Digital Strategy 2026: Trends and Action Plan for Business

These five trends are not speculative—they are already reshaping how successful businesses operate in the CIS and globally. The question is not whether they will affect your business, but how quickly you adapt.

• 1. AI automation moves from experiment to infrastructure. In 2024–2025, companies experimented with AI: a ChatGPT subscription here, an AI writing tool there. In 2026, leading companies are deploying AI as core business infrastructure: AI agents that handle customer service, content production, data analysis, and even strategic planning support. The shift is from “using AI tools” to “building AI-powered processes.” Companies that have not moved beyond experimentation are falling behind those that have systematized AI across their operations.
• 2. Zero-click search transforms content strategy. Google’s AI Overviews, featured snippets, and knowledge panels now answer many queries without the user clicking through to any website. This fundamentally changes SEO and content strategy. Brands must optimize for visibility within search results (structured data, featured snippet targeting, brand mentions in AI-generated answers) rather than just click-through traffic. Content strategy shifts toward building brand authority that AI systems reference, and toward formats that cannot be summarized (interactive tools, original research, video).
• 3. Short-form video becomes the default content format. TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts are not just for Gen Z entertainment—they are becoming primary discovery and engagement channels for businesses across B2C and B2B. In the CIS market, short-form video consumption grew 60% year-over-year in 2025. Companies that master short-form video for product demonstrations, expert insights, behind-the-scenes content, and customer testimonials gain a significant reach advantage at a fraction of the cost of traditional video production.
• 4. Privacy-first marketing becomes non-negotiable. Third-party cookies are effectively dead. Data protection regulations are tightening across the CIS (Kazakhstan’s personal data law, Russia’s evolving data localization requirements, Uzbekistan’s new digital privacy framework). Marketing strategies built on third-party tracking data must transition to first-party data (collected directly from customers through opt-in relationships), contextual advertising, and server-side analytics. Companies that invested in building their own customer data platforms and email lists in 2024–2025 now have a structural advantage over those still dependent on third-party platforms.
• 5. Conversational commerce emerges as a major channel. Purchasing through chat interfaces—WhatsApp Business, Telegram bots, website chatbots, and voice assistants—is growing rapidly in the CIS. Consumers, especially in Central Asia, prefer messaging over forms and phone calls. Businesses deploying AI-powered conversational commerce (product recommendations, order placement, payment processing, and support through messaging apps) report 20–35% higher conversion rates compared to traditional web checkout flows.

The most important shift in 2026 is treating AI not as a tool but as a platform—a foundational layer that changes how every marketing function operates.

AI as a platform, not a tool. Using ChatGPT to write a blog post is using AI as a tool. Building a system where AI agents automatically analyze campaign performance, generate creative variations, personalize email content, score leads, and produce weekly reports—that is using AI as a platform. The platform approach requires upfront investment in infrastructure, data integration, and workflow design, but it delivers compounding returns as AI capabilities are applied across an expanding range of tasks.

Practical AI applications by marketing function:

• Content creation: AI generates first drafts of blog posts, social media copy, email sequences, and ad creatives. Human editors refine for brand voice, factual accuracy, and strategic alignment. Production speed increases 3–5x. For more detail, see our practical guide to AI in marketing.
• Analytics and insights: AI agents monitor campaign performance in real-time, identify anomalies (sudden CPC spikes, conversion drops), and generate recommendations. Weekly reporting that used to take a marketing analyst 8 hours is automated to 30 minutes of human review.
• Personalization: AI dynamically adjusts website content, email messaging, and ad targeting based on individual user behavior. A returning visitor sees different hero banners, product recommendations, and CTAs than a first-time visitor—automatically, without manual segmentation.
• Customer insights: AI analyzes customer reviews, support tickets, social mentions, and survey responses to surface patterns and sentiment trends. These insights inform product development, messaging strategy, and competitive positioning.

Infrastructure requirements. Systematic AI implementation requires clean data (CRM, analytics, and customer data must be accurate and integrated), computing infrastructure (cloud APIs for standard workloads, on-premise servers for sensitive data and high-volume processing), and AI-literate team members who can prompt, evaluate, and iterate on AI outputs effectively.

Omnichannel in 2026 is no longer about having a presence on multiple channels. It is about creating a seamless, integrated customer experience where every touchpoint—online and offline—shares data, context, and continuity.

