Do you remember when Google first released what’s now called Google Ads (formerly AdWords)? It felt like a gold rush—brands were printing money because inventory was cheap and competition was light.
Fast-forward to today, Google Ads is still a powerhouse, but the marketplace is far more competitive and auction prices reflect that. You can absolutely drive profitable growth, but margins are tighter and execution matters more because everyone knows the playbook.
The same arc played out on Facebook and Instagram. Paid social remains a strong channel, but it was far easier to spin up wins when those ad products were new and CPMs were low. Privacy changes (like iOS 14.5) and algorithm shifts raised the bar.
It isn’t just paid traffic. A decade-plus ago there were fewer SEOs and fewer sites competing for the same queries. Google’s ranking systems evolved to reduce manipulation and reward genuinely useful, people-first content.
No matter how skilled you are, scaling marketing is never “set it and forget it.” Why? Because every great channel attracts great marketers—eventually it gets crowded, costs rise, and tactics that worked yesterday deliver less tomorrow.
So, what should you do?
Keep discovering, validating, and testing new channels while improving the ones that already work. Some bets will outperform others, but consistently expanding your portfolio is how you unlock durable growth.
Here’s how to find and test new marketing channels—quickly and responsibly:
Experimentation
Remember how much fun it was to try new things as a kid? Experimenting in marketing taps that same curiosity—and it pays the bills.
Marketing experimentation means deliberately trying new channels, formats, and partners. If you aren’t continually testing—paid, organic, or partnership-based—you’re capping your growth.
Where do you find ideas worth testing?
Start by studying competitors and adjacent players. Tools like SEMrush can reveal keywords, ads, and landing pages. Placement intelligence tools and ad libraries show creative and channel mix. Use what you learn to shortlist channels to trial.
Also keep tabs on competitor execution over time.
And continually sharpen your instincts by reading a few staple publications.
When you launch experiments, optimize for speed and learning while limiting downside. Cap spend tightly—many teams keep initial tests under $500–$2,000 depending on budget—and define success metrics upfront (e.g., CAC, qualified leads, trial starts). Kill quickly, scale quickly.
Growth
Not every test works. A few channels will be profitable out of the gate; most won’t. Some losers still produce a trickle of paying customers with an unprofitable CAC; others deliver attention but no customers.
Cut channels that deliver zero signal unless the long-term strategic upside is clear (e.g., a brand play you’re willing to incubate). For paid channels that show traction, ramp deliberately.
For paid growth, a simple rule-of-thumb:
- Increase budget in profitable channels until you hit diminishing returns, watch CPA/CAC vigilantly, and reinvest gains in new tests.
- Where you’re slightly in the red, scale only if your model supports it (e.g., strong LTV or payback within target). Don’t exceed ~5–10% loss during testing unless you’ve explicitly budgeted for it and see a clear path to break-even.
For organic channels, commit to consistency. Compounding takes time—often 3–6+ months to see reliable lift. If you can’t give it that runway now, park it, and revisit when you can execute properly.
Don’t obsess over mastering every channel at once. Your growth goal is increasing qualified volume at an acceptable return—not collecting badges.
Optimize
Once traffic and sales are flowing, optimize. Preserve (or increase) conversions while eliminating waste—audiences, keywords, placements, or content that don’t earn their keep.
Deepen your channel expertise: learn each platform’s bidding models, creative formats, and measurement quirks; tighten audience definitions; improve offers; and polish landing pages and onboarding. Small compounding gains here drive big profit later.
Tweak and Maintain
All good channels saturate—it’s a matter of time. Stay nimble.
With paid ads, expect costs to creep up. Trim unprofitable queries and audiences, refresh creative frequently to avoid fatigue, and test new formats (e.g., short-form video, vertical placements). With organic, momentum compounds, but letting off the gas leads to decline. Keep shipping new angles, formats, and assets.
Autopilot is the enemy. Markets shift, platforms change, and user behavior evolves. Review performance weekly, run monthly tests, and recalibrate quarterly.
Many companies stall because they stop exploring. Carve out at least 10 hours a week for experimentation and upkeep. If you do, revenue and profit have a way of climbing month after month.
Why I Choose to Focus on One Marketing Channel at a Time
There’s a pervasive “do it all” mindset in marketing right now.
