Beyond December · The 2027 program
The first four months build the position. The next twelve make it permanent.
This is an ongoing program, not a campaign with an end date. September to December establishes the hub, the branded query and the first funnel read. January to December 2027 runs on a quarterly rhythm: the monthly content and reporting cadence continues throughout, and each quarter adds one structural capability on top, sequenced by what the previous quarter proved.
The three moves
Own the answer. Borrow Canva's audience. Prove the overlap.
Every quarter of 2027 advances all three. The content program carries the first. The second and third are where the initiative becomes a strategic position rather than a series of articles, and they are what the year is organized around.
Own the answer
Stay the definitive response to "I made this in Canva, how do I send it" for Google, AI assistants and Canva's own help search. The hub is refreshed quarterly, the cluster grows where demand shows, and share of answer is reported every month.
Borrow Canva's audience
Presence on canva.com, then presence inside Canva's own surfaces: help search, Design School, the marketplace listing, co-marketing moments like Canva Create. NativeCode drafts; marketing carries it to the partner team.
Prove the overlap
Connected accounts, campaigns sent with Canva creative, retention of the connected cohort. Reported monthly from November, published as the Index in 2027, and repeated annually so it becomes the reference dataset for the partnership.
What runs every month
The baseline that does not stop.
These continue unchanged from the September launch through December 2027. Everything in the quarterly plan below is added on top of them.
Canva track
Five articles a month against validated demand, with refreshes of earlier pieces folded in from Q2 so the cluster stays current as the integration evolves.
Hub and section pages
Quarterly refresh of the hub, new section pages as clusters earn them, internal linking maintained as one architecture.
AI answer sampling
Fixed question set, five engines, same day each month. Share of answer reported as a trend line, with the questions published so the method is auditable.
Funnel report
Levels 1 to 3 monthly; Levels 4 and 5 joined with product analytics on the agreed cadence. One page executives can forward.
2027 by quarter
Four quarters, one structural capability each.
Sequenced so that each quarter uses what the last one produced. The order can flex on the December data; the year does not shrink.
Consolidate
Lock the position and open the second track
- Canva parity pages live on canva.com, or a dated commitment from the partner team; NativeCode drafted them in September
- Email templates track launches as its own line: 93 terms, about 27,000 searches a month, weakly held by Mailchimp, every piece ending in an import and a send
- Section pages for the clusters that earned impressions and CTA clicks by December
- Connected-user retention content begins: second campaign, second channel, first automation
Evidence
Publish what no competitor can
- Small Business Marketing Index, first edition, if the legal and privacy basis cleared in December: how businesses distribute Canva-created content, which channels follow creation, how multichannel changes engagement
- Digital PR and partner co-marketing around the Index, timed to Canva Create in April
- Market expansion: localized hub and P1 articles for the UK, Canada and Australia where Search Console shows demand
- Hub refresh one year after the integration launch, with whatever the product has added since
Scale
Widen the audience without widening the topic
- Vertical expansion from the five launch verticals to the next tier: retail, fitness and wellness, education, associations, franchises
- Canva + Marketing Automation and Canva + Agencies section pages with Teams and multi-account workflows
- Templates track extends to seasonal and industry sets, each with a send step
- Second AI answer methodology review as engines change
Compound
Turn one year into a permanent position
- Holiday and year-end campaign content republished and refreshed, now with a year of performance data behind it
- Index second edition scoped on twelve months of connected-cohort data, moving from a one-off to an annual reference
- Full-year review: retention and lifetime value of Canva-connected customers against the baseline, the number the partnership is ultimately judged on
- 2028 program set on the same evidence-first basis
What stays out
The demand the program leaves to Mailchimp, on purpose.
Generic graphic design, infographics and logo queries add up to well over a hundred thousand searches a month in Mailchimp's footprint. They are authority plays for a design-adjacent brand. They do not put a searcher in front of the integration, and taking them would let the initiative be reframed as SEO traffic. They stay out in 2027 as well.