Compare Marketing ChannelsSEO, ads, social or email firstSee what I do

Marketing channel planner

Score SEO, paid ads, social and email on five criteria you weight yourself, and see a weighted comparison with the equation shown.

By Antoine Martin, Founder, Web Marketing International.
Published 4 November 2026. Last reviewed 4 November 2026.

Short answer

Weight five criteria from 0 to 10, score each channel from 1 to 5, and the planner shows a weighted score for each with the sum written out. It uses only what you enter and stores nothing.

How to use it

First weight the five criteria from 0 (does not matter to me) to 10 (decisive for me). Then, for each criterion, give each channel a score from 1 to 5. Choose Not scored where you cannot judge yet. I have written the prompts so that they do not favour any channel. A few facts may help you score. Google says some SEO changes take hours and others several months[1], Google Ads lets you edit your daily budget at any time[2], a conversion in Google Ads is an interaction that leads directly to a behaviour valuable to you[3], and the TDRA’s policy on marketing text messages turns on the recipient’s consent[4]. Score on your own situation, not on what any platform says about itself.

The planner

Time to first result

Score 5 if the channel can give you a usable result within the time you can wait, 1 if it cannot.

Budget flexibility

Score 5 if you can start small, change the spend and stop without much penalty, 1 if the channel needs a commitment you cannot make.

Skills you have

Score 5 if you or your team can already run this channel well, 1 if you would need to buy or learn everything.

How your customers find businesses like yours

Score 5 if your customers actually use this channel when they are deciding, 1 if they rarely do. Ask a few recent customers.

Measurement

Score 5 if you could tie this channel to enquiries or sales in your own records, 1 if you could not.

Weighted comparison

Enter a weight for every criterion to see the comparison. Enter 0 for a criterion that does not matter to you.

Weighted score = sum of (weight x your score) / sum of the weights, taken over the criteria you scored for that channel. It is arithmetic on your own numbers, not a forecast of results. Nothing you enter is stored or sent.

How the score works

  • Inputs: five weights (0 to 10, yours) and up to 20 scores (1 to 5, yours). A score for a criterion with weight 0 is ignored.
  • Formula: weighted score = (sum of weight x score) / (sum of the weights of the criteria scored for that channel).
  • Worked example: weights 5 and 3, scores 4 and 2. The sum is (5 x 4) + (3 x 2) = 26, the weights add to 8, so the weighted score is 26 / 8 = 3.25 out of 5.
  • If a channel is scored on fewer criteria than another, the result says so, because the two are then not directly comparable.
  • If every weight is 0 or a weight is missing or invalid, the planner shows a message and no result.

Limits. The planner turns your own judgement into a number. It cannot tell you whether your judgement is right, it ignores anything outside the five criteria, and it does not forecast results. Two channels close in score may well be a tie in practice. It stores nothing: what you type stays in your browser and is not sent anywhere. It does not favour the publisher: Web Marketing International FZCO sells services in some of these channels, and the scores are yours.

What to do next

If two channels are close, go back to the questions behind the low scores. The order of those questions is in which marketing channel a UAE business should do first, and the choice between SEO and paid ads has its own page in SEO or paid ads: how to choose between them. When you have chosen, the launch checklist is next. If you would like to talk it through with me, my services are described on my own site.

Sources

  1. Google Search Central, SEO Starter Guide: The Basics. Accessed 4 November 2026.
  2. Google Ads Help, About average daily budgets. Accessed 4 November 2026.
  3. Google Ads Help, Conversion tracking: Definition. Accessed 4 November 2026.
  4. Telecommunications and Digital Government Regulatory Authority (TDRA), UAE, Regulatory Policy: Unsolicited Electronic Communications, Version 1.1 (13 June 2022). Accessed 4 November 2026.