It’s understandable.
Brands have more viable strategies than ever.
Content marketing, social media, SEO, email, PPC, influencer partnerships—the menu is long.
And that’s before you factor in offline plays still driving results for many companies.
The consequence? Exhaustion and diluted focus.
Marketing overload is real.
Another issue: teams often fail to fully extract the potential of any one strategy.
Before one channel hits its stride, three others rotate in.
If we’ve learned anything, it’s that simplicity wins.
So we intentionally focus on one primary channel at a time.
Here’s why.
We don’t spread ourselves too thin
You know the saying: try to please everyone and you please no one.
That logic applies to channel mix.
Jumping into four or five channels at once is overwhelming and makes excellence in any one of them unlikely.
Even if you’re experienced, you can’t invest the depth needed to unlock outsized returns everywhere at the same time.
Just look at the hours marketers spend on routine work each week:
When you concentrate on one channel, you can give it your full energy.
That focus helps you operate at a higher level and reach meaningful results faster.
Working on too many channels at once makes you a jack of all trades, master of none.
Focusing attention on a single channel lets you master it before moving on.
Managing multiple channels can quickly become chaotic and stressful
Did you know the average B2B content marketer historically produced a wide variety of content types?
Thirteen types was common.
That workload alone is substantial.
Layer multiple channels on top, and chaos comes fast.
Then add social media: many B2B teams maintain a presence on several networks simultaneously.
Even reusing assets, staying active everywhere consumes time.
Burnout is likely, and performance suffers across the board.
The strain is even greater if you’re new to marketing, working with a small team, or juggling other core responsibilities.
There aren’t enough hours in the day to keep every tactic at full throttle.
Something will slip.
Focusing on one channel lets us chip away steadily and be highly effective.
We’re less overwhelmed, and we can ensure the channel we’re working on is actually reaching the right people, generating leads, and driving conversions.
That’s how you maximize ROI without losing your sanity.
We ensure we get it right
Would you rather be great at one instrument or mediocre at five?
We’ll take mastery.
Same with marketing: we’d rather focus on one channel and crush it than spread thin and be average.
If a tactic isn’t producing meaningful results, why pour more time into it now?
Maximum, sustained effort on a single channel yields outsized gains—then you can expand.
Multitasking minimizes our impact
Running many channels at once is basically multitasking—constant context switching.
Research shows that multitasking harms productivity and decision quality.
In other words, spreading attention across too many channels reduces the impact of your entire program.
Focusing on one channel at a time lets you be effective and efficient.
It costs less
Budget matters.
Most teams are maintaining or increasing investments in owned and inbound channels.
Concentrating on one channel typically costs less than splitting budget and attention across many—and it’s easier to prove ROI.
With a lean budget, a multi-channel push can stretch you thin. If two or three bets miss, overall returns drop.
Early on we often had limited resources. Focusing spend and time into one winner maximized outcomes.
Dialing in one channel before scaling others keeps your cost per learning low.
It allows us to outperform our competitors
Winning marketing targets the right audience with the right message in the right place.
When you dabble in everything, no single tactic gets the attention needed to truly stand out.
Dividing time across too many channels weakens each one.
Focus puts you in position to lead. By living and breathing one channel for a season, you compound learning, quality, and performance.
That’s how you break away while competitors chase everything and master nothing.
A final note on picking one marketing channel
We’re not suggesting you only ever use one channel.
We’re warning against going wide too soon.
Don’t put all your eggs in one basket forever. But don’t dilute your early momentum either.
You’ll reduce your overall impact if you spread too thin—especially early on.
Focus on one channel, build it to full capacity, and lock in predictable performance.
Once it’s stable, layer in the next channel.
In short: simplify, systematize, then scale. Over time you’ll assemble a portfolio with no weak links—each channel carrying its weight.
6 Marketing Channels (and which ones to pick)
Ask ten marketers how many channels exist and you’ll get ten answers.
The count gets fuzzier when you include offline channels.
The exact number doesn’t matter.
What does matter is a short list of digital channels that repeatedly produce results for most businesses.
That’s what we’ll cover here.
We’ll walk through six core channels and how to judge whether each fits your goals, budget, and audience.
