Which digital marketing services do you need? A decision guide
The digital marketing services you need depend on three things: the stage your business is at, the goal you are chasing, and what you can spend. Most businesses need a website that converts before anything else, then one demand channel matched to how customers buy (search for high-intent services, paid social for considered or visual purchases), and conversion rate optimisation once there is traffic to improve.
Which digital marketing services do you need? The short answer
Fix the site, add one channel, then optimise. That is the routing logic behind every recommendation in this guide.
- Fix the site first. If your website does not turn visitors into enquiries or sales, every dollar spent sending people to it is discounted.
- Add one demand channel. Choose the channel that matches how your customers buy: search when they already know what they need, paid social when they need to be shown.
- Optimise, then add the next channel. Once a channel produces leads at a known cost, improve conversion before you buy more traffic.
The decision table below maps stage and goal to a starting service, the next to add and the ones to hold off on, with each service linked to its page in PWD’s digital marketing services.
What is meant by digital marketing
Digital marketing is marketing that reaches customers through search engines, social platforms, websites, email and paid media, and is measured by what it returns. Every channel reports what it cost and what it produced, so the question is never whether digital marketing works but which channels work for your business at a price you can afford. The main services are search engine optimisation (SEO), paid search such as Google Ads, paid social such as Facebook and Instagram advertising, web design and development, conversion rate optimisation, content marketing and email.
How to choose the right digital marketing services: three questions
Choose by stage, goal and budget, in that order. Stage tells you what must be fixed before anything else, goal tells you which channel to buy, and budget tells you how much of it you can buy and how fast to expect results.
What stage is your business at?
There are four stages, and each has one thing it needs first.
- No site, or a site that does not convert. You need web design or a landing page before any traffic. A site that cannot take an enquiry on a phone wastes every channel pointed at it.
- A site that works but has no traffic. You need a demand channel: SEO and Google Business Profile for search, Google Ads for immediate volume, paid social where customers are not yet searching.
- Traffic but poor conversion. You need conversion rate optimisation, not more traffic. Buying visitors for a page that loses them is the most common way to conclude that “marketing does not work”.
- Steady results and ready to scale. You need a second channel and measurement that shows the two working together rather than cannibalising each other.
What is the goal?
Each goal has channels that serve it directly and channels that do not.
- Visibility and brand awareness: SEO, Google Business Profile, content and generative engine optimisation for search, and paid social for reach among people not yet looking.
- Leads now: Google Ads on high-intent terms, with a landing page built for the enquiry, plus local SEO for the terms that convert without a bid.
- Online sales: Google Ads including Shopping, e-commerce conversion rate optimisation, then Facebook and Instagram advertising for prospecting and remarketing.
- Repeat business: Email and remarketing, and a site that makes reordering or rebooking easy. These are cheap relative to acquisition and often the most profitable spend you have.
What can you spend?
Separate what you can spend on media from what you can spend on management, because they are different costs. Ad spend goes to Google or Meta and buys clicks. Management, whether in-house or agency, pays for the people who make those clicks worth having.
SEO is slower, because rankings are earned over months, but it compounds: the page that ranks this year keeps producing next year without a media bill. Paid channels start and stop on demand and produce within days, but the leads stop the day the budget does.
Budget bands are best described by what they can support rather than by fixed figures. A budget that funds one channel should be spent on one channel, run properly. A budget that funds two should put them on the same keyword or audience so they reinforce each other. A budget that only funds a fraction of a channel should be saved until it can fund the whole thing, because half a Google Ads campaign learns nothing.
The decision table
| Your situation | Start with | Add next | Hold off on |
|---|---|---|---|
| New business, no site or a site that does not convert, needs leads now | Web design or a landing page, plus a claimed Google Business Profile | Google Ads on high-intent terms | Paid social, link building and content until the site converts |
| Established service business, site works, no traffic, wants visibility | Local SEO and Google Business Profile optimisation | Google Ads for the terms SEO has not reached yet, then generative engine optimisation | Awareness campaigns on social until search demand is captured |
| Established service business, needs more leads this quarter | Google Ads with a dedicated landing page | SEO on the same keyword set, and conversion rate optimisation once volume is stable | Brand campaigns and video until cost per lead is known |
| E-commerce store, wants sales | Google Ads including Shopping, and conversion rate optimisation on product and checkout pages | Facebook and Instagram advertising for prospecting and remarketing, then SEO on category pages | TikTok advertising until creative that performs on Meta exists |
| Traffic is fine, conversion is poor | Conversion rate optimisation | Landing pages built per campaign | Any increase in media spend until the page converts |
| Considered or visual purchase (builders, beauty, lifestyle), wants brand visibility | Facebook and Instagram advertising with a site that shows the work | SEO and Google Ads for the high-intent terms | Broad awareness spend that cannot be tied to an enquiry |
| Steady results, ready to scale | More of the channel that works, with conversion rate optimisation protecting the margin | A second channel on the same funnel: paid social for search-led businesses, SEO and content for paid-led ones, plus generative engine optimisation | A site rebuild unless the site is the constraint |
What type of digital marketing services should you invest in to enhance brand visibility?
For search visibility, invest in SEO and Google Business Profile optimisation. For reach among people who are not yet searching, invest in paid social. For visibility in AI answers, invest in content and generative engine optimisation. Which one comes first depends on where your customers look before they buy.
The recommended sequence for most Australian businesses is search first. Claim and complete the Google Business Profile, fix the technical and on-page basics on the service pages, then build content around the questions customers ask. Search visibility is earned once and keeps paying, and it is where the highest-intent demand sits.
