21 questions that tell you exactly where your marketing is broken.
The Arcalea Marketing Planning Diagnostic is a free, self-guided assessment covering every decision gate in a complete marketing plan, from situational analysis through attribution and controls. Most plans fail at one of 21 specific points. This system tells you which one.
Why this exists
Most marketing plans fail before the first dollar is spent.
They fail not because of bad execution. The failure comes from a single wrong choice at the Goal layer that cascades through every downstream decision. A vague goal produces a corrupted strategy, which produces misaligned tactics, which produces implementation that executes perfectly against the wrong outcome. We call this Strategic Drift.
The Arcalea Marketing Planning Diagnostic exists to surface that wrong choice before it costs twelve months of budget. It covers the complete planning process: situational analysis, market sizing, goal formulation, brand assessment, strategy, GTM motion selection, tactical planning, implementation, and controls, integrating six established frameworks with Arcalea's proprietary methodology into one sequential diagnostic.
"This is often where companies misstep: expecting the agency to either know or perform each step in sequence, or implement communication channel tactics unsupported by a solid foundation."Source: Arcalea Marketing Frameworks diagnostic
The planning system
21 steps across 6 planning layers.
The diagnostic follows G-STIC (Goal, Strategy, Tactics, Implementation, Controls) with a seven-step Pre-Goal foundation that establishes the situational baseline every goal and strategy depends on. Complete the tools in sequence for a full picture, or jump to the layer where your plan is stalling.
Available tools
Start where you need it most.
Each tool takes 5–15 minutes and shows results immediately on screen. No email required to see your score. Start at Step 1 for a full baseline, or jump directly to the planning layer where your current challenge sits.
Marketing Maturity Self-Assessment
Score your organization across six dimensions of marketing maturity, from Random Acts of Marketing (Level 1) through Market Leadership (Level 4). Establishes the planning baseline that every subsequent tool calibrates against.
Take the assessment →5Cs Situational Analysis
Audit your analysis across Company, Customers, Competitors, Collaborators, and Context, including Five Forces and likely competitive response. See what rests on evidence versus assumption before you synthesize a SWOT.
Take the assessment →SWOT-to-G-STIC Bridge
Build a SWOT from your 5Cs, pair the quadrants into TOWS strategic moves, and bridge the result into goal and strategy inputs. Turns a SWOT into a plan, not a slide.
Take the assessment →Brand Identity Audit
Audit your brand across nine elements in three layers: Foundation, Expression, and Coherence. See what is actually defined versus only asserted, before you measure brand strength. Built on the Kellogg positioning framework.
Take the assessment →Brand Strength Benchmark
Benchmark your brand against competitors using branded search. See your Share of Voice, compare it to your market share, and read the gap as a signal to invest in brand-building or activation. Built on Binet and Field.
Take the assessment →QMA Readiness Assessment
Score your readiness across the 21 dimensions of a Quantitative Market Assessment, including AI search visibility. See how much of your competitive picture rests on measured data versus assumption, and where the data gap is.
Take the assessment →TAM/SAM/SOM + Budget Reality Check
Size your market across TAM, SAM, and SOM, then pressure-test your goal against budget reality. Reveals whether the number you are chasing is reachable with the resources you actually have.
Take the assessment →G-STIC Goal Formatter
A properly formatted goal has four required components: Focus, Benchmark, Demand Source, and Persuasion Task. Most goals are missing two. This tool scores and reformulates yours.
Take the assessment →Stakeholder Goal Alignment Check
A goal nobody approved is a goal that gets reworked after strategy. Map your stakeholders against the five approval components and see your alignment readiness before you build the strategy.
Take the assessment →G-STIC Strategy Formatter
Target Customer, Customer Need, Value Proposition, Competitive Advantage. Does your strategy contain all four components, specifically and provably?
Take the assessment →GTM Motion Selection
Answer eight questions about your product and market to find your recommended go-to-market motion across all six options, with the secondary motions that also fit and the channel mix each implies.
Take the assessment →Marketing Mix (7 Ps)
Does your plan answer all seven tactical questions, organized by designing, communicating, and delivering value? Most plans answer only two or three of the seven.
Take the assessment →PESO Model (Channel Mix)
Does your channel split match what your GTM motion implies, and can your maturity actually execute it? Spot spend that fights the motion before you commit budget.
Take the assessment →Customer Journey
Map the path buyers actually take, from awareness to advocacy, weighted to your GTM motion. See where the journey breaks before it costs you conversions and retention.
Take the assessment →Agency/Team Alignment Diagnostic
Was the executing team briefed at the right point in G-STIC? Do they have documented access to the Goal, Strategy, and 7 Tactics decisions that should govern their work?
Take the assessment →Creative Brief (with ADPLAN)
Brief the creative work across eight elements, then pressure-test the concept with ADPLAN. Catch a vague proposition or a missing audience insight before it reaches production.
Take the assessment →Marketing Measurement Plan
Decide what to measure and how before launch: one primary KPI tied to the goal, a metric tree across the journey, the data to instrument, and the attribution method that fits.
