How Do We Start Digital Marketing, What’s the First Step?
The most common answer to how to start digital marketing is wrong: “open an account and run ads”. The right answer is dull but saving — set up measurement and draw the demand map. 🪜
Short answer: four stages — measurement, demand map, a pilot on one channel, rollout and optimisation. The channel arrives at stage three; work that doesn’t start at stage one produces spending, not information.
Below: the four stages, week one’s work, the pilot logic and a typical timeline. 🗓️
Stage one: measurement
The real answer to how to start digital marketing lives here.
Three things must be tracked
1) Which channel an enquiry came from. 2) Whether it was qualified. 3) Whether it turned into a sale. The third isn’t a technical setup but information from the sales side — and it’s the most neglected. 📊
Stage two: the demand map
Where the decision gets made.
Stage three: a pilot on one channel
The channel can finally enter.
One channel, one message, one page
For the chosen stage, one channel opens, with one message, landing on its own page. That trio is simple, so it’s measurable; a complex setup looks good but hides what works. 🎛️
Stage four: rollout
Where the gain becomes permanent.
What’s a typical timeline?
Writing the expectation down saves the project.
First week, first month, first quarter
Week 1: measurement setup and recording current numbers. Weeks 2-3: demand map and the missing-stage decision. Week 4: pilot on one channel. Month 2: first optimisation round. Month 3: cost settles, the second channel gets discussed. By the end of month three you talk in numbers; timing sits in the results article, all questions on the consulting page. 🗓️
📝 Field Notes
At a client who postponed measurement setup as “technical work”, ads ran for three months. At the end, nobody knew which campaign brought work. Setup was done; the following month half of it was cut on the same budget and enquiries kept rising. Measurement isn’t a cost; it’s the decision that saves half the budget. 📊
📖 Quick Glossary
Demand map: the table of query, stage and the asset that meets it. Pilot: a first implementation on one channel. Optimisation: changing one variable and measuring the result. Customer acquisition cost: the total spent to win one customer.
⚡ Quick Summary
Four stages: measurement, demand map, pilot, rollout. 🪜 The channel arrives at stage three. A five-line table is enough. Pick the stage with the biggest drop, not the most traffic. Test one variable a month.
🎯 Next Step
Let’s do week one together: measurement setup and recording current numbers — free: the digital audit. Scope on the consulting page. 🗓️
Frequently Asked Questions
Sık Sorulan Sorular
No. A five-line table suffices: month, channel, enquiries, qualified count, closed jobs. A simple table that gets used beats an advanced dashboard that doesn’t. 📋
Query or trigger, stage, the asset that meets it. Gathered from your search data, the enquiry form and sales conversations. Rows left empty in the third column show the work to produce — the method sits in the where-they-search article. 🗺️
The stage with the most loss. That’s usually not the stage with the most traffic but the one with the biggest drop. If eighty percent is lost somewhere, fixing that is cheaper than buying new traffic. 🎯
Enough to collect meaningful data — undivided, in one place. A small budget isn’t a problem; a divided one is. The division logic sits in the budget article. 💰
Once customer acquisition cost and conversion settle on the first. At that point the second channel opens on what the first taught you, not a guess. Sequencing beats simultaneity. 🚦
Testing one variable a month: message, targeting or landing page. A business changing all three at once can’t tell why even when things improve. 🔬
Limited, for the basics; the hard part is deciding which event to track, and that takes business knowledge. The closing information from the sales side is entirely in your hands. The technical part takes a day; the decision part is made together.
You don’t need to stop; set up measurement and put the existing campaigns under observation. Within a few weeks it’s visible which one brings work and the budget moves from there. Making it visible beats stopping.
It can; the condition is not dividing it. In a one-channel, one-message, one-page setup even a small budget shows direction within weeks. The same money split across three channels shows direction nowhere.