Digital marketing strategy: channels, costs and a 90-day plan (2026)

A digital marketing strategy is the plan that defines who a company talks to online, through which channels, with what budget and how it will measure whether it worked. It is not a list of social networks or a posting calendar: it is the decision about where to put each dollar to win customers at the lowest possible cost, today and two years from now.

This guide explains what a digital marketing strategy should include in 2026, how much each channel costs with real data from Chile and why the plan no longer ends at Google: it also has to account for what ChatGPT, Gemini and Google's AI summaries answer.

What a digital marketing strategy is

It is a short document with five answers: what we want to achieve (sales, leads, awareness), for whom (the customer and how they search), where (channels), with how much (budget per channel) and how it is measured (metrics and frequency). Everything else, from ad tone to keywords, follows from those five decisions.

In Spanish, the search "estrategia de marketing digital" gets 720 queries a month in Mexico, 320 in Colombia and Peru, and 140 in Chile and Argentina, according to Google Ads (November 2026). In the United States, "digital marketing strategy" gets 5,400. In Chile, each click on that search costs US$15.83 on average: a sign of how many agencies compete for people building their plan.

140150300500700–720

Only five countries were measured; the rest have no data.Source: Google Ads via DataForSEO, monthly average, queried November 10, 2026

View the data as a table

Mexico	720
Colombia	320
Peru	320
Chile	140
Argentina	140

How much companies invest in digital marketing

Gartner's annual survey of 401 marketing leaders in North America and Europe, published in May 2026, puts the marketing budget at 7.8% of company revenue, almost the same as in 2025, and shows that 15.3% of that budget already goes to artificial intelligence initiatives (Gartner, 2026 CMO Spend Survey). The sample is weighted toward large companies, so it is a reference, not a rule for a small business.

In Chile, digital already takes more than half of advertising investment: 53.9% between January and September 2025, according to the media investment report from AAM, the Chilean association of media agencies. In 2024 it was 52.8%.

7.8%of company revenue is the average marketing budget (Gartner, 2026)

15.3%of the marketing budget goes to AI initiatives (Gartner, 2026)

53.9%of advertising investment in Chile was digital (AAM, January-September 2025)

30%of organizations say they are ready to scale AI in marketing (Gartner)

Source: Gartner, 2026 CMO Spend Survey; AAM Chile, media investment January-September 2025

View the data as a table

of company revenue is the average marketing budget (Gartner, 2026)	7.8%
of the marketing budget goes to AI initiatives (Gartner, 2026)	15.3%
of advertising investment in Chile was digital (AAM, January-September 2025)	53.9%
of organizations say they are ready to scale AI in marketing (Gartner)	30%

The channels of a digital marketing strategy

Each channel does a different job and, above all, leaves something different behind when you stop paying. That last column is the one most often forgotten when building the budget:

The rule of thumb: paid channels capture demand that already exists, and organic channels (SEO, content, media mentions) build assets that lower acquisition costs over time. A healthy strategy has both. For the organic side, the foundation is an SEO strategy with clear priorities.

How much each click costs: the number that shapes the strategy

Google Ads cost per click varies enormously by industry, and that changes which digital marketing strategy makes sense. In our analysis of 59,790 keywords in Chile (September 2026), the median click in B2B software was US$3.91 and in automotive US$0.25: 16 times less.

B2B software and servicesUS$3.91

Legal servicesUS$2.29

InsuranceUS$1.98

EducationUS$1.69

Home servicesUS$1.06

Finance and creditUS$1.04

TravelUS$0.82

Health and aestheticsUS$0.81

Real estateUS$0.46

AutomotiveUS$0.25

Source: Google Ads via DataForSEO, Chile, September 2026; 2,308 keywords with 100+ searches. Analysis by ESBUENISIMO LINKS

View the data as a table

B2B software and services	US$3.91
Legal services	US$2.29
Insurance	US$1.98
Education	US$1.69
Home services	US$1.06
Finance and credit	US$1.04
Travel	US$0.82
Health and aesthetics	US$0.81
Real estate	US$0.46
Automotive	US$0.25

If clicks are cheap, Google Ads can carry much of the plan. If they are expensive, each organic visit is worth more and SEO, media mentions and links pay for themselves faster. The full list is in our study of the most expensive Google Ads keywords in Chile.

Industry	Median CPC (US$)	Times the automotive CPC
B2B software and services	3.91	15.6
Legal services	2.29	9.2
Insurance	1.98	7.9
Education	1.69	6.8
Home services	1.06	4.2
Finance and credit	1.04	4.2
Travel	0.82	3.3
Health and aesthetics	0.81	3.2
Real estate	0.46	1.8
Automotive	0.25	1.0

Source: Google Ads via DataForSEO, Chile, September 2026; 2,308 keywords with 100+ searches. Analysis by ESBUENISIMO LINKS

Digital marketing strategy in the age of AI

There is a shift most plans still do not reflect: a growing share of searches is answered before the first result. In our measurement of 200 searches in five Latin American countries, Google showed an AI summary in 84.5% of cases; the details are in our study of AI Overviews in Latin America. And when someone asks ChatGPT or Gemini directly, the answer names specific brands.

Those answers are built from what AI reads: media, comparison sites, industry portals and videos. That is why a 2026 digital marketing strategy needs a digital PR and AI visibility workstream: being mentioned in the media that Google and AI consider trustworthy. That is exactly what ESBUENISIMO LINKS does: it publishes brands in more than 1,400 real media outlets across Latin America and measures their presence in AI answers; the Chile service is at link building in Chilean media by ESBUENISIMO LINKS.

How to build your strategy in 90 days

A simple plan that a small team can run, alone or with help from an SEO agency:

Metrics to measure results

A strategy without metrics is a wish list. Pick a few, review them every month and give each one an owner:

• Cost per lead or per sale, by channel. This is the metric that shapes the budget: it shows which channel brings cheaper customers, not just more clicks.
• Brand searches. If more people search the company's name on Google, marketing is working even when it does not show in the last click.
• Google rankings for the business's searches and the number of domains linking to the site, the basis of authority.
• Media mentions and AI presence: how many ChatGPT, Gemini and Google answers include the brand compared with its competitors.

Three common mistakes: copying a competitor's plan without checking your own cost per click, measuring only vanity metrics (followers, impressions) and never checking what AI says about the brand. A digital marketing strategy reviewed every month with cost per lead, rankings and mentions gets corrected in time; one reviewed once a year does not.