So, in this article, we present a selection of questions and short answers around digital marketing strategy, linking to more in-depth articles and free resources like our digital marketing planning templates. We have included a selection of visuals to help answer these questions, since we believe visual frameworks are the most efficient way to improve and learn marketing.<\/p>\n
Basic questions about digital marketing channels<\/h3>\n\n- Q1. What is digital marketing?<\/a><\/li>\n
- Q2. What\u2019s the difference between paid, owned and earned media?<\/a><\/li>\n
- Q3. What are the different types of digital marketing<\/a>?<\/li>\n
- Q4. Which are the best media channels for digital marketing?<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Questions on digital marketing strategy<\/h3>\n\n- Q5. What is digital marketing strategy?<\/a><\/li>\n
- Q6. How should I create a digital marketing strategy?<\/a><\/li>\n
- Q7. What should an online marketing plan contain?<\/a><\/li>\n
- Q8. What should a digital marketing audit contain?<\/a><\/li>\n
- Q9. How should I create and structure a digital marketing plan?<\/a><\/li>\n
- Q10. What are examples of digital marketing strategies?<\/a><\/li>\n
- Q11. What is the difference between strategy vs. tactics in digital marketing<\/a><\/li>\n
- Q12. How much should I spend or budget on digital marketing<\/a><\/li>\n
- Q13. What are the current digital marketing trends?<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
<\/a>Q. What is digital marketing?<\/h3>\nA.\u00a0 In the first chapter of my book Digital Marketing: Strategy, Implementation and Practice<\/em> we use a simple definition of digital marketing, or online marketing, which is:<\/p>\n\u201cAchieving marketing objectives through applying digital media, data and technology<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\nDefinitions of digital marketing often start with media and digital channels, but it\u2019s best to focus on a simple definition showing digital marketing is about what you you want to achieve, i.e., showing how you can use digital marketing to reach your goals.<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re looking for a simple introduction to digital marketing, read my article exploring What is digital marketing?<\/a> where I explain a process to achieve success by focusing on the 18 most important digital marketing channel techniques.<\/p>\nIn this article we introduce the different options for digital marketing channels that should form part of your strategy:<\/p>\n![\"Types](\"https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/Six-digital-media-channels-and-18-techniques-for-digital-marketing.png\")
Types of digital media<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/a>Q. What\u2019s the difference between paid, owned and earned media?<\/h3>\nA. Digital marketing can be expensive if you limit your activity to paid media, but its power compared to traditional media has always been that it supports integrated communications through free and paid options.<\/em><\/p>\nIn our article explaining What is the difference between paid, owned and earned media<\/a> we use this classic visual to explain the three options:<\/p>\n\n- Paid media<\/strong> - This involves paying to promote your content or brand. Examples include search engine ads ((PPC), display advertising, programmatic ads and paid social media ads. The benefit is to reach a wider audience by investing in visibility.<\/li>\n
- Owned media<\/strong> - These are channels you control, such as your website, blog, or social media profiles. You create and manage the content, allowing for consistent messaging and direct engagement with your audience.<\/li>\n
- Earned media<\/strong> - This refers to exposure gained through word-of-mouth, public relations efforts, or customer reviews. It\u2019s the result of others sharing your content or speaking about your brand, often seen as more credible by audiences.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
![\"Paid,](\"https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Owned-Earned-Paid-media-for-e-commerce.jpeg\")
Paid, owned and earned media<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/a>Q. What are the different types of digital marketing?<\/h3>\nA. There are many online communications techniques that marketers must prioritize to include as part of their communications strategy. Marketers often use paid, owned and earned media to describe investments at a high-level, but it\u2019s more common to refer to these six key digital media channels<\/strong> I have defined in our books when selecting specific always-on and campaign investments.<\/em><\/p>\n\n- Search Engine Marketing<\/strong> - Boosts website visits via Google or Bing. Paid ads or paid search use PPC (pay-per-click) such as Google Ads, while organic search or SEO (search engine optimization) improves rankings organically through content, site structure, and backlinks. Today, getting featured in AI Overviews is a growing part of organic search.<\/li>\n
- Social Media Marketing<\/strong> - Like search marketing, this includes paid and organic social media. Paid covers paid ads and organic posts on platforms like Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn. In organic social, posts are shared through your social pages.<\/li>\n
- Display Advertising<\/strong> - Uses banner and video ads on third-party sites to drive awareness and traffic. Includes programmatic (automated) and native advertising (sponsored content).<\/li>\n
- Digital PR<\/strong> - Builds awareness through mentions on media sites, blogs, or by influencers. Boosts SEO via backlinks. Includes guest blogging, influencer outreach, and managing brand reputation online.<\/li>\n
- Digital Partnerships<\/strong> - Collaborations with other brands or affiliates to share audiences. Can be paid (e.g., affiliate commissions) or unpaid (e.g., co-marketing or co-branding).<\/li>\n
- Digital Messaging<\/strong> - Includes email, mobile push notifications, and in-app messages. Usually sent to subscribers (owned media). Buying email lists is not allowed under privacy laws.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
The visual from our book at the top of this list shows how these can broken down further to common types people describe.<\/p>\n
<\/a>Q. What are the best digital marketing media channels?<\/h3>\nA. The most cost-effective channels are usually organic traffic such as organic search, social media and email, but it's often necessary to use paid media such as Google Ads, Paid social and display ads to support organic.<\/em><\/p>\nThis research shows which digital acquisition channels are important across different sectors. It\u2019s taken from the Contentsquare Digital Experience Benchmarks<\/a> which is a good quality source. The top 7 media channels are:<\/p>\n\n- Direct media : 30.9%<\/li>\n
