Updated 14th November 2026. First published in 2018.
A digital marketing strategy is essential for any business selling products or services online. But where do you begin if you want to build one?
A digital marketing strategy is a written plan that sets out your goals, your audience, the channels you'll use and how you'll measure success. Without one, businesses spend money without direction, lose ground to competitors and can't tell what's working. Here are nine reasons you need one, and how to get started.
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9 reasons you need a digital marketing strategy
How to build your digital marketing strategy
Need help with your digital marketing strategy?
Frequently asked questions
A digital marketing strategy doesn't necessarily need a comprehensive analysis, or even a digital marketing consultant. It simply needs a set of objectives and goals you want to achieve.
Yet despite this simple approach, many businesses don't have a plan in place. Whether you have one or not, start by benchmarking where you are now, so you can compare it with where you are in the future.
9 reasons you need a digital marketing strategy
1. Become focused
Businesses without a digital marketing strategy don't have clear objectives for what they want to achieve online, whether that's winning new leads and sales or building relationships with existing customers.
Without objectives, it's unlikely you'll put the right resources behind your goals, or measure what you achieve. For example, are you aiming to drive more traffic to your website? If so, by how much? Do you need more leads or more direct sales? If so, how will you get them?
Creating a digital marketing strategy forces you to answer these crucial questions. It also helps you develop your online value proposition, define your target audience and decide which channels will deliver your goals.
2. Know your online market
You must know your market. Digital marketing works differently from traditional channels, because customers behave differently online.
Traditional advertising broadcasts a message to everyone and hopes it reaches someone interested. Digital marketing, on the other hand, narrowly defines the audience, segmenting it and tailoring the message for higher engagement.
Advertisers are following their customers online. WARC forecasts that global ad spend will reach $1.34 trillion in 2026. Social media ($394.6 billion), search ($295.7 billion) and retail media ($202.1 billion) are the three biggest channels, all well ahead of TV at $176.2 billion.
Where the world's ad money goes in 2026
Global advertising spend forecast by channel, US$ billion
Digital channels Traditional channels
Source: WARC Media global ad spend forecast, October 2026, via Relevant Audience. Selected channels shown.
Your online market now includes AI search too. More people ask ChatGPT, Perplexity or Google's AI Overviews for recommendations before they click a link. Ahrefs found that when an AI Overview appears, the top-ranking page gets a 58% lower click-through rate on average. Your strategy needs to plan for being cited by AI, as well as ranking on Google.
That's where AI search optimisation comes in.
3. Competition is ruthless
If you're not putting enough resources into online marketing or, worse, have no clearly defined strategy, you'll most likely have a problem. Why? Because your competitors are ruthless. Sooner or later, both existing and newer competitors will eat into your share of the market.
In our digital age, newer, more agile companies are shaking up established businesses by matching them online. They understand the need to gain traction with an audience and find product-market fit fast. If you're not reaching potential customers where they're browsing, a newer company will.
4. Customer retention is today's acquisition
A clearly defined digital marketing strategy encourages existing as well as new customers to engage and stay loyal. Retention is just as important as acquisition.
Successful brands don't stop at the first sale. They keep customers engaged with offers and useful content, so they stay front of mind when it's time to buy again. It's the old saying, it's easier and cheaper to sell to people who've bought from you before than to find new customers. Research by Bain & Company found that increasing customer retention by 5% increases profits by 25% to 95%.
Customers also expect to contact you in more ways than by phone. Messaging a brand on LinkedIn, X, Instagram or Facebook and expecting a quick reply is now normal. According to the 2025 Sprout Social Index, about three-quarters of consumers expect a reply within 24 hours, and 73% of social media users say they'd buy from a competitor if a brand doesn't respond.
5. Know your customers well
It's often said that with digital marketing, you can measure everything. However, GA4 and similar tools only report numbers, not how customers feel. Use feedback tools to find their pain points and then address them, for example by asking for reviews and running short surveys.
If you don't understand your customers' behaviour, their profiles and the nature of your competition, you won't be able to meet their needs. Don't just offer customers a product. Offer them a solution.
6. Get everybody on board
It's easy to split your digital marketing strategy into separate channels, such as pay-per-click ads, social media and SEO, whether you do it all yourself or outsource to freelancers or an agency. It's convenient to package marketing into sections, where person A does task X and person B does task Y.
Yet doing this can fracture your strategy and limit its effectiveness. Digital marketing works best when all channels are integrated, including traditional ones.
