How to Conduct a Digital Marketing Audit: A Comprehensive Guide

The eCommerce arena is more crowded than ever, and as a result, more competitive. 63% of companies have increased marketing budgets in recent years, meaning you cannot afford to lag behind or, worse, waste money doing so with an insufficient digital marketing strategy. This is where digital marketing audits become an essential part of keeping pace.

A thorough audit gives you the clarity to make data-driven improvements instead of driving forwards blindly on assumptions. In this guide, we’ll explain what a digital marketing audit is, why you should conduct one, key elements to review and how a digital marketing audit works step by step. Stop the guesswork, start the growth today.

A digital marketing audit is a comprehensive review of your marketing strategy and performance. Think of it as a systematic check-up on the health of all your marketing activities. The audit assesses how effective and aligned your campaigns are with your business goals and surfaces opportunities for improvement. In practice, this means identifying the biggest strengths and weaknesses of your current strategy, highlighting which plans and tactics are hitting the mark and which are falling short. Just as importantly, a well-done audit lays the groundwork for future decisions by pinpointing gaps and untapped opportunities.

To be truly useful, a marketing audit should be unbiased, methodical and regular. The first two criteria can be ensured by asking a digital marketing agency to conduct the audit, since they are an outside party who can leave ego at the door and have a structured approach. However, the latter criterion falls at the feet of your business, and an annual review means you stay ahead of issues that could leave you lagging behind before you know it.

Why go through the effort of auditing your marketing? Simply put, a well-run audit arms you with the data-driven insights to transform your strategy. At Brave Agency, we’ve used performance data that we’ve collected and analysed to help businesses grow into authoritative powerhouses on search rankings, all from the seed of a digital marketing audit. Read our case study below to find out more.

Secondly, in our experience, much of the core problem we see in marketing audits is stagnation. Trying the same marketing strategy for years in a constantly evolving space is not going to produce consistent results, and many businesses find themselves in a rut without realising why. Often, it’s as simple as businesses not being able to see the issues from the inside, which is why an objective outside perspective is so important. You’ll see exactly which campaigns, channels and content pieces are hitting the mark and which are underperforming.

This contributes to the last and most crucial reason why digital marketing audits are a major boost – the competitive advantage in a crowded market. Audits don’t just look internally, but also weigh it up against your rivals. By examining your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses alongside your own, you discover gaps you can exploit and ways to differentiate. It’s like getting a peek into the rival playbook.

So, what exactly does a digital marketing audit in its entirety entail? Essentially, you’re examining both high-level strategic factors and the nitty-gritty performance of each marketing channel. The following core elements form a digital marketing audit checklist that we cover:

As you can see, a full digital marketing audit is holistic, covering everything from big-picture strategy down to specific touchpoints. Find out more information on the tailored audits we offer and get yourself a free digital marketing audit, on us!

Once again, we conduct all these services for you for absolutely nothing. Contact us today and see how we can help.

Not all audits are created equal. To truly reap the benefits, your audit needs to be thorough and well-executed. We took a look through our audits to find out why they work so well for our clients and whittled it down to five qualities. We like to call it the CORMA approach:

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are how we determine the success of our digital marketing efforts. By tracking the following metrics, we are able to paint a picture of the health of each area of focus, as well as the performance change over time. Here is what each KPI is and why they are important.

What it is: Where your page ranks in the search engine results page (SERP) for a specific keyword.

Why it matters: The higher you rank, the greater visibility and clicks you’ll get. Any position after page 1 is practically invisible.

What it is: A measure of how quickly your site loads using Google PageSpeeds.

Why it matters: Slow sites kill user experience and, as a result, rankings. Google punishes sites with high exit rates, and slow-to-run pages are a key symptom.

What it is: The percentage of recipients who open your email.

Why it matters: This shows whether your subject lines and sender reputation are doing their job correctly.

What it is: The percentage of recipients who clicked a link within your email.

Why it matters: This tells you if the content inside the email is engaging people and encouraging action from them.

What it is: The percentage of emails that couldn’t be delivered.

Why it matters: A high bounce rate usually signals a very unkempt subscriber list, which can hurt deliverability across the board.

What it is: The percentage of people who opt out after receiving your email.

Why it matters: Not the end of the world, but a spike on a particular email clearly signals your messaging is off, or your frequency is too high.

For more information on these email KPIs, read our recent guide to creating a successful email marketing strategy.

What it is: The number of times your ad is shown.

Why it matters: A useful metric for awareness campaigns, but don’t rely on it alone.

What it is: The total number of times your ad is clicked.

Why it matters: It’s a direct measure of how compelling your creative and targeting are.

What it is: The amount you pay for each click.

Why it matters: This metric gauges efficiency. A lower CPC means more traffic for your budget.

What it is: Revenue generation per pound spent on ads.

Why it matters: This is the ultimate goal for your campaigns. Are your ads paying off or simply eating up your budget?

What it is: The percentage of users who take the desired actions, for example, purchasing a product or signing up for something.

Why it matters: It would be wise to monitor the conversion rate during the process of conversion rate optimisation for obvious reasons. It tells you if your site or landing page is doing its job.

What it is: The percentage of users who start but don’t complete a key action, typically checking out with a purchase.

Why it matters: A high abandonment rate is a massive red flag. It means something is broken, either trust, usability or clarity.

Some businesses choose to hold their marketing audit in-house, while others prefer an external expert. Both approaches have their merits, but to find out which is right for you, we’ve broken down the pros and cons of each:

In deciding between an internal versus external audit, consider your team’s capacity, the complexity of your marketing, and the importance of impartiality. An outsider will need time to learn about your business – you’ll have to onboard them with background info and access to your accounts. Communication is key: make sure to provide clear information and be available for questions so they can do a thorough job. The right choice ultimately is what will get you the most truthful insights and drive real improvement.

Ready to get started? Tap into Brave’s expertise for a fresh perspective, and we’ll evaluate your digital marketing today and help you sharpen it for tomorrow. In doing so, you’ll not only optimise your current performance but also set your business up to outpace competitors in the long run. Continuous auditing means continuous learning, and continuous learning means continuous growth. Begin the cycle and contact us for a free digital marketing audit today.