How to decide when to invest in a new digital channel

Every few months a new platform, format, or distribution channel arrives. BeReal, Threads, Bluesky, short-form video on LinkedIn. And every time, someone in the room asks: should we be doing something with this?

The honest answer is rarely yes or no. It is: depends. But on what, exactly?

At Livewall, we work with brands that face this question regularly. FMCG companies wondering whether to take TikTok seriously. Retailers weighing up whether an owned community platform makes more sense than continuing to buy reach on social. We have developed a decision framework that makes the question more honest, and the answer more defensible.

Step 1: is your audience already there, or are they coming?

This sounds obvious, but most channel decisions start from external pressure rather than audience data. Check first whether your existing customers, or the audience you want to reach, are actually active on the new channel. Not present: active. Spending behaviour, dwell time, return behaviour.

A brand targeting people over forty does not need to be on TikTok just because TikTok is growing fast. A sports brand trying to reach younger consumers cannot afford to ignore it.

For 9292, this was exactly the question. TikTok was not the obvious channel for a public transport information service. But the data showed that a significant portion of their target audience was on it daily. We built social-native content designed around platform behaviour, not repurposed from formats built for other channels. The result was reach and engagement no other channel could deliver for that audience.

Step 2: do you have the capacity to do it properly?

Being half-present on a channel is worse than not being there at all. It damages brand perception, wastes budget, and generates nothing.

Ask honestly: do you have the people, budget, and processes to take this channel seriously? That means content production, community management, data analysis, and optimisation. If the answer is no, wait until you have that capacity. Or choose a deliberately smaller starting point.

This is why some brands make a strong case for building owned channels rather than staying dependent on rented platforms. The investment is higher upfront, but you own the reach and the data. For Sportvisunie, we built a community platform that connects anglers across the Netherlands. It works because there is sustained capacity behind it to keep it useful and active.

Step 3: does it fit your brand strategy, or are you following the hype?

Not every channel fits every brand. This is not about risk avoidance. It is about brand consistency. A luxury brand positioned on quality and exclusivity does not automatically belong on a platform built around fast, unpolished content.

The question is: does this channel reinforce the associations we want to build, or does it dilute them?

We see brands investing in channels because competitors are there too. That is a weak argument. Your competitor may also be making mistakes. Channel decisions belong inside your brand strategy, not inside your competitive analysis.

A strong counterexample: for Heineken with Max Verstappen, the channel choice was fully aligned with the brand position. The campaign strengthened the association with racing without compromising brand identity. Every channel decision in that project started from the brand, not from what was trending.

Step 4: what is the payback timeline?

New channels always require upfront investment: time, budget, learning curve. When do you expect that investment to pay back, and through which specific metrics?

Be concrete. Not 'more brand awareness', but: how many new customers, how many repeat visits, how much first-party data. If you cannot provide that specificity, the channel is probably not ready for investment yet.

As part of digital strategy work, Livewall helps brands make these trade-offs concrete. Not with theoretical frameworks, but with scenarios based on comparable projects we have built before. Consumer engagement trends shift quickly, and we track what actually drives return behaviour across the channels we work in.

Step 5: can you test fast enough?

One of the biggest mistakes in channel decisions is the big bang approach: fully committing before you have tested whether it works.

The better approach is a controlled pilot. Define one clear behavioural objective, establish a minimum viable presence, measure for twelve weeks, and then decide about scaling.

This requires discipline. The temptation is always to do more than the pilot justifies, because there is internal pressure to show results. Resisting that pressure is a sign of a healthy decision culture.

At Livewall, we always build a test phase into interactive campaign work before we scale. Not because we are cautious, but because the data tells us where to put the budget. This applies equally to new channels.

The complete framework

Five questions that matter:

1. Is our audience actively present there? Not potentially present: actively present.
2. Do we have the capacity to do it properly? Half-present is worse than absent.
3. Does it fit our brand strategy? Not our competitor's strategy: ours.
4. What is the payback timeline, via which specific metrics? Brand awareness is not a metric.
5. Can we start small and measure fast? Committing at scale without evidence wastes money.

If you cannot answer three or more of these questions well, the moment to invest has probably not arrived. Waiting is sometimes the best channel strategy available.

This framework also works backwards. Apply it to channels you are already on. The question of whether to exit a channel is just as strategic as the question of whether to enter one.