Uncover Opportunity With This 22-Point Audit Cheat Sheet

Planning and implementing a digital marketing system can be complicated and confusing. Sometimes you need to fly above all the detail so you can keep track of the overall plan and ensure its success.

One service we provide is our 590-point marketing audit checklist. We usually do the audit for new clients and it’s of huge benefit. The audit forms the basis of a Marketing Plan and helps to identify marketing and business opportunities.

The 590-point marketing audit is an exhaustive examination of the business website, marketing materials, traffic generation sources, and lead tracking & reporting system.

We’ve picked out 22 of the most important of these 590 items and listed them here under their relevant DAM RIGHT PROCESS step.

STEP 1: RIGHT DIRECTION (Audit Cheat Sheet)

This section of the checklist relates to tracking and reporting:

1. REPORTING: Return On Investment – Does this report exist and can it be segmented by Traffic Source? Most importantly, is the company receiving a good ROI on its marketing investment? This is the pointy end of the spear so it’s a good place to start.
2. REPORTING: Revenue Generation – Does this report exist and can it be segmented by Traffic Source? Is each traffic source producing enough revenue to justify its existence?
3. TRACKING: Store Lead Source In CRM – Are you using a Client Relationship management system to store Lead information and Client information? Examples of CRMs include Active Campaign, Ontraport, Microsoft Dynamics 365, Salesforce and HubSpot. If you are using a CRM, are you storing Lead Source information in the CRM? Note that if your answer to any of these questions is no, then you are going to have big trouble answering YES to (1) and (2) above.
4. TRACKING: UTM parameters – UTM parameters should be used wherever possible in order to track traffic to your website. A consistent set of UTM parameters (utm_source, utm_medium, utm_campaign…) should be added to links on your emails, google adverts, Facebook adverts and more. It’s easy to check if utm’s are being used properly by going to the Google Analytics Report ‘Acquisition->All Traffic->Source/Medium‘ and viewing the source/medium information from the report. Are the UTM parameters stored with the leads and clients in your CRM (see 3 above)?
5. TRACKING: Phone Call – It’s surprising how many companies are not tracking phone calls that are generated from marketing. We find that 80% of marketing leads are generated through phone calls for most of our clients. Not tracking these phone calls is absolute madness. It’s akin to flying a 747-passenger plane without the use of the cockpit control panel. Without feedback on speed, altitude etc… the pilot will crash the plane.
6. TRACKING: Google Analytics Goals – This is a quick and easy check. If you don’t have a meaningful set of goals set up in your GA account then it’s likely that none of your marketing is being measured or tracked. The most obvious goals that need to be configured in GA are website form submissions (usually detected through visits to connected Thank-you pages) and website phone calls (usually detected by integrating your phone tracking service to Google Analytics). If you haven’t any goals set up in Google Analytics then it may be time to sack your marketing agency.

STEP 2: RIGHT MESSAGE (Audit Cheat Sheet)

There are 5 audit items in this section that will help you identify if the RIGHT MESSAGE step needs some work:

7. COPYWRITING: Home Page ‘Gold Fish Test‘ – The top of your website’s home page needs to clearly communicate 3 basic things (1) What service or product are you offering, (2) What benefit does the website visitor get from using you, (3) What is the next step (call to action) you want the visitor to take.
8. COPYWRITING: Lead Magnet – Is a lead magnet being used on the website? Are you using an eBook or an instructional video to help people through their problems and in doing so are you collecting emails and leads?
9. COPYWRITING: Landing Page – If paid advertising is being used, are these visitors being sent to targeted Landing Pages?
10. COPYWRITING: Website Page Structure – Are any of the basic elements of storytelling being used on the home page and landing pages (for example; consequences of lack of action, problem definition etc..)
11. COPYWRITING: Blog Posts – How often are you publishing blog posts? is the subject matter of the blog posts part of an overall storytelling framework?

STEP 3: RIGHT PERSON (Audit Cheat Sheet)

Ideally, a business will have many sources of website traffic. A dependency on any one source can be dangerous and lead to inconsistent new client (and revenue) flow. Here are the most important audit items relating to website traffic:

12. TRAFFIC: Google Ads – Are you using Google Ads? How many new clients per month come from Google Ads? How much do you spend on Google Ads each month?
13. TRAFFIC: Facebook – Are you using Facebook Advertising? How many new clients per month come from Google Ads? How much do you spend on Google Ads each month?
14. TRAFFIC: LinkedIn – Are you using Google Ads? How many new clients per month come from Google Ads? How much do you spend on Google Ads each month?
15. TRAFFIC: Bing Ads – Are you using Microsoft Bing Ads? How many new clients per month come from Bing Ads? How much do you spend on Bing Ads each month?
16. TRAFFIC: SEO – Do you generate clients from organic searches? How many per month?
17. TRAFFIC: Seminars & Conferences – Do you generate clients from seminars and conferences? How many per month or event?
18. TRAFFIC: Other Online Sources – What other online sources generate clients? How many per month?
19. TRAFFIC: Offline Word Of Mouth – Do you generate clients from word of mouth? How many per month?

STEP 4: RIGHT TIME (Audit Cheat Sheet)

It costs money to find your ideal audience and have them respond to your marketing. It costs a lot less to keep communicating with existing leads and convert them down the track when they are ready. Here’s what we check in order to assess if your company is productive when converting ‘cold leads’:

20. NURTURE: Automated Email Nurturing – Open your CRM or email marketing system and check to see if any automated email sequences exist. How many steps are in each sequence? Read the emails in the nurture sequence and identify the following email types – (1) Authority Building (2) Major Pain Point (3) Problem Identification (4) Solution To Problem (5) Offer & Direct Call To Action
21. NURTURE: Remarketing / Retargeting – Check if remarketing (or retargeting) advertising is being within Google Ads, Facebook or LinkedIn. Check if the remarketing advert (and corresponding landing pages) is 1-size-fits-all or if it’s being used as part of a nurture campaign.
22. NURTURE: Lead Scoring – Does your CRM have Lead Scoring functionality? Is it being used?

Hopefully, this 22-point checklist will help you obtain a high-level understanding of how your existing marketing system is working and identify the areas where you can improve.