Add paid social when the category is considered or visual, when customers need to see the product or the finished work, or when search demand is small because people do not yet know the solution exists. Add generative engine optimisation once the site has clear, factual pages an AI assistant can cite.
Measure each kind of visibility with its own numbers: impressions and average position in Search Console plus Business Profile views for search, reach and frequency against a defined audience for social, and whether your pages are cited for the questions that matter for AI, which you can test by asking the assistants directly each month.
What is the most profitable type of digital marketing?
There is no universal winner, but for service businesses the intent-led channels, SEO and Google Ads, usually reach profit fastest because the customer is already looking for what you sell. For visual or impulse products, paid social can win because it creates the demand rather than waiting for it. Anyone who names one channel as the most profitable for every business is selling that channel.
Measure profit per channel yourself rather than trusting channel-level claims. For each channel record the cost per lead, the close rate on those leads from your CRM, and the margin on the work won. Cost per lead alone is misleading: a channel that produces cheap leads that never close is more expensive than one that produces fewer leads that do. Once each channel has a cost per customer and a margin per customer, the profitable one is obvious.
What is the best digital marketing strategy for an Australian small business?
The best digital marketing strategy for an Australian small business is a claimed and optimised Google Business Profile, local SEO on the service pages, a tightly scheduled Google Ads search campaign, and a site that converts on mobile. Those four cover how most local customers find and choose a supplier, and none of them depends on a large budget.
The order matters. The Business Profile and the mobile site come first because they cost the least and every other channel depends on them. Local SEO comes next because it captures searches with suburb and service in them, which convert well and cost nothing per click. Google Ads then buys the demand SEO has not reached yet, restricted to the hours someone can answer the phone.
Once the four are working and cost per enquiry is known, add the next layer: content that answers customer questions, remarketing to people who visited but did not enquire, and paid social if the work is visual. Measure each addition against the enquiry count the first four produced.
What is a holistic digital marketing strategy?
A holistic digital marketing strategy is one plan in which every channel is chosen against the same funnel and measured with the same numbers, rather than channels bought separately from separate suppliers. The test is simple: can you see, in one report, what each channel cost and how many customers it produced, and do the people running each channel know what the others are doing? Our earlier guide to a holistic digital marketing strategy explains the reporting side in more detail.
Blended strategies work because channels cover each other’s gaps. Three examples:
- SEO and Google Ads on the same keyword set. Paid search wins the terms organic has not reached yet, organic takes over as rankings arrive and the paid budget moves to the next set.
- Paid social prospecting with search remarketing. Facebook and Instagram introduce the product to people who were not looking. When those people search later, a brand and remarketing campaign on Google is there to close.
- Content marketing feeding generative engine optimisation. Pages written to answer real customer questions are the same pages AI assistants cite, so one piece of work serves organic search, AI answers and the sales conversation.
For a Perth example of the first blend, PWD’s work for ABC Paint & Deco combined a new WordPress site, SEO and local search, Google Ads running on the same keyword structure as the organic work, and conversion rate optimisation. Two months in, form enquiries were up 131 per cent, with roughly $200K of work won and $700K quoted from the website. Details are on our work.
What services should a top digital marketing agency offer?
A top digital marketing agency offers the full set, SEO, paid search, paid social, web design and development, conversion rate optimisation, content and measurement, delivered by people who talk to each other, with reporting you can verify and no lock-in. The full set matters because the decision table above changes as your business moves through its stages, and an agency that only sells one channel will recommend that channel at every stage.
Delivery matters as much as the list. PWD has delivered all of these services in-house from Perth since 2007, is ISO 9001 and ISO 27001 certified, is a Google Premier Partner, and does not use 12 or 24 month lock-in SEO contracts. Ask any agency the same questions: who does the work, where they sit, what the reports show and how you leave. Our guide to choosing a digital marketing agency sets out the checks.
What matters most for digital marketing success?
Measurement that ties spend to leads and sales matters most, followed by a landing page that converts and the consistency to run a channel long enough to learn from it. Most digital marketing that fails did not fail on the channel. It failed because nobody could see what the spend produced, the page lost the visitors it received, or the campaign was switched off in week three.
Set up tracking for forms, calls and lead outcomes in the CRM before the first dollar is spent, then judge every channel on cost per customer over a full quarter, not on clicks over a week.
Frequently asked questions
How do I market my business online?
Fix the website so it converts on mobile, choose one demand channel that matches how your customers buy, and measure the result before adding a second. For most local service businesses that means a Google Business Profile, local SEO and a scheduled Google Ads campaign. Then find your row in the decision table above.
What are the best digital marketing strategies?
The best strategy depends on your goal. Leads now favours Google Ads with a dedicated landing page, visibility favours SEO and Google Business Profile, online sales favours Shopping ads with conversion rate optimisation, and considered purchases favour paid social with search to close. The decision table maps each combination of stage and goal to a starting point and what to add next.
What is the best way to market a business?
The best way to market a business is to be findable at the moment a customer is looking and convincing when they arrive. In digital terms that is search visibility through SEO, Google Business Profile and Google Ads, and a website that turns the visit into an enquiry. Everything else, from social to email to content, is added once those two are working and measured.
Not sure what to buy first?
The right first service is a decision about your stage, your goal and your budget, and it is one we make with clients every week. The recommendation is the same whether or not you buy it from us.
Still not sure? Tell us your goal and budget and we will tell you what to buy first, and what to leave for later. Or call 08 6146 0195.
