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Complete Digital Marketing Checklist: Version 2025

See at a glance where your digital marketing is doing well, and where you are missing opportunities?

This complete checklist gives you clear overview, concrete action points and benchmarks per channel. Ideal for freelancers, marketers or agencies who want to invest smarter, grow faster and waste less.

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Digital marketing checklist: how to use it

Use this document as your monthly or quarterly check: tick off what you have in order, find out what could be better, and address the right areas for improvement immediately.

What is a healthy marketing mix for 2025?

A smart strategy combines:

  • SEO for lasting, free visibility
  • PPC (Google Ads, Social Ads) for direct leads or sales
  • Email marketing & automation for retention and upsell
  • Content marketing as a foundation for authority and trust
  • Optional: affiliate, influencer or local SEO according to your niche

For specific niches:

  • For e-commerce the focus is often on SEA, email and CRO.
  • For B2B on SEO, LinkedIn and lead nurturing.
  • For local businesses on local SEO and customer relations via email/social.
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What about budget allocation?

A strong digital marketing strategy is not about 'being on all channels at once', but about choosing smartly.

A healthy mix in 2025 looks something like this:

  • SEO (10-25%) - Be visible without paying for every click. Long-term, but super profitable.
  • Google Ads & Social Ads (30-50%) - For instant growth, fast data and retargeting.
  • Content marketing (10-15%) - Blogs, videos and downloads that reinforce your authority.
  • Email & automation (5-10%) - Keeping your customers warm, following up, converting.
  • CRO & Tools (5-10%) - Making your website perform better, not buying more traffic.
  • Test budget (5-10%) - For new channels, tools or formats.

This is a 'healthy' marketing-budget mix, but obviously depends a lot on your niche. B2B companies, for instance, will put more effort into E-mail, SEO & outreach, while other companies will put almost 40% marketing budget solely into SEO.

The only heads-up I want to give with this is that you should do not want to depend entirely / too much on one channel, because then you are playing a risky game.

Tip: Determine your top three growth channels and do them really well. Better three arrows that hit, than ten that deviate.

Introduction

Are you a freelancer, marketer or work at an agency? Then you know how fast online marketing is changing. New trends, new tools, new channels - but also a lot of noise. That's why you won't get any fancy marketing language or fluff here, but an honest, clear checklist that shows:

  • Where you stand now
  • Where you are leaving money or leads
  • What you can easily improve

The checklist is clear, practical and written for people with or without marketing knowledge. Ideal to include monthly or quarterly. Use it smartly? Then you'll get more out of your existing budget - whether it's €1,000 or €100,000 a month.

1. SEO: long-term visibility

Checkpoints:

  • Are your most important keywords incorporated in your pages?
  • Have you published at least 1 strong blog or guide per month?
  • Are your pages mobile-friendly and fast?
  • Have you built up backlinks from niche-relevant websites?
  • KPIs: organic traffic, position top 10 keywords, bounce rate
  • Common mistake: thinking SEO is 'done' after a few months

Tip: Publish 80% evergreen content, 20% trends or news

2. SEA: Google Ads for direct leads

Checkpoints:

  • Are you using SKAGs or Performance Max with clear target groups?
  • Do you have retargeting active?
  • Is your conversion track (forms, purchases) set up correctly?
  • KPIs: cost per click (CPC), conversion rate, ROAS
  • Common mistake: broad advertising without good search intent

Tip: Test new ad variations on headline/text weekly

3. Social Ads: Fast reach & targeting

Checkpoints:

  • Do you have separate campaigns for each funnel stage (awareness vs. conversion)?
  • Do you use videos with subtitles?
  • Are you testing Meta, LinkedIn and/or TikTok for your target audience?
  • KPIs: CPM, CTR, cost per lead
  • Common mistake: aiming only for likes without clear conversion

Tip: Retarget on profile visitors & video viewers >15 seconds

4. Email marketing: Build your 'owned audience'

Checkpoints:

  • Do you have an automated onboarding/series?
  • Do you send a newsletter or update at least 2x/month?
  • Do you use tags or segmentation?
  • KPIs: open rate, click-through rate, unsubscribers
  • Common mistake: too much promo, not enough valuable content

Tip: Use email to build trust and authority. With "Owned Audience" I want to say that this your audience is. A lot of people forget that followers on Facebook, TikTok or Instagram is a "Rented Audience", and if your account disappears, there are problems, etc... You have no one left to advertise to.

5. Content marketing: building authority

Checkpoints:

  • Do you have content for each stage of the funnel?
  • Do you use 1 content piece in multiple ways (video, post, mail)?
  • Are your core expertise clearly explained on your site/blog?
  • KPIs: average reading time, shares, conversion per page
  • Common mistake: producing content without a distribution plan

6. CRO: Get more out of your existing traffic

Checkpoints:

  • Is your website clear, fast and mobile-proof?
  • Have you analysed heatmaps or recordings?
  • Is your contact or quote form ultra simple?
  • KPIs: conversion rate, drop-off, form completion
  • Common mistake: testing everything at once without priorities

Tip: Improve your best visited pages first, not all at once

7. Automation & tools: Save time & money!

Checkpoints:

  • Do you use automation for e-mail, customer follow-up or advertising?
  • Do you have a dashboard with key metrics?
  • Is your CRM integrated with your marketing flows?
  • KPIs: time savings, lead response time, system errors
  • Common mistake: too many tools without an overview

Tip: Only automate processes that you have already tested manually

8. Influencer & affiliate marketing

Checkpoints:

  • Do you work with micro-influencers or ambassadors?
  • Do you offer commission for affiliates?
  • Are you measuring real conversions via unique codes/links?
  • KPIs: affiliate ROAS, sales per influencer, CPA per campaign
  • Common mistake: buying only reach without a clear call to action

Tip: Let influencers reuse your content, not the other way around

Whether you work with a small or large budget, those who structure their marketing smartly and evaluate it regularly build faster and stronger than the rest. Use this checklist as your regular evaluation tool, and discover new opportunities to grow with less waste every time.

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