- Organic search : 25.6%<\/li>\n
- Paid search : 24.3%<\/li>\n
- Paid social : 8.4%<\/li>\n
- Display ads : 6.2%<\/li>\n
- Email marketing : 3.9%<\/li>\n
- Organic social : 0.8%<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
![\"Media](\"https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Acquisition-traffic-sources-2025.png\")
Best media channels<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nNote that direct traffic often includes untracked or 'dark' traffic where people reach a website via a mobile app or type in a URL, so it is often the most popular channel, although the reality is the referrers will be from other sources.<\/p>\n
Learn more: Which are the best media for digital marketing?<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>Q. What is digital marketing strategy?<\/h3>\nA. A digital marketing strategy should include both a framework to define the strategic digital priorities you need to work on and a process defining the steps you need to work through to define, select and implement the strategy.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\nOur RACE Growth System<\/strong> for improving marketing effectiveness has two parts which we explain in more detail in our in-depth article on the popular RACE marketing framework<\/a>:<\/p>\nPart 1. The RACE Planning Framework:<\/strong> defines the essential activities and measures businesses need to master to survive and thrive in today\u2019s marketing world.<\/p>\n![\"Race](\"https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/Race-Planning-Framework.png\")
<\/p>\n
Part 2. The RACE OSA improvement process:<\/strong>\u00a0defines the three steps needed to build and implement your growth plan - either for your overall marketing plan or for an individual channel, such as organic search, social media or email marketing.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/2022-03-31_10-56-46.png\")
<\/p>\n
I developed the\u00a0 framework nearly 15 years ago based on my experience of consulting and training in digital marketing for businesses in a range of sectors and in companies of different sizes from small to large. Although it is often viewed as a specialist digital marketing framework, in fact it is designed to work for multichannel marketing including offline ads and touchpoints.<\/p>\n
<\/a>Q. What should an online marketing plan contain?<\/h3>\nA. An online marketing plan should contain a review of current use of digital marketing and the results it delivers, SMART objectives to improve results, prioritized strategy initiatives and an action plan to implement the strategy.<\/em><\/p>\nKnowing where to start is perhaps the most difficult part of creating any form of marketing plan for the first time. I have found it similar when writing books. But once you have a structure defined, it becomes much easier to fill in each section. You can use a similar \u2018divide and conquer\u2019 approach with any form of longer form content in Generative AI. Ask it to suggest a structure, modify it for what it has missed and then ask it to work on smaller sections. This can work for plans too, but take care since based on its knowledge base, AIs can recommend that a digital marketing plan is just about the channels and doesn\u2019t include the bigger questions around goals, visions, audiences, segmentation, targeting, brand positioning and selecting the best strategies.<\/p>\n
We recommend structuring a plan based on the RACE Growth System process which defines a simple structure of Opportunity > Strategy > Action. You can apply OSA to different marketing activities from creating a growth plan for the next 3 months, creating an annual plan or improving your marketing campaign process. It also works well for driving results from individual channels like the website, organic or paid search, social media or email marketing. You can also apply it to your personal learning and skills development.<\/p>\n
So the plan should define:<\/p>\n
Opportunity - analysis and goals<\/strong><\/p>\n\n- Audit performance assessing current contribution of digital marketing to leads, sales and communications goals<\/li>\n
- Review marketplace including audience, personas, competitors and relevant digital intermediaries<\/li>\n
- Key issues summary - creating a digital channel SWOT<\/li>\n
- Set vision and objectives - this is based on the above analysis and defines SMART objectives<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Strategy - prioritization of activities to achieve goals:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n- Review marketing and digital strategy options<\/li>\n
- Assess budget \/ business case<\/li>\n
- Prioritize and select strategic initiatives<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Action:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n- Plan 90-day activities<\/li>\n
- Implement plans<\/li>\n
- Review results<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
This question is answered further following the recommended link in the next question.<\/p>\n
<\/a>Q. How should I structure a digital marketing plan?<\/h3>\nA. Opportunity > Strategy > Action provides a simple structure for a digital marketing plan starting with situation analysis and performance review to set objectives, then strategy prioritization and finally an action plan.<\/em><\/p>\nWe believe that an integrated digital marketing strategy is essential for marketers working in all types of business to take advantage of the growing digital marketing opportunities for acquiring and retaining customers - so you can win more sales.<\/p>\n
In this article, we explain how to structure a digital marketing strategy using the Smart Insights RACE Framework using different examples.<\/p>\n
How should I structure a digital marketing plan<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>Q. How to do a digital marketing audit?<\/h3>\nAA.\u00a0 digital marketing audit should use a data-driven approach to review the maturity and use of digital marketing so you can identify improvements which should form a strategy.<\/em><\/p>\nAuditing your digital marketing activities is an essential starting point for defining a digital marketing strategy. But they\u2019re also useful for finding opportunities to improve your digital marketing by identifying priorities you need to act on to get better results.<\/p>\n
Our auditing approach is a data-driven audit using tools to compare to your competitors and using Google Analytics to assess the effectiveness of your marketing communications.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve structured this audit based on the 5 key parts of our RACE Framework:<\/p>\n
