Digital strategy: the five-step method

What is a digital strategy?

A digital strategy sets out how an organisation uses online channels. It serves specific objectives: awareness, customer acquisition, sales, loyalty. It answers four questions: who are we talking to, with what message, on which channels, and how do we know it works?

We speak of a digital marketing strategy when the scope is limited to marketing. Digital transformation is broader. It affects the organisation, internal tools and processes: invoicing, customer relations, production.

Being online is therefore no longer enough to stand out. The difference comes from consistency between channels and from measuring what each one brings in.

Where do you start a digital strategy?

Before choosing a channel, take stock. Three angles are enough for a first diagnosis:

Angle	Questions to ask	Useful sources
What you already have	Which channels already bring in customers? Which pages convert? What does a customer cost today?	Web analytics, CRM, accounting
Your customers	Who buys, why, after which questions? Where do they get their information?	Customer interviews, sales team, customer service, search queries
Your market	Who captures attention on your topics? On which channels are your competitors absent?	Search results, social networks, visible ads

Then summarise everything as strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT). Turn it into two or three personas. A persona is the portrait of a typical customer: their needs, their objections, the moments when they look for a solution. Build it from real interviews, not from assumptions made at a desk.

How do you set objectives and KPIs?

Start from the business objective: revenue, number of customers, margin. Translate it into a marketing objective, then into indicators for each stage of the journey. Each objective must be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound. That is the SMART rule.

Stage of the journey	Typical objective	Indicators (KPIs)
Awareness	Be known by your target	Brand searches, reach, impressions
Consideration	Be compared and consulted	Qualified visits, pages viewed per visit, newsletter sign-ups
Conversion	Get sales or leads	Conversion rate, cost per acquisition, revenue
Loyalty	Get customers to come back and recommend you	Repeat purchase rate, customer lifetime value, customer reviews

Track conversions the same way everywhere. In Google Analytics 4, they correspond to key events (Google Analytics Help, accessed on September 26, 2026). In Google Ads, they are conversion actions that you choose: purchase, sign-up, call (Google Ads Help, accessed on September 26, 2026). Setting this up is detailed in our web analytics guide.

Which digital marketing levers should you choose?

Each lever has its own lead time, cost and role in the journey. The right mix depends on your target, your sales cycle and your human resources.

Lever	Main role	Time to impact	Main cost
SEO	Capture the demand expressed in Google	Several months	Production and technical time
SEA	Capture demand right away	Immediate	Media budget paid per click
GEO	Get cited in AI engine answers	Several months	Content, reputation, off-site presence
Social media	Build awareness and a community	Gradual	Community management time, creative work
Email marketing	Convert and retain an audience you already have	Fast if the database exists	Sending tool, creative work
Content marketing	Feed all the other levers	Gradual	Editorial production

A starting rule: combine three levers. A fast lever (often SEA) tests the messages. A lasting lever (SEO and content) reduces dependence on budget. A loyalty lever (email marketing) makes each acquired customer more profitable. Expand afterwards, once these three levers are running.

For SEO, Google itself publishes a guide to the basics (Google Search Central, accessed on September 26, 2026). It stresses useful content, a clear structure and explicit links. It is a good starting point before hiring anyone.

Inbound, outbound and growth: three approaches

Inbound attracts the customer who is already searching: content, SEO, social media. Outbound goes after the prospect who is not searching yet: advertising, direct prospecting. Growth marketing is a method more than a channel. It runs rapid tests across the whole journey, from acquisition to referral, based on data. A digital strategy often mixes all three.

How do you build the action plan?

1. List the actions by lever: page creation, campaigns, editorial calendar, email sequences.
2. Prioritise according to expected impact and required effort. Start with what removes an obstacle: missing measurement, a page that does not convert.
3. Assign roles: who produces, who approves, who measures. An action without an owner will not get done.
4. Plan over twelve months, with quarterly milestones and key sales periods.
5. Schedule reviews: monthly for indicators, quarterly to reallocate the budget.

The plan does not need a fifty-page document. A shared spreadsheet is enough to steer most SMEs. For each action, it shows the objective, the owner, the deadline and the indicator.