The practical upside: once you identify the right channels, you can tailor content and offers specifically for them—and for the people who spend time there.
Targeted content resonates more, earns more engagement, and converts better.
Channel #1: Search engines (SEO) is the best place to start
There are very few businesses that can’t benefit from search traffic.
No matter your industry, parts of your audience use Google to find answers, products, and solutions.
That doesn’t mean SEO must be your only focus, but you should research it for every business.
Start with baseline keyword research to size opportunity, then go deeper as needed.
To estimate demand quickly, Google Keyword Planner works well. Enter broad seed terms (e.g., “content marketing,” “social media marketing”) to see monthly volume ranges and related ideas.
Start with a handful of broad, niche-relevant terms and expand outward. Look for dozens of queries with meaningful volume and clear intent you can serve better than current results.
Scan the ideas list for keywords with at least a few hundred searches per month and an intent that aligns with your product or content strengths.
As a quick hack, plug a competitor’s site into Keyword Planner to surface the topics Google associates with them. You can harvest those ideas, then evaluate competitiveness and fit.
If their site runs on WordPress, adding “/feed” to the blog URL can sometimes expose more recent topics to spark ideas.
This produces a broader seed list you can run back through the tool for deeper analysis.
Channel #2: If you want customers fast, PPC (pay-per-click advertising) is the way
When you identify a potential channel, confirm you can reliably reach your audience there.
Then decide whether it fits your goals, economics, and time horizon. Every channel has strengths and trade-offs.
SEO can deliver steady, high-intent traffic at an attractive cost—but it takes time and consistency.
PPC delivers speed. With Google Ads and Microsoft Advertising you can target bottom-of-funnel queries from day one. On paid social (Facebook/Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, YouTube), you can reach precise audiences with creative tailored to their feed.
The catch: it’s easy to waste money without a tight offer, measurement, and funnel. Define conversions, implement tracking, and know your target CAC and payback before you scale.
Where paid shines: If there’s meaningful search demand, run search and shopping. If your audience congregates on social, test prospecting and retargeting with short-form video, carousels, and lead forms. If you have budget for ongoing promotion, PPC is always in play.
If you lack a reliable sales process or onboarding, expect to pay for expensive “learning.” Shore up the funnel first or cap spend tightly while you test.
Spend your early hours on message–offer fit, ad creative, and conversion rate optimization (turning visitors into subscribers, trials, or demos). Then optimize the path from subscriber to revenue to lock in payback.
Channel #3: You don’t always have to compete with other blogs
If you’re launching a blog, it’s actually a good sign when quality blogs already exist in your niche.
No blogs usually means no audience (unless the topic is truly new and growing).
Other blogs aren’t only competitors—they can be partners.
Readers follow multiple sources. Offer value, and you can share attention.
How do you get in front of their audiences?
These approaches work:
- Guest posting — We publish regularly and have shared detailed playbooks. The incentive is free, high-quality content for the host. Pitch great ideas, write to their style, and deliver on time.
- Joint content — For advanced guides, we collaborate with respected creators. They gain exposure; we gain expertise and distribution.
- Sponsored posts — Pay to underwrite content where your brand fits naturally. Disclose sponsorship and keep it useful.
- Joint ventures — Partner on a product, webinar, or course. Help them create more value; earn trust by association.
First, build a list of relevant blogs.
Google phrases like “top (niche) blogs” and collect candidates.
Write them down.
Then check Alltop for more and add the strongest sites to your list:
Prioritize reach: Guest posts on tiny sites won’t move the needle. Look for signs of healthy traffic & engagement.
As you vet sites, note:
- Average comments per post
- Typical social shares
- Overall design and content quality
- Any subscriber or traffic figures they share
It’s hard to know exact traffic, but if new posts earn consistent comments or 100+ shares, the site is worth pitching.
Filter out the rest. If 20+ strong sites remain, you’ve found a partner channel to pursue.
Channel #4: Can you be social?
Social can be boom or bust depending on your niche, creative, and consistency.
Visual, lifestyle, and “how-to” categories (fitness, food, fashion, home, marketing) typically share well. Niche B2B can also win with the right angle.
Success depends on content people want to pass along—save-worthy tips, surprising data, stories, or entertaining short-form video.