Unified customer journey. A customer who browses products on your website, visits your physical store, receives an email, and sees a retargeting ad should experience a coherent narrative, not disconnected fragments. Their browsing history should inform the in-store associate’s recommendations. Their in-store purchase should update their online profile. Their email content should reflect their combined online and offline behavior. This requires a unified customer data platform (CDP) that aggregates signals from all touchpoints into a single customer view.

Attribution across channels. The biggest challenge in omnichannel is attribution: did the customer buy because of the Instagram ad, the Google search, the email sequence, or the in-store experience? Multi-touch attribution models (described in detail in our B2B marketing strategy article) are essential, but they must be augmented with offline-to-online tracking mechanisms: QR codes in stores, unique promo codes for offline campaigns, post-purchase surveys asking “how did you hear about us?”, and loyalty program data that tracks cross-channel behavior.

Offline-to-online tracking. Technologies enabling this integration include: WiFi analytics that measure foot traffic patterns and return visit frequency; Bluetooth beacons that trigger personalized mobile notifications when customers enter your store; QR codes on physical materials (billboards, flyers, in-store signage) that capture digital engagement from offline exposure; post-purchase SMS surveys that attribute store visits to specific digital campaigns; and CRM integration that links point-of-sale transactions to digital marketing profiles.

B2B examples. Omnichannel is not just for retail. B2B companies can integrate trade show interactions (badge scanning linked to CRM), webinar attendance data, website behavior, and sales call outcomes into a unified prospect timeline. When your sales rep calls a prospect, they should know which blog posts the prospect read, which webinar they attended, and what pages they visited last week. This context transforms cold calls into informed conversations.

B2C examples. A restaurant chain uses Instagram for discovery, a mobile app for ordering and loyalty, and in-store WiFi analytics to measure campaign-to-visit conversion. A fashion retailer allows customers to reserve items online for in-store try-on, with automated follow-up emails for items not purchased. A real estate developer tracks billboard exposure through QR codes and retargets scanned users with personalized digital ads featuring the specific property they showed interest in.

In 2026, the volume of available marketing data is overwhelming. The discipline is not in collecting more data but in focusing on the metrics that actually drive business decisions.

Metrics that matter:

• Return on Ad Spend (ROAS): Revenue generated per dollar of advertising spend. This is the primary performance metric for paid channels. Calculate separately for each channel and campaign. Target ROAS depends on your gross margin: 300–500% for moderate-margin businesses, 500–800% for high-margin businesses.
• Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC): Total cost of acquiring a new customer, including all marketing and sales expenses. Track by channel, campaign, and customer segment. Your CAC must be significantly below your Customer Lifetime Value for sustainable growth—ideally a 3:1 LTV-to-CAC ratio or better.
• Customer Lifetime Value (LTV): The total revenue (or profit) a customer generates over their entire relationship with your company. LTV should be calculated using actual historical data, not projections. Increasing LTV through retention, upselling, and cross-selling is almost always more profitable than increasing acquisition volume.
• Net Promoter Score (NPS): Measures customer loyalty and willingness to recommend. NPS is a leading indicator of organic growth—companies with high NPS grow 2–3x faster than competitors through word-of-mouth. Survey customers regularly (quarterly) and track trends, not just absolute scores.
• Share of Voice (SOV): Your brand’s visibility relative to competitors across all channels—search, social, paid media, and earned media. SOV is a leading indicator of market share: over time, brands with higher SOV relative to market share tend to grow, while those with lower SOV tend to shrink.

Building actionable dashboards. The best marketing dashboards follow three principles: (1) one page per audience—the CEO sees revenue metrics, the marketing manager sees channel metrics, the analyst sees diagnostic metrics; (2) leading and lagging indicators paired together—traffic (leading) paired with revenue (lagging), open rates (leading) paired with email revenue (lagging); (3) trend lines, not snapshots—a data point is meaningless without context; show 90-day trends and month-over-month comparisons.

Vanity metrics vs actionable metrics. Stop reporting on: total page views (without conversion context), social media followers (without engagement rates), email list size (without open and click rates), and impressions (without click-through rates). These metrics feel good but do not inform decisions. Replace them with: pages per session and conversion rate by landing page, engagement rate and social-attributed conversions, list growth rate and revenue per email, and impression share and cost per qualified click.

