Agentic Engine Optimization: Why Your Content Strategy Needs Both Human and AI Readers in 2026
Google’s AI director reveals token limits and front-loading strategies. Learn how to optimize content for both human engagement and AI agent parsing…
Two years ago we launched our free interactive marketing benchmarking tool to help members rate their 'digital readiness' for digital marketing as a whole and for the key channels like Search, Social media and Email marketing.
Well, it's proved popular since it helps members score where they are now and then gives recommendations of how to improve in the future - to take their skills or marketing results to the next level.
So in our recent UX members refresh - we have made it more prominent and put all the benchmarking tools in place. We also renamed it to 'capability grader'.
I'm also writing this post to let members know about a simplification to the most popular digital strategy grader which you may want to try - it's here (available if you're signed in):
To make it easier for our users, we have simplified the digital marketing strategy grader. You can now assess your digital marketing strategy and planning via the capability grader - using the 'Digital Marketing Strategy and Planning' box on the left.
Previously, each grader was split into the different parts of the RACE planning framework, that's Plan, Reach, Act, Convert and Engage.
Now, we have put these different stages into a single 'Digital marketing strategy and Planning' grader. This will help members effectively manage their business' strategy and ability to plan in one place.
Most people score about 2 on our grader, leaving lots of room for improvement, do you think you could score higher?
Once you have honestly scored your businesses' ability to 'RACE' you will be given a score and what this score means in the marketing world.
But we don't just give you your score and that's it. We will guide you through different areas that your business needs to develop to successfully optimize your business and take it the level of marketing leading capability.
Our capability grader will suggest the best resources for your business to get started.
We have 170+ resources covering a wide range of marketing activities- and 27 resources in the Digital Marketing Strategy and Planning toolkit including guides, models, templates (including spreadsheets), workbooks, e-learning courses. There is a range of resources and help at hand to get your business to the next level. The tool makes recommendations of the most relevant guides and templates for the stage you are at.
Our capability grader is free to use and available to all members. If you want to use our capability grader to assess your business's strategy and planning process, you can sign up to be a FREE basic member. You will also get free access to our popular visual also enabling you to grade your digital marketing.
Download Free Member resource – Digital benchmarking templates
Score your business from Level 1 to Level 5 for the different ‘best practice’ marketing activities you are using for each of the core processes we have defined as each row. Once you know where you are currently at you can focus your efforts to improve. Use our guides to increase your skills and understanding in the key areas identified by the templates.
Access the Digital marketing maturity audit templates
By Carolanne Mangles
Carolanne Mangles Dig DipM is the Digital Marketing Executive for Click Travel, an award-winning corporate travel booking platform. She is a specialist in B2B SaaS and enjoys planning and optimizing the full customer journey across all digital channels to create brand awareness, great user experience and copy that really sells the benefits of the product. She was previously Digital Marketing Executive for Smart Insights where she was involved with multiple digital channels to manage fully integrated membership campaigns to boost new customer acquisition and current membership retention. She has spoken and given masterclasses at B2B Expo on Search and Content Marketing, holds an IDM award in GDPR and loves a glass of red wine. Connect with her on LinkedIn or follow her on Twitter.
This blog post has been tagged with:
Digital Marketing BenchmarkingMarketing audits and benchmarks for business reviewStrengthen your strategy with RACE-powered templates, frameworks and planning tools designed to help you review performance, identify improvements and build a more effective marketing approach.
Strengthen your strategy with RACE-powered templates, frameworks and planning tools designed to help you review performance, identify improvements and build a more effective marketing approach.
Start your Digital Marketing Plan today with our Free resources.
Recommended Blog Posts
Google’s AI director reveals token limits and front-loading strategies. Learn how to optimize content for both human engagement and AI agent parsing…
OpenAI’s 600 early advertisers hit $100M revenue in 6 weeks, but CTRs trail Google Search. Why conversational ads need different success metrics…
Reddit gained 14.5% visibility while traditional SEO content lost ground. Here’s what Google’s latest algorithm shift means for your content strategy…