How to do a digital marketing audit?<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>What are examples of digital marketing strategies?<\/h3>\nA. Digital marketing strategies can define:<\/em><\/p>\n\n- Acquisition vs. retention focus<\/strong> - typically digital strategies focus on acquisition, but should also consider how digital media and technology can support retention<\/em><\/li>\n
- Media focus<\/strong> - the priority investments for digital media<\/em><\/li>\n
- MarTech focus<\/strong>\u00a0 - priority investments for services and tools to implement digital marketing<\/em><\/li>\n
- Process change focus<\/strong> - a vision showing how marketing must change to support new channel use by customers - for example this increases the importance of always-on marketing techniques<\/a>.<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
For more advice, see our article: Three digital marketing plan examples<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>What is the difference between strategy vs. tactics in digital marketing?<\/h3>\nThis is one of the most common questions that \u2018crops up\u2019 when I\u2019m running training workshops or discussing creating marketing plans with businesses.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s no surprise since the difference between these two activities often isn\u2019t distinct. Yet, it\u2019s an important question to answer since our research shows that so many businesses don\u2019t have a clear marketing strategy or plan.<\/p>\n
Without a clear strategy, it\u2019s likely some of your tactics may be poorly directed, so may not be propelling the business in the direction needed.<\/p>\n
What is the difference between strategy vs. tactics in digital marketing?<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>How much should I spend or budget on digital marketing?<\/h3>\nA. This varies widely depending on business size, sector and turnover, but benchmarks for larger business suggest marketing budget is around 7-8% of revenue on average. This chart is from Gartner research for 2025<\/a>. Within the marketing budget digital marketing is now typically the majority of spend.<\/em><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/average-marketing-budget-as-a-percent-of-total-revenue.png\")
<\/p>\n
<\/a>Q. What are the latest digital marketing trends?<\/h3>\n
Questions on digital marketing strategy<\/h3>\n\n- Q5. What is digital marketing strategy?<\/a><\/li>\n
- Q6. How should I create a digital marketing strategy?<\/a><\/li>\n
- Q7. What should an online marketing plan contain?<\/a><\/li>\n
- Q8. What should a digital marketing audit contain?<\/a><\/li>\n
- Q9. How should I create and structure a digital marketing plan?<\/a><\/li>\n
- Q10. What are examples of digital marketing strategies?<\/a><\/li>\n
- Q11. What is the difference between strategy vs. tactics in digital marketing<\/a><\/li>\n
- Q12. How much should I spend or budget on digital marketing<\/a><\/li>\n
- Q13. What are the current digital marketing trends?<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
<\/a>Q. What is digital marketing?<\/h3>\nA.\u00a0 In the first chapter of my book Digital Marketing: Strategy, Implementation and Practice<\/em> we use a simple definition of digital marketing, or online marketing, which is:<\/p>\n\u201cAchieving marketing objectives through applying digital media, data and technology<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\nDefinitions of digital marketing often start with media and digital channels, but it\u2019s best to focus on a simple definition showing digital marketing is about what you you want to achieve, i.e., showing how you can use digital marketing to reach your goals.<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re looking for a simple introduction to digital marketing, read my article exploring What is digital marketing?<\/a> where I explain a process to achieve success by focusing on the 18 most important digital marketing channel techniques.<\/p>\nIn this article we introduce the different options for digital marketing channels that should form part of your strategy:<\/p>\nTypes of digital media<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/a>Q. What\u2019s the difference between paid, owned and earned media?<\/h3>\nA. Digital marketing can be expensive if you limit your activity to paid media, but its power compared to traditional media has always been that it supports integrated communications through free and paid options.<\/em><\/p>\nIn our article explaining What is the difference between paid, owned and earned media<\/a> we use this classic visual to explain the three options:<\/p>\n\n- Paid media<\/strong> - This involves paying to promote your content or brand. Examples include search engine ads ((PPC), display advertising, programmatic ads and paid social media ads. The benefit is to reach a wider audience by investing in visibility.<\/li>\n
- Owned media<\/strong> - These are channels you control, such as your website, blog, or social media profiles. You create and manage the content, allowing for consistent messaging and direct engagement with your audience.<\/li>\n
- Earned media<\/strong> - This refers to exposure gained through word-of-mouth, public relations efforts, or customer reviews. It\u2019s the result of others sharing your content or speaking about your brand, often seen as more credible by audiences.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Paid, owned and earned media<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/a>Q. What are the different types of digital marketing?<\/h3>\nA. There are many online communications techniques that marketers must prioritize to include as part of their communications strategy. Marketers often use paid, owned and earned media to describe investments at a high-level, but it\u2019s more common to refer to these six key digital media channels<\/strong> I have defined in our books when selecting specific always-on and campaign investments.<\/em><\/p>\n\n- Search Engine Marketing<\/strong> - Boosts website visits via Google or Bing. Paid ads or paid search use PPC (pay-per-click) such as Google Ads, while organic search or SEO (search engine optimization) improves rankings organically through content, site structure, and backlinks. Today, getting featured in AI Overviews is a growing part of organic search.<\/li>\n
- Social Media Marketing<\/strong> - Like search marketing, this includes paid and organic social media. Paid covers paid ads and organic posts on platforms like Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn. In organic social, posts are shared through your social pages.<\/li>\n