Take the assessment →Marketing Budget Allocation
Allocate the confirmed budget across goals, brand versus activation, the 70/20/10 split, and channels, with a feasibility check against your unit economics. Catch the unfunded goal or the split that fights your motion.
Take the assessment →Marketing Plan Pre-Mortem
Align stakeholders on the full assembled plan and stress-test it before launch: capture each owner’s sign-off, then run a pre-mortem to surface the risks that would sink it, with owners and mitigations.
Take the assessment →Marketing Attribution Readiness
Audit whether you can actually collect and trust what the plan needs to be measured before launch: tracking, identity, attribution-method fit, dashboards, alerts, privacy, and analyst capacity. The AI drafts the readiness audit from your plan; you curate the gaps and owners.
Take the assessment →Marketing Plan Scorecard
The capstone. It reads every step you have committed, scores how complete your plan is across the five G-STIC layers, and checks coherence across the seams: does the strategy serve the goal, do the tactics fit the motion, does the budget reach the market.
Score my plan →Before you plan, know where you stand
Five levels. Most organizations are at Level 2 without knowing it.
The Arcalea Assessment Guide scores six independent dimensions of marketing maturity. Start at Step 1 to establish your baseline before building a plan on top of it.
Six dimensions. Ten minutes. Results shown immediately.
Every tool connects to a platform
Gaps the diagnostic surfaces. Tools Arcalea built to close them.
Each assessment identifies a specific planning gap. Each gap connects to a specific Arcalea platform or service, because the diagnostic was built from the same frameworks we use in every client engagement.
| Attribution model not connected to actual revenue. GA4 misattributing 25–35% of conversions. Measurement set up after launch. | Steps 17, 20, 21 |
| Total addressable market unmapped. Search opportunity not quantified in revenue terms. Competitive ranking factors unknown. | Steps 3, 5, 7 |
| Brand invisible in AI-generated answers. AI search visibility unmeasured. Citation sources unidentified. | Steps 3, 5, 20 |
| Competitive landscape not measured before strategy is committed. QMA self-score needs validation with actual market data. | Steps 1, 3, 5, 6, 21 |
Get the complete 21-step sequence as a PDF.
All 21 tools, diagnostic questions, scoring rubrics, and output interpretations, formatted as a working reference document for your planning sessions.
No sales call. One email with the guide.
FAQ
Questions, answered directly.
What is the Arcalea Marketing Planning Diagnostic?
A 21-step self-guided assessment system that evaluates a marketing plan against every major decision gate in the planning process. It integrates G-STIC (Kellogg/Chernev), the 5Cs situational analysis, SWOT, TAM/SAM/SOM market sizing, brand strategy frameworks, the GTM Channel Matrix, Kellogg 7Ts, Owned/Earned/Paid channel taxonomy, customer lifecycle frameworks, and Arcalea's proprietary Quantitative Market Assessment methodology and Marketing Maturity Model.
What is the G-STIC framework and how does it relate to this system?
G-STIC is a five-layer marketing planning framework (Goal, Strategy, Tactics, Implementation, and Control), developed by Alexander Chernev at Kellogg School of Management. It is the structural backbone of the Arcalea Marketing Planning Diagnostic. The diagnostic extends G-STIC by adding a pre-goal situational foundation (Steps 1-7) that includes brand assessment at Steps 4-5, GTM motion selection at Step 11, and attribution measurement tools at Steps 17 and 20.
What does RAMS mean?
Random Acts of Marketing. Level 1 in the Arcalea Marketing Maturity Model. It describes organizations that execute marketing tactics without a documented strategy, measurable goals, formal frameworks, or systematic measurement. Most organizations operate one level above RAMS, at Level 2 (Analytical Aspirations), without knowing it. The Maturity Self-Assessment (Step 1) scores your organization across six dimensions to establish the actual baseline.
How is this different from a blog post about marketing frameworks?
Blog posts explain frameworks. These tools apply them to your specific situation. The Goal Formatter does not teach you what a goal is. It scores whether yours has all four required components. The Agency Alignment Diagnostic does not describe what good briefing looks like. It reveals where your current brief broke down. Results appear immediately on screen. No email is required to see your score.
Do I need to complete all 21 steps?
No. Each tool is standalone. Start with Step 1 to get your maturity baseline, then jump to the step that matches your most immediate planning challenge. The Goal Formatter (Step 8) and Agency Alignment Diagnostic (Step 15) are the most commonly useful starting points for organizations with an active campaign in flight.
When will all 21 tools be available?
Tools are released in planning sequence order. The Pre-Goal foundation (Step 1), Goal layer (Step 8), and Strategy layer (Step 10) are live now. Remaining tools are in active development and will be released sequentially. Subscribe to the Arcalea executive briefing to be notified when new tools go live.
The diagnostic precedes the investment
Every Arcalea engagement begins here.
These tools are the self-service version of the diagnostic process we run with every client. Start at Step 1 and see exactly where your marketing plan stands.
Start at Step 1 →