How Do You Prepare a Digital Marketing Strategy?
On this page07 sections
Digital marketing plans usually start with 'which channels should we be on'. That question is item four on the list. If three questions before it are unanswered, channel choice turns into guesswork.
A goal is a business result, not a marketing number
A goal sentence has two layers. The first is the work itself: someone who asks for a quote, books an appointment, buys, or subscribes. The second is the marketing signal that stands for that result. Visits, followers and impressions are tools of the second layer. They do not replace the first.
A goal needs a number and a date, but finding that number is not this article's job. Past records, sales capacity and how much demand the business can actually serve decide it. A figure written without those is decoration that lends the plan confidence it has not earned.
An audience is a moment of decision, not a table
Age and city do not describe an audience. They only bound it. What describes an audience is the situation in which a person needs this work, whom they ask, and what they wonder about before deciding. Customers of the same business may be looking for a price in one place and for trust in another.
Audience work produces two things: the concrete questions people ask, and what they do while asking. If they type the question into a search box, search speaks. If they ask someone they know, recommendation and reference speak. This comes from customer conversations, sales notes and the site's own search records. Personas written from guesses add colour to a plan. They do not make decisions.
The journey shows the gaps
The journey is the chain of questions a person passes through from first hearing of the business to giving it the work. The same question is not asked at every stage. The table below is a simplified frame. Every business names these stages after its own sales. What matters is that the person's question at each stage is written down and the site has an answer to it.
| Stage | The person's question | Where the answer sits | Signal read in Analytics |
|---|---|---|---|
| Noticing | Does this problem have a name or a fix | A guide article, a short video, a search result | New users and engagement rate in the acquisition reports |
| Comparing | Which route, with whom, on what terms | A service page, FAQ, examples of work | Engagement time per page and movement between pages |
| Deciding | Is this business worth writing to | A contact form, booking, phone | Key event count and session key event rate |
| Afterwards | Can I be sure of my decision | A thank-you page, confirmation email, delivery process | Returning users |
A channel is chosen against a gap in the journey
The channel decision comes after the gaps above. At whichever stage an answer is missing, the place where the person stands at that stage becomes the channel. That opening an account does not fill a channel, and that in Analytics a channel is an arrival rule, is covered in detail in the piece on choosing a channel. Only the order matters here: choosing a channel gets easier once the goal and the journey are written.
In a digital marketing plan, as the channel count grows, how many stages the work carries should stay visible. If two channels carry four stages of the journey, a third may not be needed. If none carries the deciding stage, adding channels does not close that gap.
Tie the budget to a question, not a channel
If a budget is split like a sum of channels, which spend serves which question is lost. When each budget line is tied to one question, the plan becomes readable. Some spend catches demand that already exists. Some tests a new question. Some only keeps measurement and groundwork standing. Mixing the three into one ratio buries the result of the second under the noise of the first.
This article does not recommend percentages or amounts. The right ratio changes with the type of work, the competition and sales capacity. Any source that offers a fixed ratio is guessing, because it does not know this business. How budget is discussed together with the conversion definition in performance advertising is covered in the piece on ad budget.
Fictional example
This example is not a client record. A small furniture workshop sets three lines. The first is a search spend that catches people looking for the brand. The second is a guide article answering 'how long does a made-to-measure wardrobe take' and a short campaign to promote it. The third is setup work that checks the form works and the key event is recorded. Each answers a separate question. At month end, what each did can be read on its own.
Measurement is set up before the spend
When you mark an event as a key event in Google Analytics, you can see how many users performed the action and which channels led them to it. Any event can become a key event. Which one to mark comes from the business goal. If the marking is done after the spend, the first weeks of data go unmatched to the goal.
The acquisition reports answer two separate questions. The User acquisition report shows where new users first found the site. The Traffic acquisition report shows where a session started, for new or returning users. Adding the two as if they were one number is a misreading. The attribution model behind those two reports is last click. Key event paths are shared out by the attribution model you select, which is data-driven by default. Reports can show different numbers, and that is not an error.
A detailed reading of the reports sits in the piece on reading Google Analytics 4 reports.
A plan should fit one page
A plan is a document where the decisions above stand in one place. Length does not show seriousness. A plan that does not fit a page is usually a plan where no choice was made. At the end of the period, one question is asked of every line: did this line do the work it was written for.
- Whether the goal is written as a business result, and visits and followers have not been put in its place.
- Whether the goal's number and date rest on past records and sales capacity.
- Whether the audience's questions come from real conversations and records.
- Whether every stage of the journey has a page on the site that answers it.
- Whether each channel corresponds to a gap in the journey.
- Whether each budget line is tied to a single question.
- Whether key events were marked before spending began.
- On which date, with which report, and by whom the plan will be reviewed.
Sources
- About key events
Accessed October 20, 2026
- Scopes of traffic-source dimensions
Accessed October 20, 2026
- Traffic acquisition report
Accessed October 20, 2026