To gauge fit, use BuzzSumo to see which topics earn shares and where.
Search your niche. If results are noisy, add quotes to tighten relevance:
Try several related keywords for a broader view.
Look for two signals:
- Is your niche shareable? Multiple posts with 1,000+ shares suggest real potential.
- Which platforms dominate? Often one or two networks drive the majority of shares. Focus there first.
Patterns will emerge. Anchor on the top platform(s) and tailor format accordingly (Reels/Shorts, carousels, threads, long-form).
Channel #5: Forums
Forums have been around since the early web and still matter in many niches.
They don’t scale like paid distribution, but they’re excellent for early traction, customer insight, and reputation—especially when you’re new.
And they cost time, not money.
Search for “(niche) + forum” and look for active communities.
You want at least one highly active forum—think fresh daily threads and consistent replies from unique users.
Check the top results and assess activity.
Most forums display user counts and activity stats near the footer or board index—use those to validate scale.
If you can’t find a strong forum in your exact niche, consider broader categories (e.g., “marketing forums”)—but only if the overlap is meaningful. Otherwise, move on.
Channel #6: Q&A sites
Q&A platforms deserve their own mention.
Quora is the largest, and niche communities exist elsewhere too.
Like forums, this doesn’t scale infinitely, but thoughtful answers can send steady traffic—especially when you include relevant, helpful links.
Bonus: many answers rank in Google for long-tail question queries, providing ongoing discovery.
On Quora, search your niche and choose the closest-matching topic:
Check the follower count on the right. A topic with 20,000+ followers is active enough to test as a distribution channel:
Now that you understand how to identify viable channels, it’s time to choose.
For each channel, confirm your audience is present (as shown above), then weigh relative popularity, your budget, timeline, and goals. Pick your top one to three options.
Resist the urge to chase everything. Focus on one or two, concentrate resources, and execute deeply.
How to Vet a New Marketing Channel in 3 Days or Less
We hear this question all the time:
“What marketing channel should I focus on?”
It’s a make-or-break decision.
But there’s no universal answer—your business model, margins, sales cycle, and audience all matter.
Instead of guessing, use this fast validation process.
For a new business, the wrong channel can set you back months. For an expansion, it can drain focus and cash.
The smartest move is to vet before you commit.
Here’s how to narrow to the best option—fast.
You don’t need more than three days.
First, a quick mindset note.
Resist the urge to diversify
That voice saying “be everywhere” and “don’t miss out”?
Ignore it—for now.
Early on, focus is mandatory.
Spreading thin shortchanges your success.
Why focus?
- More impact. Splitting attention across many channels prevents excellence in any one.
- Lower cost. Testing and ramping one channel is cheaper and easier to measure than a many-channel mess.
- Clearer signal. You’ll learn what truly drives results instead of guessing.
- Competitive edge. Dominance in one arena beats mediocrity in five.
To be clear, this isn’t a lifetime sentence to one tactic.
It’s a starting point. Win in one channel, then expand with confidence.
Multichannel marketing is powerful—but complex. Build from a position of strength.
With that in mind, let’s begin.
Step #1: Know your options
First, brainstorm all feasible channels.
You don’t need to invent them—your audience already hangs out somewhere.
Each channel contains subchannels and formats that might fit you even better.
Here’s a quick overview of major categories:
These often overlap—by design.
For example, SEO and content marketing are inseparable. You rarely do one well without the other.
Social and paid also blend: if you invest in organic social, it’s wise to test ads on the same networks to amplify what works.
Pick a primary platform (e.g., Facebook or LinkedIn), but don’t ignore complementary ad products if they help you reach the same people faster.
Marketers agree—ad spend follows attention and proven results.
The point: even while you focus, expect useful overlap.
Go where your audience goes.
Common options include:
Content marketing
Create and distribute material your audience genuinely needs—articles, guides, videos, newsletters, webinars, and more.
Content is central to most strategies and fuels SEO, email, social, and sales enablement.
Nearly every successful program invests here in some form.
Decide your core formats (blog posts, guest posts, podcasts, webinars, email courses) and commit to a cadence.
Social media marketing
Use social to get discovered, build authority, and nurture community—and to drive traffic when appropriate.
