Unpacking the Digital Marketing Audit: Why It Matters and How to Do It Right

From campaign costs to marketing strategy, B2B digital marketing is a big investment. This is supported by the dentsu Global Ad Spend Forecasts May 2023 report, which predicts worldwide digital ad spend to reach $424.3B by the end of 2023.

Given these substantial investments, it’s crucial your business understands where to allocate marketing dollars to get the best returns. Especially considering that up to 15% of business revenue is channeled into marketing – your business should know why you’re implementing one campaign strategy over another. And, more than that, how your digital marketing decisions are paying off.

This is where a digital marketing audit comes into play. A digital marketing audit can help you measure the effectiveness of your online marketing efforts. In this blog, we’ll explain how to do a digital marketing audit (and why).

What is a digital marketing audit?

A digital audit examines how well your online marketing is doing across different channels. It takes a deeper look at the strategies you’re using to see what’s hitting the mark, what’s missing it, and to spot potential growth opportunities. Your business will come out of an audit with clear and actionable insights. This helps to fine-tune your current efforts and shape your next steps, so your future efforts are more effective.

Why is a digital marketing audit necessary?

An audit helps guide your business through the digital space, providing clarity, insights and direction to help you meet your digital marketing goals and business objectives. As such, it brings value to many aspects of your business, from enhanced performance to tighter security. Following are just a few of the reasons your business might conduct a digital marketing audit:

• Performance evaluation: You need to know if your digital efforts are bearing fruit. An audit can measure the efficiency of your online campaigns, such as SEO, PPC and email marketing.
• Strategy refinement: A digital audit identifies gaps and missed opportunities, providing clarity into areas where your business might be underperforming, so you can adjust, refine and redirect your strategies for better outcomes.
• Staying updated: The digital space is constantly changing and doing so at a rapid pace. Regular audits ensure that your business is aware of changes to tools, algorithms and best practices, and is leveraging them optimally.
• Aligning with broader business objectives: An audit ensures your digital strategies and online activities resonate with and support the overarching goals and vision of the company.
• Resource allocation: Digital marketing efforts require investments, both in terms of time and money. An audit can reveal waste and inefficiencies so you can better allocate your resources.
• Risk mitigation: Digital platforms come with risks, from security threats on websites to compliance issues in data handling. An audit can spotlight vulnerabilities, so you can handle them proactively.
• Understanding your audience: A digital audit will analyze user behavior, engagement and feedback to help you understand your target audience’s preferences, pain points and expectations. This will help you develop more personalized and effective marketing strategies.
• Technical health check: Technical issues, like slow loading times, broken links or mobile incompatibilities can hamper user experience and search engine optimization (SEO) rankings. An audit can uncover issues on your website or digital platforms so you can fix them.
• Content effectiveness: Content is a cornerstone of digital marketing. An audit evaluates the quality, relevance and performance of your content across various platforms and touchpoints, identifying gaps, opportunities or areas for improvement.
• Enhancing user experience (UX): A good user experience can significantly boost conversions and brand loyalty. An audit reviews website design, navigation and usability to ensure your users have a seamless and enjoyable experience.

Elements of a comprehensive digital marketing audit

A digital audit is a tool for understanding your business’s online strategy. As such, it scrutinizes each piece of your digital marketing efforts to support optimization, growth and long-term digital success. The digital marketing audit process typically involves the following:

Step 1: Set clear objectives

The first step of the digital audit process is to determine what your business hopes to achieve with the audit. Are you trying to improve overall website performance, boost conversion rates or refine your content strategy? Having clear, tangible objectives will guide the entire audit process.

Step 2: Analytics and data review

An audit begins with a thorough review of your data. This step relies on your key performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics to understand your online performance. It will examine your web traffic, user behaviors, touchpoints and conversion paths to get a complete picture of where your efforts are succeeding and where they need adjusting.

Step 3: Analysis:
An audit will help to determine which tactics are working and which are underperforming and pinpoint areas for improvement. It will include assessing the following areas of your digital strategy:

• Website: This includes a look at your site design, content quality and user experience. An audit will check functionality, responsiveness and load speed, identifying broken links, outdated content and other issues. It ensures your website is aesthetically appealing and functional.
• Social media: This includes an examination of your brand’s social presence, growth metrics, engagement rates and content quality across different social channels to ensure your business fully leverages social marketing, fostering authentic connections and consistent growth.
• Paid digital media: An audit assesses your paid advertising strategy – including paid search, pay-per-click (PPC), paid social, programmatic, etc. – as well as your ad spend efficiency and overall ROI to determine where you should be directing your advertising efforts for the best results.
• Email marketing: This examines email open rates, click-through rates, content quality, list growth, segmentation efficiency and GDPR or CAN-SPAM compliance. This step ensures your messages are reaching your audience and resonating with them.
• Competitive analysis: A digital audit will consider your competitors’ online activities to identify gaps in your strategy and areas where you can capitalize on their shortcomings.

Step 4: Actionable recommendations

The results of your audit will guide your company in formulating precise recommendations. Each action should be detailed and come with metrics for evaluating its success. Prioritize these actions based on their anticipated impact and the simplicity of carrying them out.

Step 5: Implementation

Start implementing the suggested modifications and enhancements. Undertaking this step usually entails a concerted effort and collaboration among various departments or teams. It’s essential to ensure open communication, set clear roles and responsibilities, and synchronize efforts for seamless execution of these recommendations.

Step 6: Review, refine and repeat

After a defined timeframe, review the impact your adjustments have had on your digital marketing success. This will help you to understand which improvements were effective and which need to be fine-tuned. Because the digital space is constantly evolving, a digital audit is a cyclical process that requires regular reviews and optimization to ensure adaptability and continued success.

Partner with digital marketing experts

A digital marketing audit can help you redefine your strategies and outcomes to get the best results from your marketing spend. But it’s an involved process that demands a grasp of best practices as well as an understanding of your industry, business and audience. The success of a digital audit really depends on the expertise of your digital auditor.

At Elevation Marketing we have over two decades of experience working with B2B companies like yours developing results-oriented digital marketing strategies. Contact us today to discover how our digital marketing audit services can redefine your online game.