- Display Advertising<\/strong> - Uses banner and video ads on third-party sites to drive awareness and traffic. Includes programmatic (automated) and native advertising (sponsored content).<\/li>\n
- Digital PR<\/strong> - Builds awareness through mentions on media sites, blogs, or by influencers. Boosts SEO via backlinks. Includes guest blogging, influencer outreach, and managing brand reputation online.<\/li>\n
- Digital Partnerships<\/strong> - Collaborations with other brands or affiliates to share audiences. Can be paid (e.g., affiliate commissions) or unpaid (e.g., co-marketing or co-branding).<\/li>\n
- Digital Messaging<\/strong> - Includes email, mobile push notifications, and in-app messages. Usually sent to subscribers (owned media). Buying email lists is not allowed under privacy laws.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
The visual from our book at the top of this list shows how these can broken down further to common types people describe.<\/p>\n
<\/a>Q. What are the best digital marketing media channels?<\/h3>\nA. The most cost-effective channels are usually organic traffic such as organic search, social media and email, but it's often necessary to use paid media such as Google Ads, Paid social and display ads to support organic.<\/em><\/p>\nThis research shows which digital acquisition channels are important across different sectors. It\u2019s taken from the Contentsquare Digital Experience Benchmarks<\/a> which is a good quality source. The top 7 media channels are:<\/p>\n\n- Direct media : 30.9%<\/li>\n
- Organic search : 25.6%<\/li>\n
- Paid search : 24.3%<\/li>\n
- Paid social : 8.4%<\/li>\n
- Display ads : 6.2%<\/li>\n
- Email marketing : 3.9%<\/li>\n
- Organic social : 0.8%<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Best media channels<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nNote that direct traffic often includes untracked or 'dark' traffic where people reach a website via a mobile app or type in a URL, so it is often the most popular channel, although the reality is the referrers will be from other sources.<\/p>\n
Learn more: Which are the best media for digital marketing?<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>Q. What is digital marketing strategy?<\/h3>\nA. A digital marketing strategy should include both a framework to define the strategic digital priorities you need to work on and a process defining the steps you need to work through to define, select and implement the strategy.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\nOur RACE Growth System<\/strong> for improving marketing effectiveness has two parts which we explain in more detail in our in-depth article on the popular RACE marketing framework<\/a>:<\/p>\nPart 1. The RACE Planning Framework:<\/strong> defines the essential activities and measures businesses need to master to survive and thrive in today\u2019s marketing world.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Part 2. The RACE OSA improvement process:<\/strong>\u00a0defines the three steps needed to build and implement your growth plan - either for your overall marketing plan or for an individual channel, such as organic search, social media or email marketing.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
I developed the\u00a0 framework nearly 15 years ago based on my experience of consulting and training in digital marketing for businesses in a range of sectors and in companies of different sizes from small to large. Although it is often viewed as a specialist digital marketing framework, in fact it is designed to work for multichannel marketing including offline ads and touchpoints.<\/p>\n
<\/a>Q. What should an online marketing plan contain?<\/h3>\nA. An online marketing plan should contain a review of current use of digital marketing and the results it delivers, SMART objectives to improve results, prioritized strategy initiatives and an action plan to implement the strategy.<\/em><\/p>\nKnowing where to start is perhaps the most difficult part of creating any form of marketing plan for the first time. I have found it similar when writing books. But once you have a structure defined, it becomes much easier to fill in each section. You can use a similar \u2018divide and conquer\u2019 approach with any form of longer form content in Generative AI. Ask it to suggest a structure, modify it for what it has missed and then ask it to work on smaller sections. This can work for plans too, but take care since based on its knowledge base, AIs can recommend that a digital marketing plan is just about the channels and doesn\u2019t include the bigger questions around goals, visions, audiences, segmentation, targeting, brand positioning and selecting the best strategies.<\/p>\n
We recommend structuring a plan based on the RACE Growth System process which defines a simple structure of Opportunity > Strategy > Action. You can apply OSA to different marketing activities from creating a growth plan for the next 3 months, creating an annual plan or improving your marketing campaign process. It also works well for driving results from individual channels like the website, organic or paid search, social media or email marketing. You can also apply it to your personal learning and skills development.<\/p>\n
So the plan should define:<\/p>\n
Opportunity - analysis and goals<\/strong><\/p>\n\n- Audit performance assessing current contribution of digital marketing to leads, sales and communications goals<\/li>\n
- Review marketplace including audience, personas, competitors and relevant digital intermediaries<\/li>\n
- Key issues summary - creating a digital channel SWOT<\/li>\n
- Set vision and objectives - this is based on the above analysis and defines SMART objectives<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Strategy - prioritization of activities to achieve goals:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n- Review marketing and digital strategy options<\/li>\n
- Assess budget \/ business case<\/li>\n
- Prioritize and select strategic initiatives<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Action:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n- Plan 90-day activities<\/li>\n
- Implement plans<\/li>\n
- Review results<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
This question is answered further following the recommended link in the next question.<\/p>\n