Short-form video and creator-style posts are especially effective right now.
You can do both brand building and direct response—just align content with platform norms.
Paid advertising
Organic takes time. Paid accelerates learning and reach.
The trade-off: you’re renting attention—pay to play, and measure closely.
Channels include search, shopping, paid social, programmatic, sponsorships, and direct response placements.
Public relations
PR earns attention by telling newsworthy stories and building relationships with press, creators, and communities.
Online or offline—press, events, interviews, and sponsorships all apply.
These are the big buckets, but not the only ones. Your best channel is where your audience already pays attention—and where you can consistently show up.
Step #2: Choose the channels aligned with your business goals
Now list the channels that could realistically serve your business.
Start with goals.
Some channels are better for awareness, others for demand, others for sales and retention.
Goals evolve, so your channel mix will too.
Consider your stage and what you must achieve in the next 90 days.
As Jay Abraham notes, there are three ways to grow:
- Acquire more customers
- Increase purchase frequency
- Increase average order value or contract size
Clarify which lever matters most right now.
Early stage? Prioritize awareness, list growth, and acquisition.
Later stage with an existing customer base? Focus on sales velocity and expansion revenue.
Established and healthy? Optimize profit and retention.
Here’s what many businesses prioritize at different points:
Use this as a prompt—not a prescription. Align channels to your goals so you don’t waste effort on misfit tactics.
Quick elimination examples:
If your top goal is brand awareness, PR, social, and content often outperform pure performance ads on efficiency.
If you need immediate pipeline or sales, paid search, paid social, and conversion-focused content can shine.
Here’s how content marketing maps to common goals (for inspiration):
Also consider what feels natural for your product and audience.
Selling lifestyle products (e.g., bikes, boards)? Long blog posts alone won’t showcase value. Visual channels that demonstrate use (YouTube, Instagram, TikTok) likely outperform.
That logic quickly narrows your list to a few promising choices.
You don’t need “the one” yet—just eliminate obvious mismatches and rank the rest.
Step #3: Narrow down the list by going where your audience is
With a shortlist in hand, prioritize by audience presence.
Channels can be viable in theory, but if your customers aren’t there, you’ll push uphill.
We’re not trying to find a guaranteed slam dunk without testing—just validating viability before we invest.
Here’s how to locate attention fast:
- Start with SEO signals.
- Do competitive research.
- Validate with social data.
Let’s break it down.
SEO
A large share of online journeys still begins with search.
Search a handful of core keywords to see what people look for and how often.
If volume for your space is thin, consider offline channels or a different angle online—or treat it as a whitespace opportunity if you can create demand.
Use the Google Keyword Planner for a fast read on volume and intent clusters.
Type in a keyword to get search ranges and idea groups.
Competition research
Find your competitors with a few core searches. The first page of results shows who Google already rewards.
List them, then analyze with tools like SimilarWeb.
Enter a competitor domain to see traffic mix at a glance:
Pay special attention to “Traffic sources.”
If search is their largest source, SEO and content should likely be core for you, too.
“Direct” often reflects brand strength and repeat visitors—not a first-touch channel by itself.
Dig into the drilldowns for referrals, organic keywords, and top social networks.
Note which organic terms drive traffic and whether you can produce something better.
Also record the top social platform—this hints where to focus first.
Social media
Take social research a step further with BuzzSumo.
Search a competitor domain or topic to see top-performing content and which platforms drive the most shares:
If SimilarWeb shows Facebook as a top source, BuzzSumo should echo that with the most shares from Facebook on their best content.
Use these two views together to validate platform fit.
Finally, visit those platforms directly. Audit groups, hashtags, and top creators to understand what resonates now.
After this process you’ll likely have two or three solid options.
Choose the one that’s cheap to test, fast to learn, and easy to execute with your current resources.
Pick one, commit, and start.
Conclusion
Picking a marketing channel is a big decision.
Validate before you go all in.
Marketing takes time and money—you want a strong return on both.
The best way to protect ROI is to vet channels quickly, then test deliberately.
Double down on what’s working. Stop what isn’t. Keep experimenting.
Most teams skip validation and testing. If you keep iterating and adjusting based on results, you’ll stay a step ahead—and your growth will show it.