Digital Marketing Tactics: How to Forecast, Compare, and Prioritize Channels

Choosing tactics starts with evaluation and forecasting.

This article focuses on the Tactics step in START Planning, the process behind the Digital Marketing Success Plan® (DMSP), but it applies more broadly to anyone doing digital marketing planning or revisiting the tactics within their overall strategy. As you plan new tactics or revisit ones already running in the wild, including search engine optimization (SEO), paid search, social, content, email and beyond, the next challenge is deciding where to invest your time and budget.

In the Tactics phase of the START Planning Process, we go beyond making a list of ideas. We apply real-world data, planning tools and forecasting models to make informed, business-aligned decisions. This second article in our Tactics series (check out last week’s article) takes you deeper into how to evaluate, compare and prioritize digital marketing channels before any execution begins.

Evaluation and forecasting keep every dollar working.

Many companies don’t have unlimited resources, which means every dollar and hour spent needs to move the needle. Without proper evaluation and forecasting, marketing leaders can fall into common traps:

• Investing in high-cost, low-impact channels
• Overlapping efforts that cannibalize results (e.g., paid vs. organic search)
• Missing out on compounding return on investment (ROI) from channels that grow over time

The goal here is to get close enough to reality that you can make strategic trade-offs with confidence, without needing perfect predictions.

Step 1: Standardize your evaluation criteria.

The first step is to evaluate all potential tactics through the same lens. This removes bias, gut-feeling decisions and overreliance on past success. Here are key evaluation categories you should apply to every tactic or channel:

• Reach: How big is the potential audience you can access?
• Relevance: Does this channel reach the right audience, at the right stage of their journey?
• Cost: What’s the cost per click, impression or lead, and how does that compare across channels?
• Speed: How quickly can this tactic start delivering results?
• Sustainability: Does this channel continue to produce value over time, or require ongoing spend to maintain?
• Attribution Clarity: How easy will it be to tie performance back to revenue or key business outcomes?

You can assign simple numeric scores (e.g., 1 to 5) for each category and calculate a weighted average or overall ranking. While not scientific, this gives your team a common framework to compare apples to apples.

Step 2: Use real-world data to forecast results.

Evaluation helps you prioritize, and forecasting helps you plan. Once you’ve narrowed your list to a few high-potential tactics, it’s time to project what results you can realistically expect. Forecasting can feel intimidating, but you don’t need to overcomplicate it. You just need to answer one question.

If we invest $X in this tactic, what do we expect to get in return, and when?

Here’s how to do that for common channels.

SEO forecasting starts with search volume.

Use tools like Semrush, Ahrefs or Google Keyword Planner to estimate search volume for relevant keywords. Apply expected click-through rates and conversion rates to forecast traffic and leads, and then layer in how long it might take to earn rankings (usually several months or more).

Paid search forecasting starts with cost per click.

Google Ads and Microsoft Ads provide keyword-level cost per click (CPC) estimates for pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns. Multiply CPC by target volume to estimate budget, and then apply expected click-through rate (CTR) and conversion rates to estimate lead volume and cost per lead.

Social advertising forecasting starts with audience size.

Platforms like LinkedIn and Meta provide audience size and bid estimates. Forecast based on impressions, clicks and conversion data (or use benchmarks if you’re just getting started).

Email and content marketing forecasting starts with your own history.

Use historical open, click and conversion rates, and forecast based on list size and expected growth. With content, consider search traffic potential and engagement metrics as indicators of downstream impact.

Important Tip: Be conservative. Use mid- or low-range estimates and build in ramp-up periods, because you’re better off being surprised by upside than disappointed by unrealistic expectations.

Step 3: Map tactics to the funnel.

Another key part of the Tactics planning phase is identifying where in the customer journey each channel plays best. This makes sure you’re not overspending at one stage (e.g., top-of-funnel awareness) while neglecting others (e.g., lead nurturing or conversion). Here’s a simple mapping to consider:

• Top of Funnel (Awareness): SEO, display ads, social media, thought leadership content
• Middle of Funnel (Consideration): PPC, webinars, guides, comparison content
• Bottom of Funnel (Conversion): Email nurturing, retargeting ads, conversion-focused landing pages

The best-performing marketing plans use a mix of tactics that supports the full funnel and moves prospects through each stage efficiently, instead of relying on a single tactic.

Step 4: Identify overlap and cannibalization.

In the evaluation process, it’s easy to think more is better. Certain channels can overlap and reduce each other’s impact, or worse, inflate your costs without lifting results. Common examples include:

• Google Ads targeting branded keywords you already rank #1 for organically
• Paid and organic search competing for the same keywords without a strategy
• Multiple remarketing platforms targeting the same audience

This is why documentation and planning are so important before launching (or relaunching) anything. You want each tactic to have a clear role and measurable impact, and to play well with the others in the mix.

Step 5: Document it all in your plan.

The output of the Tactics phase is what we call the DMSP Lifecycle, a detailed planning asset that shows how your selected tactics align with your goals, budget and customer journey. Your documented plan should include:

• The full list of tactics evaluated
• The final set of tactics selected
• Forecasted reach, cost, and outcomes for each
• Channel mapping by funnel stage
• Key assumptions and benchmarks to revisit later

You don’t have to get every projection exactly right. By doing the work upfront, you avoid guesswork, reduce risk and lay the groundwork for measurement in the Review phase as you continue through START Planning and build your Digital Marketing Success Plan®.

Tactics define how you’ll reach the success your strategy describes.

If Strategy defines what success looks like, then Tactics defines how you’ll get there. Choosing the right marketing tactics comes down to evaluation, alignment and forecasting rather than guesswork or trends. When done right, the Tactics phase makes sure:

• Your marketing dollars are allocated intentionally
• You can predict and measure success with confidence
• Every tactic plays a clear role in your larger strategy

In the next phase, Application, we’ll dig into the actual assets and resources you’ll need to bring these tactics to life. If your tactics feel more like throwing things at the wall than following your strategy, our strategy and measurement team can help you fix that.