<\/a>Q. How should I structure a digital marketing plan?<\/h3>\nA. Opportunity > Strategy > Action provides a simple structure for a digital marketing plan starting with situation analysis and performance review to set objectives, then strategy prioritization and finally an action plan.<\/em><\/p>\nWe believe that an integrated digital marketing strategy is essential for marketers working in all types of business to take advantage of the growing digital marketing opportunities for acquiring and retaining customers - so you can win more sales.<\/p>\n
In this article, we explain how to structure a digital marketing strategy using the Smart Insights RACE Framework using different examples.<\/p>\n
How should I structure a digital marketing plan<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>Q. How to do a digital marketing audit?<\/h3>\nAA.\u00a0 digital marketing audit should use a data-driven approach to review the maturity and use of digital marketing so you can identify improvements which should form a strategy.<\/em><\/p>\nAuditing your digital marketing activities is an essential starting point for defining a digital marketing strategy. But they\u2019re also useful for finding opportunities to improve your digital marketing by identifying priorities you need to act on to get better results.<\/p>\n
Our auditing approach is a data-driven audit using tools to compare to your competitors and using Google Analytics to assess the effectiveness of your marketing communications.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve structured this audit based on the 5 key parts of our RACE Framework:<\/p>\n
How to do a digital marketing audit?<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>What are examples of digital marketing strategies?<\/h3>\nA. Digital marketing strategies can define:<\/em><\/p>\n\n- Acquisition vs. retention focus<\/strong> - typically digital strategies focus on acquisition, but should also consider how digital media and technology can support retention<\/em><\/li>\n
- Media focus<\/strong> - the priority investments for digital media<\/em><\/li>\n
- MarTech focus<\/strong>\u00a0 - priority investments for services and tools to implement digital marketing<\/em><\/li>\n
- Process change focus<\/strong> - a vision showing how marketing must change to support new channel use by customers - for example this increases the importance of always-on marketing techniques<\/a>.<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
For more advice, see our article: Three digital marketing plan examples<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>What is the difference between strategy vs. tactics in digital marketing?<\/h3>\nThis is one of the most common questions that \u2018crops up\u2019 when I\u2019m running training workshops or discussing creating marketing plans with businesses.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s no surprise since the difference between these two activities often isn\u2019t distinct. Yet, it\u2019s an important question to answer since our research shows that so many businesses don\u2019t have a clear marketing strategy or plan.<\/p>\n
Without a clear strategy, it\u2019s likely some of your tactics may be poorly directed, so may not be propelling the business in the direction needed.<\/p>\n
What is the difference between strategy vs. tactics in digital marketing?<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>How much should I spend or budget on digital marketing?<\/h3>\nA. This varies widely depending on business size, sector and turnover, but benchmarks for larger business suggest marketing budget is around 7-8% of revenue on average. This chart is from Gartner research for 2025<\/a>. Within the marketing budget digital marketing is now typically the majority of spend.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n
<\/a>Q. What are the latest digital marketing trends?<\/h3>\n
<\/a>Q. What is digital marketing?<\/h3>\nA.\u00a0 In the first chapter of my book Digital Marketing: Strategy, Implementation and Practice<\/em> we use a simple definition of digital marketing, or online marketing, which is:<\/p>\n\u201cAchieving marketing objectives through applying digital media, data and technology<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\nDefinitions of digital marketing often start with media and digital channels, but it\u2019s best to focus on a simple definition showing digital marketing is about what you you want to achieve, i.e., showing how you can use digital marketing to reach your goals.<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re looking for a simple introduction to digital marketing, read my article exploring What is digital marketing?<\/a> where I explain a process to achieve success by focusing on the 18 most important digital marketing channel techniques.<\/p>\nIn this article we introduce the different options for digital marketing channels that should form part of your strategy:<\/p>\nTypes of digital media<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/a>Q. What\u2019s the difference between paid, owned and earned media?<\/h3>\nA. Digital marketing can be expensive if you limit your activity to paid media, but its power compared to traditional media has always been that it supports integrated communications through free and paid options.<\/em><\/p>\nIn our article explaining What is the difference between paid, owned and earned media<\/a> we use this classic visual to explain the three options:<\/p>\n\n- Paid media<\/strong> - This involves paying to promote your content or brand. Examples include search engine ads ((PPC), display advertising, programmatic ads and paid social media ads. The benefit is to reach a wider audience by investing in visibility.<\/li>\n
- Owned media<\/strong> - These are channels you control, such as your website, blog, or social media profiles. You create and manage the content, allowing for consistent messaging and direct engagement with your audience.<\/li>\n
- Earned media<\/strong> - This refers to exposure gained through word-of-mouth, public relations efforts, or customer reviews. It\u2019s the result of others sharing your content or speaking about your brand, often seen as more credible by audiences.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Paid, owned and earned media<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/a>Q. What are the different types of digital marketing?<\/h3>\nA. There are many online communications techniques that marketers must prioritize to include as part of their communications strategy. Marketers often use paid, owned and earned media to describe investments at a high-level, but it\u2019s more common to refer to these six key digital media channels<\/strong> I have defined in our books when selecting specific always-on and campaign investments.<\/em><\/p>\n\n- Search Engine Marketing<\/strong> - Boosts website visits via Google or Bing. Paid ads or paid search use PPC (pay-per-click) such as Google Ads, while organic search or SEO (search engine optimization) improves rankings organically through content, site structure, and backlinks. Today, getting featured in AI Overviews is a growing part of organic search.<\/li>\n
