muller and Bass (1990) document temporal S-curve patterns. Rogers (2003) highlights social system dynamics. Research demonstrates that innovations achieve higher adoption rates when effectively communicated, appropriately timed, compatible with social contexts, aligned with existing values, and addressing specific adopter needs (Moore & Benbasat 1991).

The theory categorises adopters as innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority and laggards (Rogers 1962; Stone 2023). Rogers (2003) identifies five innovation attributes influencing adoption: relative advantage (perceived superiority over existing solutions), compatibility (fit with organisational processes and knowledge), complexity (implementation difficulty), trialability (ability to experiment before full commitment) and observability (visibility of benefits). These attributes particularly apply to businesses transitioning from physical to digital operations, in which adoption decisions depend on perceived benefits and system compatibility.

Diffusion of innovation applications spans strategic management, public health, marketing, healthcare, communications, economics, technology and entrepreneurship. Stone (2023) demonstrates how businesses apply DOI to understand consumer adoption of new products or technologies, particularly when launching offerings or entering markets. In South Africa, Choshin and Ghaffari (2017) found that small and medium enterprises applied DOI when adopting digital marketing and e-commerce platforms to enhance supply chain operations.

Despite widespread applicability, DOI faces criticism. Lyytinen and Damsgaard (2001) challenge linear adoption assumptions, noting real-world complexity and non-linearity. Dwivedi et al. (2020) observe that rapid technological change – particularly evident during COVID-19 – causes organisations to bypass traditional stages. Wejnert (2002) critiques the DOI’s focus on successful adoption while neglecting failure analysis. Straub (2009) acknowledges the model’s utility but highlights how cultural, economic and regulatory factors alter predicted diffusion patterns. However, DOI remains valuable for analysing MSME digital adoption in developing economies because it explains how perceived innovation attributes influence adoption decisions under resource constraints. In South African MSMEs, in which compatibility with existing systems and observable benefits critically influence technology adoption, DOI provides a relevant framework for understanding digital marketing and e-commerce integration. The theory’s emphasis on relative advantage and observability particularly resonates with MSMEs seeking evidence-based justification for digital investments. Thus, despite limitations, DOI offers a robust theoretical foundation for examining how digital marketing and e-commerce supply chain integration enhance customer experience and marketing performance.

Digital marketing represents a paradigm shift from traditional brick-and-mortar approaches, fundamentally altering how businesses create, communicate and deliver value to customers. Chaffey and Ellis-Chadwick (2019) define digital marketing as ‘achieving marketing objectives through applying digital technologies and media’, while Kannan and Li (2017) conceptualise it as ‘an adaptive, technology-enabled process by which firms collaborate with customers and partners to jointly create, communicate, deliver and sustain value for all stakeholders’. These definitions emphasise digital marketing’s core components: technological infrastructure, customer-centric engagement, multi-channel integration and value co-creation. For MSMEs, digital marketing represents not merely a promotional tool but also a strategic capability enabling market access, customer relationship management and competitive differentiation in digitally mediated marketplaces.

Forrester (2023) demonstrates that digital automated models attract and retain customers at one-tenth of the cost of traditional methods. Through platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, X, Snapchat and Instagram, digital marketing has captured customer attention, increased brand visibility and enhanced engagement. Businesses leverage websites and sophisticated online tactics to market offerings. Digital marketing enables targeted content delivery to specific audiences, potentially increasing sales and revenue (Baltezarevic 2023). Businesses utilise diverse digital platforms – SEO, content marketing, social media marketing, email marketing, mobile marketing, marketing analytics and interactive web experiences – to promote offerings to broad online audiences (Baltezarevic 2023; Kwarteng-Amaniampong 2024).

Digital marketing strategy selection critically influences customer experience quality, with implications for satisfaction, loyalty and business performance (Lemon & Verhoef 2016). In increasingly fragmented digital landscapes, businesses must identify optimal channel combinations to deliver personalised customer experiences. Artificial intelligence’s transformative impact on digital marketing channels makes AI-enabled marketing team development a priority for chief marketing officers (Gartner Research 2023). Research demonstrates digital marketing’s role in connecting supply chains and improving marketing outcomes. Wang (2020) showed that digital marketing capabilities positively influence organisational performance. Mushi (2024) established that digital marketing adoption plays a vital role in business success. Liu and Chiu (2021) established that supply chain integration and digitalisation – encompassing digital marketing capabilities – exert significant positive effects on marketing performance within the Supply Chain 4.0 paradigm. Aravamudhan et al. (2024) revealed that digital marketing directly impacts consumer purchasing decisions and satisfaction in electronic businesses, from a supply chain perspective.

