What a marketing audit includes

A marketing audit includes a structured check of everything that brings you customers, or should: your website, your Google Business Profile, your ads, your tracking, your competitors, your reviews and what happens after someone enquires. A good audit ends with a short, prioritized list of what to fix, what to stop paying for and where to put the next dollar.

You usually need one when marketing costs money every month but you cannot say with confidence which part of it brings customers. That covers more businesses than you might think. Below is what a proper audit covers, what you should receive at the end, and how to tell if you need one now or later.

What a marketing audit covers, area by area

The exact list depends on the business, but a thorough audit for a small or mid-sized company usually looks at seven areas.

1. Business goals and numbers

Before looking at any channel, an auditor should understand the business: what you sell, average order or job value, margin, capacity, seasonality and how many new customers you need. Without this, every recommendation is guesswork.

2. Website and landing pages

• Does the page explain what you do, where, and for whom in the first screen?
• Is contact easy on a phone?
• How fast does it load, and does it work properly on mobile?
• Are there pages for each main service and area you serve?
• Are forms, phone links and booking tools actually working? (You would be surprised how often they are not.)

3. Search visibility and Google Business Profile

Where you appear for the searches that matter: your service plus your city, "near me" searches, your brand name. The audit checks your Google Business Profile category, completeness, photos and reviews, plus basic SEO on the website. For a deeper search-only check, there is a separate SEO audit, but a marketing audit covers the essentials.

4. Paid advertising

If you run Google Ads or Meta ads, the audit looks at structure, keywords and audiences, wasted spend, ad copy, landing pages and, most importantly, whether conversions are tracked correctly. It is common to find campaigns spending on irrelevant searches or optimizing for the wrong action.

5. Tracking and analytics

Can you see where enquiries come from? Is GA4 recording form submissions and calls? Are the Meta pixel and Google tag installed correctly? Is your cookie consent set up in line with Canadian privacy rules, especially if you have customers in Quebec, where Law 25 applies? Broken tracking is the most common finding in audits, and it makes every other decision harder.

6. Competitors

Who shows up next to you on the map and in ads, what they promise, how they price, how many reviews they have. This is not about copying them; it is about finding the gap you can own. If you want to try this part yourself first, my guide to local competitor analysis shows how in one afternoon.

7. Sales follow-up

What happens after an enquiry: response time, who answers, how quotes are sent, how often people are followed up, whether you use a CRM. Many businesses generate enough leads but lose a large share of them here.

What you should receive at the end

An audit is only useful if it leads to action. At minimum, expect:

• A written report in plain language, not a 90-page export of tool screenshots.
• A short list of priorities, ranked by impact and effort.
• Specific things to stop doing or paying for.
• A recommended budget and channel mix for the next three to six months.
• The numbers you should track from now on.
• A call to walk through the findings and answer your questions.

When I do a marketing audit, it costs $2,400 and includes the audit and the strategy: what to do, in what order, at what budget. You can carry it out yourself, with your team or with me.

Eight signs you need a marketing audit

1. You spend on ads every month but cannot name your cost per customer.
2. Enquiries dropped and you do not know why.
3. You inherited campaigns or a website from a previous agency or employee.
4. Several people or companies work on your marketing and nobody owns the whole picture.
5. You are about to raise the budget significantly.
6. You plan to launch a new service, location or city.
7. Competitors appear above you everywhere, and you cannot tell what they do differently.
8. Your reports show traffic and impressions, but not calls, forms or sales.

Two or more of these usually mean an audit will pay for itself by stopping waste alone.

When you do not need one yet

If you are brand new, with no website, no ads and no data, an audit has little to look at. You need a plan instead: who your customer is, what you offer and how you will reach them. A marketing checklist for a new business is a better starting point, followed by an audit six to twelve months in, once there is something to measure.

The same goes if you already know exactly what is broken. If the only problem is that your website looks outdated and does not work on phones, you need a new website, not a report telling you so.

What a good audit costs you besides money

Plan a little of your own time, too. Expect a short questionnaire about the business, a call to talk through goals, and someone on your side who can grant access to accounts. If several people manage different tools, gather the logins in advance; chasing access is the most common delay. Also be ready to hear things you may not like. An audit that only confirms what you already believe has not looked hard enough.

DIY audit or professional?

You can do a basic version yourself: search for your services as a customer would, test your forms on a phone, check where your enquiries came from last month and compare your Google profile with the top three competitors. That alone often reveals the two or three biggest problems.

A professional audit adds what is hard to see from the inside: ad account settings, tracking errors, wasted keywords, and an outsider's honest view of your offer. It also saves time; what takes an owner weeks of evenings usually takes an experienced marketer a few focused days.