- Social Media Marketing<\/strong> - Like search marketing, this includes paid and organic social media. Paid covers paid ads and organic posts on platforms like Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn. In organic social, posts are shared through your social pages.<\/li>\n
- Display Advertising<\/strong> - Uses banner and video ads on third-party sites to drive awareness and traffic. Includes programmatic (automated) and native advertising (sponsored content).<\/li>\n
- Digital PR<\/strong> - Builds awareness through mentions on media sites, blogs, or by influencers. Boosts SEO via backlinks. Includes guest blogging, influencer outreach, and managing brand reputation online.<\/li>\n
- Digital Partnerships<\/strong> - Collaborations with other brands or affiliates to share audiences. Can be paid (e.g., affiliate commissions) or unpaid (e.g., co-marketing or co-branding).<\/li>\n
- Digital Messaging<\/strong> - Includes email, mobile push notifications, and in-app messages. Usually sent to subscribers (owned media). Buying email lists is not allowed under privacy laws.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
The visual from our book at the top of this list shows how these can broken down further to common types people describe.<\/p>\n
<\/a>Q. What are the best digital marketing media channels?<\/h3>\nA. The most cost-effective channels are usually organic traffic such as organic search, social media and email, but it's often necessary to use paid media such as Google Ads, Paid social and display ads to support organic.<\/em><\/p>\nThis research shows which digital acquisition channels are important across different sectors. It\u2019s taken from the Contentsquare Digital Experience Benchmarks<\/a> which is a good quality source. The top 7 media channels are:<\/p>\n\n- Direct media : 30.9%<\/li>\n
- Organic search : 25.6%<\/li>\n
- Paid search : 24.3%<\/li>\n
- Paid social : 8.4%<\/li>\n
- Display ads : 6.2%<\/li>\n
- Email marketing : 3.9%<\/li>\n
- Organic social : 0.8%<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Best media channels<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nNote that direct traffic often includes untracked or 'dark' traffic where people reach a website via a mobile app or type in a URL, so it is often the most popular channel, although the reality is the referrers will be from other sources.<\/p>\n
Learn more: Which are the best media for digital marketing?<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>Q. What is digital marketing strategy?<\/h3>\nA. A digital marketing strategy should include both a framework to define the strategic digital priorities you need to work on and a process defining the steps you need to work through to define, select and implement the strategy.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\nOur RACE Growth System<\/strong> for improving marketing effectiveness has two parts which we explain in more detail in our in-depth article on the popular RACE marketing framework<\/a>:<\/p>\nPart 1. The RACE Planning Framework:<\/strong> defines the essential activities and measures businesses need to master to survive and thrive in today\u2019s marketing world.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Part 2. The RACE OSA improvement process:<\/strong>\u00a0defines the three steps needed to build and implement your growth plan - either for your overall marketing plan or for an individual channel, such as organic search, social media or email marketing.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
I developed the\u00a0 framework nearly 15 years ago based on my experience of consulting and training in digital marketing for businesses in a range of sectors and in companies of different sizes from small to large. Although it is often viewed as a specialist digital marketing framework, in fact it is designed to work for multichannel marketing including offline ads and touchpoints.<\/p>\n
<\/a>Q. What should an online marketing plan contain?<\/h3>\nA. An online marketing plan should contain a review of current use of digital marketing and the results it delivers, SMART objectives to improve results, prioritized strategy initiatives and an action plan to implement the strategy.<\/em><\/p>\nKnowing where to start is perhaps the most difficult part of creating any form of marketing plan for the first time. I have found it similar when writing books. But once you have a structure defined, it becomes much easier to fill in each section. You can use a similar \u2018divide and conquer\u2019 approach with any form of longer form content in Generative AI. Ask it to suggest a structure, modify it for what it has missed and then ask it to work on smaller sections. This can work for plans too, but take care since based on its knowledge base, AIs can recommend that a digital marketing plan is just about the channels and doesn\u2019t include the bigger questions around goals, visions, audiences, segmentation, targeting, brand positioning and selecting the best strategies.<\/p>\n
We recommend structuring a plan based on the RACE Growth System process which defines a simple structure of Opportunity > Strategy > Action. You can apply OSA to different marketing activities from creating a growth plan for the next 3 months, creating an annual plan or improving your marketing campaign process. It also works well for driving results from individual channels like the website, organic or paid search, social media or email marketing. You can also apply it to your personal learning and skills development.<\/p>\n
So the plan should define:<\/p>\n
Opportunity - analysis and goals<\/strong><\/p>\n\n- Audit performance assessing current contribution of digital marketing to leads, sales and communications goals<\/li>\n
- Review marketplace including audience, personas, competitors and relevant digital intermediaries<\/li>\n
- Key issues summary - creating a digital channel SWOT<\/li>\n
- Set vision and objectives - this is based on the above analysis and defines SMART objectives<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Strategy - prioritization of activities to achieve goals:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n- Review marketing and digital strategy options<\/li>\n
- Assess budget \/ business case<\/li>\n