Digital marketing creates integration value through demand-driven coordination, capability amplification and personalised engagement, improving supply chain precision and customer experience while demonstrating DOI’s relative advantage and observability. For South African MSMEs, digital marketing aligns with DOI attributes – cost-effective acquisition, platform compatibility, manageable complexity, trialability and measurable outcomes – accelerating adoption despite resource constraints. These mechanisms enhance supply chain operations, customer experience and marketing performance, supporting DOI theory’s prediction that innovations with clear advantages diffuse rapidly in resource-limited contexts, forming the basis for the hypotheses on digital marketing’s positive impact. Therefore, the following hypotheses were formulated:

E-commerce enables businesses of all sizes to exploit global and domestic opportunities. Internet technology and information systems drive e-commerce’s emergence and growth (Sun 2022). This sector’s rapid expansion has transformed retail operations globally, primarily through technological developments (Rao et al. 2021). Supply chain management facilitates business operations by moving raw materials, information and funds between entities to fulfil customer orders (Pujadi et al. 2020). E-commerce growth has intensified supply chain activity. E-commerce enterprises integrate existing infrastructure with supply chain systems, eliminating intermediaries by establishing networks of organisations, resources, activities and technologies for online product or service delivery (Brown, Johnson & Wilson 2024).

E-commerce technology has enhanced traditional supply chain efficiency and flexibility, improving customer responsiveness (Brown et al. 2024). Supply network participants include manufacturers, suppliers, distributors, shipping providers and financial agents, forming integrated systems (Sun 2022), with the primary goal of enhancing customer experience and marketing performance. Small e-commerce businesses often undervalue the importance of marketing integration. Digital marketing addresses critical areas that overcome online marketing challenges related to brand visibility and capability optimisation (AlSondos et al. 2020). On integrating digital marketing with e-commerce and supply chains, businesses gain better operational control, improve customer interactions and build positive brand images. Multi-channel approaches influence purchasing decisions (Aravamudhan et al. 2024). As digital marketing channels – social media, content marketing, SEO, mobile marketing and e-commerce – proliferate, businesses increasingly recognise the importance of omnichannel fulfilment strategies.

In South Africa, MSMEs encounter distinct challenges that make e-commerce supply chain digitalisation essential. Historically, dispersed population centres and urban–rural gaps limited MSME market reach. Digital supply chains remove these geographic constraints, enabling access without costly physical expansion (Rao et al. 2021). Unstable electricity, inconsistent connectivity and logistics hurdles demand real-time visibility, adaptive routing and proactive communication during disruptions. Furthermore, limited working capital necessitates accurate demand forecasting and inventory optimisation to minimise costs while maintaining service levels (Pujadi et al. 2020). Intense competition from large retailers with omnichannel capabilities compels MSMEs to differentiate through superior customer experiences, achievable only via integrated digital systems (Brown et al. 2024).

Business owners now employ specialised processes to connect, organise and standardise workflows, enabling real-time inventory tracking and visibility. Effectively managing integrated systems helps customers enjoy uniform, uninterrupted experiences when engaging with businesses (Raunaque, Imam & Raja 2016). Research has examined the relationship among digital marketing, e-commerce supply chains and customer experience. The COVID-19 pandemic transformed MSME marketing, and Respatiningsih (2020) found that e-commerce adoption positively influenced marketing and enhanced MSME competitiveness. Nowicka (2020) identified how digital innovation revolutionises entire customer journeys by affecting interactions not only with individual businesses but also with entire supply chain networks comprising multiple independent businesses. Digital innovation adoption within supply chains demonstrates observability on linking this to DOI theory – as successful early adopters showcase benefits, network effects accelerate diffusion across the supply ecosystem. Ippolitova et al. (2024) discovered that implementing digital marketing strategies reduces supply chain costs. Toni, Goh and Edward (2025) reveal that digital marketing plays a crucial role in promoting supply chain sustainability and enhancing MSMEs’ financial and marketing performance. Holloway (2024) concluded that integrating customer feedback into service improvements and building collaborative supplier relationships significantly enhances the customer experience in e-commerce supply chains.