What does a digital strategy document contain?

Many people look for a digital strategy example to download. Rather than a ready-made template, keep the outline in mind. A short document covers each step of the method:

• Context and diagnosis: what exists, customers, market, SWOT summary.
• Targets: two or three personas.
• SMART objectives and KPIs by stage of the journey.
• Selected levers, with their role and time to impact.
• Twelve-month action plan: actions, owners, deadlines.
• Budget by lever and acceptable acquisition cost.
• Dashboard and review calendar.

Each part fits on one page or less. A document the team rereads is worth more than a file put away after the kick-off meeting.

What budget should you plan for a digital strategy?

There is no universal percentage of revenue to devote to digital. Start instead from the acceptable acquisition cost. That is what you can spend to win a customer, given their margin and their lifetime.

Fictional example: a customer brings in €600 of margin in their first year. You are willing to spend €150 to acquire them. Your site converts 2% of visitors into leads, and 25% of leads sign. You therefore need 200 visits for one customer. Each visit must not cost more than €0.75. This calculation tells you straight away whether a paid channel is viable. It also tells you whether you first need to work on conversion with a CRO approach.

To split the budget between channels, look at each one’s contribution. GA4 now offers two families of attribution models: data-driven and last click. The linear, first click, position-based and time decay models were removed in November 2023 (Google Analytics Help, accessed on September 26, 2026). No model tells the truth. Compare them to spot the channels that start journeys without closing them.

Lead generation: which rules apply?

A B2B digital strategy often aims at lead generation. Downloadable content, webinars and quote forms capture the contact, then email takes over. This follow-up is regulated.

• Towards individuals, email prospecting requires prior, free and explicit consent (a box that is not pre-ticked). Exception: offering similar products to an existing customer.
• Towards professionals, legitimate interest may be enough if the message relates to the recipient’s job. You must have informed them and allow them to object.
• In all cases, the sender must be identifiable. Each message offers a simple way to unsubscribe.

Source: CNIL, “Commercial prospecting by email” (in French), accessed on September 24, 2026. These are the French rules set by the CNIL, the data protection authority. Audience measurement is also regulated. Only tools limited to anonymous statistics, on behalf of the publisher alone, are exempt from consent (CNIL, audience measurement, page dated July 4, 2025). To structure the customer relationship after the first contact, read our customer loyalty and CRM guide.

How do you measure and adjust your digital strategy?

A useful dashboard fits on one page. The business objective sits at the top, then one or two indicators per lever. Compare them with the previous month and with the same period last year. Anything that leads to no decision can come out of the dashboard.

Frequency	What you look at	Possible decisions
Every week	Ad spend, tracking anomalies	Stop a campaign that goes off track, fix a tag
Every month	Leads, sales, cost per acquisition by channel	Adjust messages, pages, bids
Every quarter	Contribution of each lever to the objective	Reallocate the budget, launch or stop a lever
Every year	Results against objectives, market changes	Review targets, positioning and plan

Which mistakes should you avoid?

• Starting with the tool or the channel, before setting the objective and the target.
• Multiplying levers without the resources to run them. Two channels kept up are better than five abandoned.
• Measuring volume rather than value: visits and followers who never become customers.
• Changing course every month. SEO and content need time to produce their effects.

Digital strategy examples

Here are two fictional cases, built for illustration. They show how the same method leads to different choices. The figures in the objectives are assumptions, not observed results.

A B2B industrial SME (fictional case)

The sales cycle is long, customers are few and the value per contract is high. Objective: 40 qualified quote requests per year. Selected levers: expert pages optimised for SEO on industry queries, SEA limited to high-intent queries. LinkedIn builds awareness among buyers. Email marketing handles the follow-up of trade show contacts. Key indicator: quote requests qualified by the sales rep.

A specialist online retailer (fictional case)

The average basket is moderate and purchases can be repeated. Objective: increase online revenue at constant margin. Selected levers: Google Shopping and Performance Max, product pages optimised for SEO. Email marketing follows up abandoned carts and encourages repeat purchases. The checkout funnel is simplified. Key indicators: ROAS, conversion rate, repeat purchase rate.