- Prioritize and select strategic initiatives<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Action:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n- Plan 90-day activities<\/li>\n
- Implement plans<\/li>\n
- Review results<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
This question is answered further following the recommended link in the next question.<\/p>\n
<\/a>Q. How should I structure a digital marketing plan?<\/h3>\nA. Opportunity > Strategy > Action provides a simple structure for a digital marketing plan starting with situation analysis and performance review to set objectives, then strategy prioritization and finally an action plan.<\/em><\/p>\nWe believe that an integrated digital marketing strategy is essential for marketers working in all types of business to take advantage of the growing digital marketing opportunities for acquiring and retaining customers - so you can win more sales.<\/p>\n
In this article, we explain how to structure a digital marketing strategy using the Smart Insights RACE Framework using different examples.<\/p>\n
How should I structure a digital marketing plan<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>Q. How to do a digital marketing audit?<\/h3>\nAA.\u00a0 digital marketing audit should use a data-driven approach to review the maturity and use of digital marketing so you can identify improvements which should form a strategy.<\/em><\/p>\nAuditing your digital marketing activities is an essential starting point for defining a digital marketing strategy. But they\u2019re also useful for finding opportunities to improve your digital marketing by identifying priorities you need to act on to get better results.<\/p>\n
Our auditing approach is a data-driven audit using tools to compare to your competitors and using Google Analytics to assess the effectiveness of your marketing communications.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve structured this audit based on the 5 key parts of our RACE Framework:<\/p>\n
How to do a digital marketing audit?<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>What are examples of digital marketing strategies?<\/h3>\nA. Digital marketing strategies can define:<\/em><\/p>\n\n- Acquisition vs. retention focus<\/strong> - typically digital strategies focus on acquisition, but should also consider how digital media and technology can support retention<\/em><\/li>\n
- Media focus<\/strong> - the priority investments for digital media<\/em><\/li>\n
- MarTech focus<\/strong>\u00a0 - priority investments for services and tools to implement digital marketing<\/em><\/li>\n
- Process change focus<\/strong> - a vision showing how marketing must change to support new channel use by customers - for example this increases the importance of always-on marketing techniques<\/a>.<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
For more advice, see our article: Three digital marketing plan examples<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>What is the difference between strategy vs. tactics in digital marketing?<\/h3>\nThis is one of the most common questions that \u2018crops up\u2019 when I\u2019m running training workshops or discussing creating marketing plans with businesses.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s no surprise since the difference between these two activities often isn\u2019t distinct. Yet, it\u2019s an important question to answer since our research shows that so many businesses don\u2019t have a clear marketing strategy or plan.<\/p>\n
Without a clear strategy, it\u2019s likely some of your tactics may be poorly directed, so may not be propelling the business in the direction needed.<\/p>\n
What is the difference between strategy vs. tactics in digital marketing?<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>How much should I spend or budget on digital marketing?<\/h3>\nA. This varies widely depending on business size, sector and turnover, but benchmarks for larger business suggest marketing budget is around 7-8% of revenue on average. This chart is from Gartner research for 2025<\/a>. Within the marketing budget digital marketing is now typically the majority of spend.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n
<\/a>Q. What are the latest digital marketing trends?<\/h3>\n
\u201cAchieving marketing objectives through applying digital media, data and technology<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n Definitions of digital marketing often start with media and digital channels, but it\u2019s best to focus on a simple definition showing digital marketing is about what you you want to achieve, i.e., showing how you can use digital marketing to reach your goals.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re looking for a simple introduction to digital marketing, read my article exploring What is digital marketing?<\/a> where I explain a process to achieve success by focusing on the 18 most important digital marketing channel techniques.<\/p>\n In this article we introduce the different options for digital marketing channels that should form part of your strategy:<\/p>\n A. Digital marketing can be expensive if you limit your activity to paid media, but its power compared to traditional media has always been that it supports integrated communications through free and paid options.<\/em><\/p>\n In our article explaining What is the difference between paid, owned and earned media<\/a> we use this classic visual to explain the three options:<\/p>\n A. There are many online communications techniques that marketers must prioritize to include as part of their communications strategy. Marketers often use paid, owned and earned media to describe investments at a high-level, but it\u2019s more common to refer to these six key digital media channels<\/strong> I have defined in our books when selecting specific always-on and campaign investments.<\/em><\/p>\n The visual from our book at the top of this list shows how these can broken down further to common types people describe.<\/p>\n A. The most cost-effective channels are usually organic traffic such as organic search, social media and email, but it's often necessary to use paid media such as Google Ads, Paid social and display ads to support organic.<\/em><\/p>\n This research shows which digital acquisition channels are important across different sectors. It\u2019s taken from the Contentsquare Digital Experience Benchmarks<\/a> which is a good quality source. The top 7 media channels are:<\/p>\n Note that direct traffic often includes untracked or 'dark' traffic where people reach a website via a mobile app or type in a URL, so it is often the most popular channel, although the reality is the referrers will be from other sources.<\/p>\n Learn more: Which are the best media for digital marketing?