South African MSMEs must digitalise supply chains to overcome geographic fragmentation, infrastructure unreliability, resource constraints and competitive pressure from omnichannel retailers. Digitalisation delivers value through operational reliability, responsive adaptation and cost efficiency – improving delivery accuracy, proactive exception management and inventory optimisation. These benefits demonstrate DOI attributes: relative advantage, compatibility and observability via measurable service improvements like tracking and order accuracy. For resource-constrained MSMEs, these observable outcomes justify adoption, supporting DOI theory’s prediction that innovations with clear advantages diffuse rapidly in challenging contexts. Hence, the following hypotheses were formulated:

Customer experience has evolved from a transactional concept to a holistic construct encompassing multiple dimensions of customer-firm interaction. Early conceptualisations emphasised physical and emotional touchpoints throughout the value chain (Mascarenhas, Kesavan & Bernacchi 2006), which subsequent research expanded to include sensory, cognitive, behavioural and relational dimensions (Gentile, Spiller & Noci 2007). Contemporary scholarship defines customer experience as customers’ cognitive and affective evaluation of all direct and indirect encounters with a firm throughout the purchase journey (Klaus & Maklan 2013; Lemon & Verhoef 2016). This multi-dimensional view recognises that customer experience encompasses not only product and service interactions but also brand-related touchpoints across multiple channels and over time (Brakus, Schmitt & Zarantonello 2009).

Customer experience serves as a critical driver of behavioural and performance outcomes in contemporary marketing. The construct directly influences customers’ commitment and engagement behaviours towards organisations and their offerings (Roy, Gruner & Guo 2022), with these behavioural responses functioning as crucial mediating elements throughout the customer journey, which address increasing complexity and support improved marketing performance (Lemon & Verhoef 2016). This interconnection between experience quality and behavioural outcomes underscores why customer-centric businesses must elevate customer experience to strategic priority status. Effective customer experience management demands a substantial strategic commitment. Organisations must allocate resources to thoroughly analyse diverse customer segment needs – occasionally at individual levels – to enable the personalised service delivery that drives superior experiences (Nuseir et al. 2023). This investment yields significant returns across multiple performance dimensions. Empirical evidence demonstrates that positive customer experiences enhance loyalty (Urdea & Constantin 2021), strengthen brand promise fulfilment and perceived brand authenticity (Ścibor-Rylski, Reducha Ochremiak 2019), and improve both marketing and financial performance through competitive differentiation (Grønholdt et al. 2014). Collectively, these findings establish customer experience as both a strategic imperative and a performance catalyst. For resource-constrained MSMEs, superior customer experience represents a viable differentiation strategy that leverages operational excellence and relationship quality rather than requiring substantial capital investments. The challenge lies in identifying the operational capabilities – particularly digital marketing and supply chain digitalisation, which enable MSMEs to deliver experiences comparable to those of larger competitors while operating under resource constraints.

Customer experience is the key mechanism translating digital capabilities into marketing performance through retention, word-of-mouth amplification, premium positioning and lifetime value gains. While digital systems remain invisible, improved experiences provide tangible proof of innovation benefits. From a DOI perspective, experience serves as the primary observability factor – customers directly perceive faster responses, accurate deliveries and personalised communication. For South African MSMEs, these observable improvements validate technology investments and accelerate adoption through demonstrated performance rather than theoretical promises. Therefore, the following hypothesis was formulated:

Respatiningsih (2020) conceptualises marketing performance as an achievement assessment resulting from comprehensive marketing strategy implementation. This encompasses reviewing collective marketing strategy effects on reaching sales targets, enhancing brand reputation, engaging customers and earning returns on investments. A marketing strategy succeeds only if it increases both customer brand perception and customer experience (Dąbrowska & Janoś-Kresło 2019). Providing effective customer support enables businesses to deliver optimal experiences (Sheth, Jain & Aambika 2023). Businesses must establish regular performance data reviews to maintain competitiveness and high market performance (Abubakar & Chille 2023).

Digital marketing has enhanced business–customer interactions and experiences, enabling businesses to design and execute effective digital marketing strategies that provide advantages and improve marketing results (Wang 2020). Using these methods, businesses can create strong content, improve online findability, engage audiences and streamline customer purchasing processes (Zahara et al. 2023). When digital marketing integrates with e-commerce supply chains, it provides a better customer experience, enables rapid market response, introduces innovative products and services, and builds distinctive qualities that improve marketing performance.

From a DOI perspective, successful digital marketing and e-commerce integration represent a complex innovation requiring significant relative advantage to justify adoption. From the perspective of South African MSMEs, marketing performance improvements serve as observable outcomes that validate innovation adoption decisions, potentially accelerating diffusion among peer organisations. Therefore, understanding how digital marketing integration affects marketing performance illuminates DOI mechanisms in the context of a developing economy.

