Do I need a marketing budget to use this guide?

No. Most entries help you decide before spending, not after. The choosing and measurement entries use intent, time cost and payback rules to filter channels, and the tools entries list free tiers and the exact volume threshold where paying makes sense. If you have zero budget you will lean toward search, marketplaces, directories, communities and owned email, and you will skip paid entries until a test budget exists.

I already run ads or pay an agency — will this still help?

Yes, that is a core use case. Open at the measurement and attribution entries to rebuild a first-party view of CAC, payback and ROAS and to separate what the platform reports from what your checkout or CRM shows. The entries give you the check to ask for — raw spend, attributed conversions, cohort revenue — and the rule for when to pause, fix or scale. It does not require you to fire the agency, but it lets you verify what you received.

Can this replace legal advice for EU and US marketing?

No. The legal entries are a reference to the rules that differ most often — GDPR and ePrivacy consent in the EU versus CAN-SPAM, CCPA/CPRA and FTC endorsement guides in the US, plus unsubscribe and advertising disclosure requirements — and they cite the canonical sources to check. If you handle sensitive data, health claims, or large-scale tracking, get qualified counsel in the relevant jurisdiction. Do not treat the threshold tables as a final opinion.

Will this tell me which single channel will work for my product?

No reference can. What it does is narrow eight guesses to two tests worth running, with explicit scoring rules and a pre-written kill or scale threshold, and then points you to the execution playbook for that channel. If you want a guaranteed winner without testing, this guide will talk you out of itself, and that is intentional.

Online marketing and distribution: the terms, channels and tools

A reference opened at the entry the reader needs: any marketing term translated into the decision it changes, marketing distinguished from distribution, two channels chosen on explicit rules instead of eight on instinct, honest measurement set up, a tool picked per task with the threshold at which paying for it makes sense, and the execution playbook to move to once the channel is decided.

Fby Finito HQEchipa Finito

Created 3 weeks agoUpdated 2 weeks ago

Free preview: 4 of 24 steps

Work through them in the real run view, exactly as a buyer does. No account, no payment, nothing saved.

Try it free

Free

3 free unlocks per month — yours to keep forever

Updated Aug 2026

Start for free

Try 4 of 24 steps free

No account needed — nothing is saved.

Included with every copy

Your own copy — keep it forever
Gets better over time — free updates included
Run it on web and mobile
Invite a partner to go through it with you — you share the same progress
Make it your own — a private copy you can edit to fit your situation
The playbook's community — ask questions, get additions, and see how other buyers improve it, right on the step

Save

Part of a collection

Get your first users

Guide 8 of 8

See the collection

Who it's for

People who must sell online without a marketing background: indie makers and small founders launching without a team, freelancers finding clients, and employees who inherited the company’s marketing or must verify what an agency delivered

About this playbook

This reference lets you open directly at the term, channel, metric or tool you are unsure about and leave with a decision. It turns jargon into budget rules, separates marketing that creates demand from distribution that puts you where demand already looks, gives you explicit filters to pick two channels to test instead of dabbling in eight, and shows how to measure, attribute and tool each task without vanity math. Each entry states when it applies, what to do differently afterwards, the common trap and what to record, with a source where rules change. It does not promise growth hacks, replace channel execution playbooks, or give case-specific legal advice — it tells you what to check and where to verify for EU and US contexts.

What you'll do, step by stepFree preview

6 phases · 24 steps

Only a sample is open: 4 of 24 steps can be read in full. The rest unlock when you buy.

Phase 1: Translate vocabulary into the decision it changes
4 steps
Phase 2: Separate marketing from distribution and map audience ownership
4 steps
Phase 3: Choose which channels to test first using explicit rules
4 steps
Phase 4: Execute each channel with its practice and known trap
4 steps
Phase 5: Measure results and attribute them without fooling yourself
4 steps
Phase 6: Select tools by task and comply with EU and US rules
4 steps

Try 4 of 24 steps free

Unlock all 24 stepsFree

Details

Estimated duration5 hours 40 min

Steps24

What you need first

You have something to sell or test online and a place it can be found — a website, store listing, app store page, marketplace profile or landing page — with access to its basic analytics or dashboard; no marketing budget, team or prior measurement setup is required