<\/a><\/p>\n A. A digital marketing strategy should include both a framework to define the strategic digital priorities you need to work on and a process defining the steps you need to work through to define, select and implement the strategy.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Our RACE Growth System<\/strong> for improving marketing effectiveness has two parts which we explain in more detail in our in-depth article on the popular RACE marketing framework<\/a>:<\/p>\n Part 1. The RACE Planning Framework:<\/strong> defines the essential activities and measures businesses need to master to survive and thrive in today\u2019s marketing world.<\/p>\n Part 2. The RACE OSA improvement process:<\/strong>\u00a0defines the three steps needed to build and implement your growth plan - either for your overall marketing plan or for an individual channel, such as organic search, social media or email marketing.<\/p>\n I developed the\u00a0 framework nearly 15 years ago based on my experience of consulting and training in digital marketing for businesses in a range of sectors and in companies of different sizes from small to large. Although it is often viewed as a specialist digital marketing framework, in fact it is designed to work for multichannel marketing including offline ads and touchpoints.<\/p>\n A. An online marketing plan should contain a review of current use of digital marketing and the results it delivers, SMART objectives to improve results, prioritized strategy initiatives and an action plan to implement the strategy.<\/em><\/p>\n Knowing where to start is perhaps the most difficult part of creating any form of marketing plan for the first time. I have found it similar when writing books. But once you have a structure defined, it becomes much easier to fill in each section. You can use a similar \u2018divide and conquer\u2019 approach with any form of longer form content in Generative AI. Ask it to suggest a structure, modify it for what it has missed and then ask it to work on smaller sections. This can work for plans too, but take care since based on its knowledge base, AIs can recommend that a digital marketing plan is just about the channels and doesn\u2019t include the bigger questions around goals, visions, audiences, segmentation, targeting, brand positioning and selecting the best strategies.<\/p>\n We recommend structuring a plan based on the RACE Growth System process which defines a simple structure of Opportunity > Strategy > Action. You can apply OSA to different marketing activities from creating a growth plan for the next 3 months, creating an annual plan or improving your marketing campaign process. It also works well for driving results from individual channels like the website, organic or paid search, social media or email marketing. You can also apply it to your personal learning and skills development.<\/p>\n So the plan should define:<\/p>\n Opportunity - analysis and goals<\/strong><\/p>\n Strategy - prioritization of activities to achieve goals:<\/strong><\/p>\n Action:<\/strong><\/p>\n This question is answered further following the recommended link in the next question.<\/p>\n A. Opportunity > Strategy > Action provides a simple structure for a digital marketing plan starting with situation analysis and performance review to set objectives, then strategy prioritization and finally an action plan.<\/em><\/p>\n We believe that an integrated digital marketing strategy is essential for marketers working in all types of business to take advantage of the growing digital marketing opportunities for acquiring and retaining customers - so you can win more sales.<\/p>\n In this article, we explain how to structure a digital marketing strategy using the Smart Insights RACE Framework using different examples.<\/p>\n How should I structure a digital marketing plan<\/a><\/p>\n AA.\u00a0 digital marketing audit should use a data-driven approach to review the maturity and use of digital marketing so you can identify improvements which should form a strategy.<\/em><\/p>\n Auditing your digital marketing activities is an essential starting point for defining a digital marketing strategy. But they\u2019re also useful for finding opportunities to improve your digital marketing by identifying priorities you need to act on to get better results.<\/p>\n Our auditing approach is a data-driven audit using tools to compare to your competitors and using Google Analytics to assess the effectiveness of your marketing communications.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve structured this audit based on the 5 key parts of our RACE Framework:<\/p>\n How to do a digital marketing audit?<\/a><\/p>\n A. Digital marketing strategies can define:<\/em><\/p>\n For more advice, see our article: Three digital marketing plan examples<\/a><\/p>\n This is one of the most common questions that \u2018crops up\u2019 when I\u2019m running training workshops or discussing creating marketing plans with businesses.<\/p>\n It\u2019s no surprise since the difference between these two activities often isn\u2019t distinct. Yet, it\u2019s an important question to answer since our research shows that so many businesses don\u2019t have a clear marketing strategy or plan.<\/p>\n Without a clear strategy, it\u2019s likely some of your tactics may be poorly directed, so may not be propelling the business in the direction needed.<\/p>\n What is the difference between strategy vs. tactics in digital marketing?<\/a><\/p>\n A. This varies widely depending on business size, sector and turnover, but benchmarks for larger business suggest marketing budget is around 7-8% of revenue on average. This chart is from Gartner research for 2025<\/a>. Within the marketing budget digital marketing is now typically the majority of spend.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/a>Q. What\u2019s the difference between paid, owned and earned media?<\/h3>\n
\n
<\/a>Q. What are the different types of digital marketing?<\/h3>\n
\n
<\/a>Q. What are the best digital marketing media channels?<\/h3>\n
\n
<\/a>Q. What is digital marketing strategy?<\/h3>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/a>Q. What should an online marketing plan contain?<\/h3>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/a>Q. How should I structure a digital marketing plan?<\/h3>\n
<\/a>Q. How to do a digital marketing audit?<\/h3>\n
<\/a>What are examples of digital marketing strategies?<\/h3>\n
\n
<\/a>What is the difference between strategy vs. tactics in digital marketing?<\/h3>\n
<\/a>How much should I spend or budget on digital marketing?<\/h3>\n
<\/p>\n<\/a>Q. What are the latest digital marketing trends?<\/h3>\n