For example, ask partners and influencers to share your social media posts. If you have an event or webinar, promote it on social media and by email. Running PPC ads? Make sure your landing pages target the keywords you're bidding on and are optimised for search. Blogging? Make sure it's shared on social media, in groups and in forums. Then you'll have a fully integrated digital marketing strategy.
7. Allocate sufficient resources
Not having enough resources to plan and run a digital marketing strategy is probably the biggest mistake businesses make. More often than not, it's not about money, but about finding the time and people to make it happen.
When you start, ask yourself whether you can put in the effort to make it work. Digital marketing takes time to produce lasting results. You can't try it for a while and see what happens. If you take that attitude, it will fail.
Plan for the long term, and you can work out how much you need to invest and whether you need extra people. Companies spent an average of 7.7% of their revenue on marketing in 2025, according to Gartner's survey of chief marketing officers, which is a useful benchmark when setting your own budget.
Gartner's survey also shows where that budget goes. Paid media takes the largest share at 31%, followed by martech and people costs at 22% each and agencies at 21%.
How marketing budgets are split
Average share of the marketing budget, 2025
Paid media 31% Martech 22% Labour 22% Agencies 21% Other 4%
Source: Gartner 2025 CMO Spend Survey, via Marketing Brew. "Other" is the remainder not broken out in the report.
If you don't have the team in-house, you have options. You could hire an agency, or bring in a fractional CMO to guide your own team part-time.
8. Optimise your strategy
Everyone who's serious about business and has a website has analytics. A strategy lets you benchmark where you started and plan how to improve your results. That can include your website's user experience, paid and organic search, social media and more.
Failing to keep optimising doesn't just waste your efforts. It leaves you out of touch with your customers. Build regular reviews of your goals and results into your digital marketing strategy.
9. Make your business more professional
An active digital marketing strategy shows existing and potential clients that you're focused on growing your business, and that you're there for customers after they buy. When people can find your products, services and information with minimal fuss, it sends a clear message. You're easy to do business with.
Social media is a good example. It shows people how to find products and companies like yours. A clear strategy helps your business not only stand out from your competitors but beat them. It builds loyalty, and loyal customers become brand advocates who recommend you to others. Information is shared instantly today, so make it easy for your brand to be found, shared and talked about.
How to build your digital marketing strategy
Creating a digital marketing strategy doesn't have to be hard work. Your first step is to write down your goals and how you'll achieve them, whether that takes budget, time, more staff or outside help.
Then work through these steps.
Benchmark where you are. Record your current traffic, leads, sales and rankings.
Set clear goals. Make them specific and measurable, such as 20% more qualified leads in six months.
Know your audience. Decide who you're targeting, where they spend time online and what problems they need solving.
Choose your channels. Pick the channels that match your goals, rather than trying to do everything.
Set your budget and resources. Decide who does what, in-house or outsourced.
Measure and adjust. Review your results every month and move budget to what's working.
| Your goal | Channels that help most | What to measure |
|---|---|---|
| More website traffic | SEO, content marketing, social media | Organic sessions and rankings |
| More leads | SEO, PPC, landing pages, LinkedIn | Form fills and cost per lead |
| More online sales | PPC, shopping ads, email, SEO | Conversion rate and revenue |
| Brand awareness | Social media, PR, video, paid social | Reach and branded searches |
| Visibility in AI search | Expert content, digital PR, Reddit, YouTube, LinkedIn | Citations in AI answers |
| Customer loyalty | Email, social customer service, reviews | Repeat purchases and retention |
Remember, if you're not doing it, your competitors are.
Need help with your digital marketing strategy?
We help scale-ups and established businesses across the USA and Europe plan and deliver digital marketing that works, from SEO and content to PPC and social media. If you have your own team, we can also advise them as a fractional CMO. Get in touch to talk about your strategy.
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A digital marketing strategy is a written plan that sets out your goals, your target audience, the online channels you'll use and how you'll measure success. It keeps your SEO, content, ads and social media working towards the same results.
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Start by benchmarking your current results, then set specific goals, define your audience, choose the channels that match your goals, set a budget and review your results every month.
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It varies by industry and growth stage. As a benchmark, companies spent an average of 7.7% of revenue on marketing in 2025, according to Gartner. Start with the channels most likely to reach your customers, measure the results and invest more in what works.
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Yes. More people now use ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google's AI Overviews to research products and services. Your strategy should include content and visibility that helps AI tools find, trust and cite your business.