A digital strategy should not be a 50-page document that nobody reads. It should be a living framework that guides daily decisions and quarterly planning. Here is our six-step process:

Step 1: Audit your current state. Before planning where to go, understand where you are. Conduct a comprehensive marketing audit covering channels, content, analytics, competitors, and processes. Use our marketing audit guide for a detailed methodology. The audit should produce: a clear picture of what is working (and why), what is underperforming (and why), and what is missing entirely. This baseline prevents the common mistake of rebuilding things that are already working or ignoring fundamental gaps.

Step 2: Define business goals, not marketing goals. Your digital strategy must be anchored to business outcomes: revenue targets, market share, geographic expansion, product launch timelines, profitability improvements. Marketing goals (traffic, leads, awareness) are intermediate metrics that serve business goals—they are not goals in themselves. Express your top 3–5 business goals with specific numbers and timelines.

Step 3: Identify and segment your audience. Define your ideal customer profiles (ICPs) with precision. For B2B: company size, industry, geography, job titles of decision-makers, buying triggers, and information sources. For B2C: demographics, psychographics, purchasing behavior, channel preferences, and pain points. Create 3–5 detailed personas and validate them against actual customer data (not assumptions). Your channel and content strategy should be persona-specific.

Step 4: Select and prioritize channels. Based on your audience analysis, select 3–5 primary channels where your customers actively spend time and make decisions. Do not spread budget across every available channel—concentrate resources where ROI evidence is strongest. For each channel, define: the role it plays in the funnel (awareness, consideration, conversion, retention), the content formats that work best, the KPIs you will track, and the budget allocation.

Step 5: Allocate budget strategically. Budget allocation should follow a portfolio approach: 60–70% to proven channels with reliable ROI; 20–30% to growth channels with strong potential but less proven track record; 5–10% to experimental channels for testing emerging opportunities. Review and adjust allocations quarterly based on performance data. Budget should also include: tools and infrastructure (analytics, CRM, automation), creative production (photography, video, design), and team capacity (in-house or outsourced).

Step 6: Define KPIs and review cadence. For each goal and channel, define 2–3 KPIs with specific targets. Establish a review cadence: weekly operational metrics (spend, leads, conversions), monthly strategic metrics (CAC, ROAS, pipeline), quarterly strategic review (goal progress, channel reallocation, new initiatives). Build these reviews into your calendar—they are not optional. A structured strategy roadmap ensures this cadence is maintained even when day-to-day operations compete for attention.

We have seen these mistakes derail digital strategies across dozens of companies in the CIS market. Recognizing them in advance saves months of wasted effort and budget.

• No clear KPIs or accountability. A strategy without measurable targets is just a wish list. “Increase brand awareness” is not a KPI. “Increase branded search volume by 30% within 6 months” is. Every initiative must have: a specific metric, a target value, a timeline, and a responsible person. Without accountability, strategies remain theoretical.
• Copying competitors without understanding context. Your competitor is on TikTok, so you must be too. Your competitor launched a podcast, so you need one. This reactive approach ignores the critical question: is this channel or tactic right for your specific audience, budget, and business model? Competitor analysis should inform strategy, not dictate it. What works for a competitor with 10x your budget, a different audience, and different business goals may be exactly wrong for you.
• Trying to be everywhere at once. The most common mistake is spreading resources across too many channels, initiatives, and content formats simultaneously. The result is mediocre execution everywhere instead of excellent execution somewhere. Focus beats breadth. Master 2–3 channels before expanding. A company that dominates organic search and email marketing will outperform one that is mediocre across 8 channels.
• No A/B testing culture. Many companies plan campaigns, launch them, and evaluate results—but never test variations. They run one headline, one landing page, one email subject line, and accept whatever results they get. Systematic testing—varying one element at a time and measuring the impact—is how good strategies become great ones. Build testing into every campaign plan: test at least 2 headline variations, 2 creative approaches, and 2 audience segments for every significant campaign.
• Ignoring retention while chasing acquisition. The most expensive customer to acquire is the one you already had and lost. Businesses that focus exclusively on new customer acquisition without investing in retention, loyalty, and customer experience are running on a treadmill: growth requires ever-increasing acquisition spend because the back door is open. Before increasing acquisition budget, calculate your customer retention rate and the revenue impact of improving it by 5–10%.
• Planning annually without quarterly adjustment. Digital channels evolve faster than annual planning cycles. A strategy locked in for 12 months without adjustment becomes stale by month 4. Plan annually for direction and budget, but review and adjust quarterly based on performance data, competitive changes, and market shifts. The annual plan should be a living document, not a stone tablet.