Digital marketing spans three categories of channels: paid (ads you buy, such as Google or Meta ads), owned (assets you control, such as your website and email list), and earned (coverage, shares, and reviews you don't pay for directly). A widely used planning model is RACE -- Reach, Act, Convert, Engage, developed by the marketing resource Smart Insights -- which maps these channels onto the stages of a customer's journey from first awareness to repeat engagement. Before choosing channels, set a SMART goal (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound), since 'get more customers' cannot be measured but 'generate 200 qualified leads from paid search in Q1' can. For a small business with a limited monthly budget, the common early mistake is spreading thin effort across every platform at once instead of proving that one or two channels convert before scaling spend.