The conceptual model in Figure 1 was developed, drawing upon the literature review.

This study advances the digital marketing adoption literature through three significant contributions. Firstly, the study provides empirical evidence for the interconnected relationships between digital marketing and e-commerce supply chain operations – an integration frequently acknowledged but rarely empirically examined, particularly in developing economies (Awan et al. 2021). Unlike previous studies examining these phenomena separately, this research demonstrates the interactive effects of digital marketing and e-commerce supply chain operations, revealing that integration produces outcomes exceeding isolated implementation – a finding with critical implications for resource-constrained MSMEs. The study bridges digital marketing and supply chain management theories, offering a comprehensive framework explicating their interaction within e-commerce environments. As Verhoef et al. (2021) observe, digital marketing research has typically developed independently from supply chain literature despite growing practical interconnection. This study addresses that gap by demonstrating how digital marketing integration with supply chain operations creates synergistic effects, amplifying customer experience and marketing performance.

Secondly, this study extends DOI theory by elucidating how its core attributes – relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, trialability and observability – manifest specifically in MSME digital adoption contexts within developing economies. Previous DOI applications have primarily focused on single-technology adoption in developed market contexts. This research advances theoretical understanding by demonstrating that: relative advantage in resource-constrained contexts manifests not merely through cost savings but also through capability enhancement enabling competitive parity with larger firms; compatibility becomes particularly critical in developing economies in which technological infrastructure and digital literacy vary substantially, making seamless integration essential for adoption success; observability operates as the primary diffusion accelerator in MSME networks – observable performance improvements, customer experience enhancements and marketing outcomes validate adoption decisions and encourage peer adoption; and innovation adoption in developing economies follows non-linear patterns influenced by network effects, in which early adopters’ observable success creates demonstration effects accelerating broader market transformation.

These theoretical contributions explain why digital transformation in MSMEs in a developing economy requires holistic integration strategies rather than piecemeal technology adoption. The findings suggest that DOI theory, when applied to complex innovation bundles rather than discrete technologies, provides robust explanatory power for understanding digital transformation in resource-constrained contexts.

This study offers critical practical insights for South African MSMEs, policymakers and digital platform providers. The findings demonstrate that successful digital transformation requires strategic integration rather than isolated technology adoption. Micro, small and medium enterprises should first prioritise the integration touchpoints with the highest customer impact rather than deploying digital marketing and e-commerce systems independently. Micro, small and medium enterprises should identify critical customer journey moments in which integrated systems deliver maximum experiential value – for example, linking marketing communication with real-time inventory visibility to prevent overselling, or synchronising promotional campaigns with supply chain capacity to ensure fulfilment reliability. Provision of integration-focused training programmes teaching MSMEs how to strategically connect digital marketing, e-commerce and supply chain systems rather than operating them as discrete tools, thereby maximizing synergistic benefits and enhancing overall business performance.

Micro, small and medium enterprises should leverage observability to accelerate adoption, as the results demonstrate that digital marketing and e-commerce integration produce observable outcomes – improved customer satisfaction, enhanced operational efficiency and increased sales – that validate investment decisions. Hence, MSMEs should systematically track and communicate these observable benefits to stakeholders (employees, suppliers and partners), creating demonstration effects that facilitate broader ecosystem adoption. Policymakers should develop demonstration projects showcasing successful integration examples, creating observable benefits that accelerate broader adoption.

Micro, small and medium enterprises should develop integration capabilities progressively, as resource constraints may prevent simultaneous, comprehensive integration. Micro, small and medium enterprises should therefore adopt staged approaches: begin with high-compatibility, low-complexity integrations (e.g. linking social media marketing with e-commerce platforms), demonstrate observable benefits, and then progressively expand the integration scope as capabilities develop. Facilitation of knowledge-sharing networks that enable MSMEs to learn from peers’ integration experiences and leveraging of DOI’s social system dimension to accelerate diffusion must be implemented.

Finally, MSMEs should emphasise data-driven customer experience management. The strong relationship between customer experience and marketing performance (β = 0.88) underscores experience management’s critical role. They should leverage digital marketing and e-commerce platforms’ data collection capabilities to systematically analyse customer touchpoint experiences, identify improvement opportunities and implement targeted enhancements. Policymakers must ensure data privacy and consumer protection regulations that enable digital integration while safeguarding customer interests, building trust essential for sustainable digital economy development.