Maintaining digital momentum post Digital Maturity Survey

The phase-out of the original Google and Boston Consulting Group (BCG) Digital Maturity Survey, once the go-to benchmarking tool, however, has left many marketing leaders wondering how they should be measuring their digital transformation efforts, defending their investments, and planning for future improvements.

For many years, Google's collaboration with BCG afforded the industry a rigorous framework for assessing digital maturity. Widely adopted by many local brands and structured around six key categories, the survey helped marketing and technology leaders understand where they stood, and how they could advance.

"The survey allowed brands to get a clear idea of their use of digital, mainly for marketing on Google, but also across social and other channels," explains Calvin van Rensburg, client solutions partner at Incubeta. "Working with brands on the survey we could rely on standardised metrics, clear annual targets, and a recognised roadmap to shape strategy and drive cultural change."

Chasing a moving target

In January 2024, Google sunset the original digital maturity survey, creating challenges for global and local brands alike.

"The output of these surveys was an authoritative roadmap that gave brands the ability to translate digital transformation efforts into targets that could be fed up the ladder. They essentially lost their North Star," explains Courtney van Zyl, client solutions partner at Incubeta SA. "Without a shared standard, comparing progress or sustaining vital cross-functional conversations became difficult."

Google quickly introduced a new, AI-centric version of the digital maturity survey. This 2.0 version was designed to focus primarily on privacy and AI-related readiness, but it came with its own challenges. This version has since also been deprecated by Google, meaning there is currently no active digital maturity assessment available.

"The original assessment was static, and a static framework was almost impossible to achieve in the AI version of the survey, because both the technical and organisational standards of AI are constantly evolving," Van Zyl explains. "What's more, many organisations are still building a foundational understanding of AI."

Moving on from the survey format, Google has subsequently opted to publish research and insights on AI maturity, often in collaboration with partners like Boston Consulting Group (BCG). As useful as the research is, many brands were still looking for a way to definitively track their transformation efforts.

A bespoke solution to fill the gap

To fill the gap left by both the original digital maturity survey as well as the AI maturity survey, Incubeta developed two options.

First, its digital marketing profitability assessment offers a fresh, proprietary framework that assesses end-to-end digital capability while explicitly linking maturity to commercial outcomes and profitability. The assessment is a natural extension of Incubeta's Outperformance narrative, the group's positioning built on the belief that marketing should be judged on the measurable growth and profit it generates, not on activity or capability scores alone.

Where the original surveys told brands how digitally mature they were, the profitability assessment shows them what that maturity is worth: mapping how improvements across media, data, creative and technology translate into commercial returns, and giving marketing leaders a defensible business case for continued investment in transformation.

"Digital maturity was never the end goal; it was always a means to outperform," says Van Rensburg. "By tying every capability gap to its commercial impact, the assessment turns benchmarking into a growth conversation. It tells leaders not just where they stand, but what closing each gap is worth to the business."

Second, for organisations whose CMO scorecards and targets depend on year-on-year continuity, Incubeta reverse-engineered the original Google/BCG digital maturity survey and scoring model, enabling an apples-with-apples comparison and preserving the integrity of existing performance frameworks, ensuring companies didn't lose momentum from previous efforts.

The team also launched bespoke acceleration programs, including tailored workshops and scoring frameworks that align teams, track year-on-year progress, and foster a continuous improvement mindset.

According to Van Rensburg, brands have begun to see value in the new frameworks and, in some cases, reported significant improvements in digital maturity scores year-on-year due to continuous measurement and practical enablement.

"Digital is constantly changing and nothing is one size fits all. Staying agile requires leaders to constantly assess the impact of their efforts and these benchmarks allow them to course-correct when they need to," Van Zyl adds.

While the original surveys may no longer be available, businesses shouldn't abandon benchmarking. Measurement remains key to enabling business-centric outcomes and, with the right partner, momentum can be maintained and outperformance sustained.