Here’s a conversation I have a lot. A managing director shows me their agency report. Clicks are up, the return on ad spend looks healthy and the charts all point the right way. Then they say, a bit wearily, that the sales team reckons enquiries haven’t moved in a year.
A marketing audit is how you find out which of those is true. It’s an independent look at your marketing, your budget, your tracking and your results. You get a plain, prioritised list of what to keep, what to change and what to stop.
I do every audit myself. There’s no agency team and no junior passing it up the line, just one senior marketer looking at the whole set-up and telling you plainly what I find.
If something has gone wrong, it usually isn’t anyone’s fault. Usually nobody has done anything wrong on purpose. Problems build up one sensible decision at a time.
Most of the people who ask me for a marketing audit aren’t in crisis. They’re spending a fair amount, the business is doing fine, and they have a nagging feeling that some of the budget is buying nothing. They just can’t tell which part.
The audit answers that. I start with whether the numbers can be trusted, because every other decision rests on them. Then I look at each channel, how they fit together and where the money goes. You end up knowing what’s working and what isn’t, in words you can repeat to your board.
It tends to suit established, ambitious UK businesses, often with £1m–£20m turnover, where one or more of these sounds familiar:
You’re spending on Google Ads, Meta, SEO, email or an agency, and you can’t say plainly which of it brings in qualified leads.
You’ve inherited a set-up from a previous marketer or agency and don’t really know what’s in it.
You’re about to raise or cut the budget and want real numbers before you decide. (If you’re wondering what’s sensible, here’s how much a £5m business should spend on marketing.)
You’re thinking of hiring a marketing manager or a Fractional CMO (Chief Marketing Officer), meaning part-time marketing help at senior level, and want to know what needs doing first.
If you’re very early stage with almost no spend, a full audit is probably overkill. A free consultation may tell you everything you need, and I’ll say so.
I cover the whole set-up, in roughly this order:
Conversion tracking and measurement. Conversion tracking is how your ad accounts and analytics know when someone has enquired or bought. I check that each enquiry and sale is counted, counted once and counted in the right place. More often than not, it isn’t. Here’s why conversion tracking is broken in most accounts I audit.
Google Ads. Account structure, the search terms you’re actually paying for, wasted spend, bidding settings and Performance Max, which is Google’s automated campaign type that decides where your ads show across Search, YouTube, Gmail, Maps and its other networks. If you’d like a head start, try these 9 Google Ads checks you can do yourself.
Paid social such as Meta, where relevant: what’s being spent and what comes back.
Website and enquiry journey. Forms, phone calls and landing pages, and where people give up.
Strategy. Whether your channels, messages and budget work together or are a pile of disconnected bits. More on turning disconnected marketing into joined-up marketing.
Budget. Where the money goes now, compared with where enquiries and sales actually come from.
Team and suppliers. Who does what, and what your in-house team could take on with a bit of training.
A plain-English summary of what’s working and what isn’t. No jargon.
A prioritised list in three columns: keep, change, stop. Including the things that are fine and should be left alone, because that’s useful to know too.
Things you can do this week, in order.
A walkthrough conversation where you can ask questions and push back. You’re welcome to ignore me.
To give you a feel for the kind of finding that turns up, here’s an illustrative example rather than a real client’s figures. If you’re paying £12 a click and 200 clicks a month go on searches you’d never sell to, that’s £2,400 a month buying nothing. Over a year, that’s £28,800. It rarely shows up in a report, because the report counts the clicks, not whether they were any use.
You talk me through what you’ve got and I tell you whether an audit is worth doing. Sometimes it isn’t.
You give me read-only access to Google Ads, Analytics, Meta and so on. I’ll explain exactly how to do it, step by step. Read-only means I can look but can’t change anything, and you can remove my access whenever you like.
Tracking first, then each channel, then strategy and budget.
I walk you through what I found and give you the written recommendations.
Do it yourselves (with training if that helps), hand the list to your current agency, or have me help through Google Ads management and Fractional CMO services. There’s no obligation.
How long it takes depends on how many channels you run and how tidy the accounts are. I’ll give you a timescale before anything starts.
I’ll tell you plainly what to keep, what to change and what to stop, and I’ll say when something is working and should be left alone.
I’m hands-on in Google Ads and I advise at senior level, so the audit covers both the settings and the bigger picture. Those two are often looked at by different people who never compare notes.
I fix the numbers before judging anything, so decisions rest on real figures rather than hopeful ones.
I work alongside in-house teams and current agencies. The audit isn’t a hit job on anyone.
I’m a Google Ads certified specialist, and a specialist marketing adviser on a Department for Business & Trade initiative delivered by UMi, helping 75+ Yorkshire businesses adopt digital. Here’s my work with UMi helping Yorkshire businesses adopt digital.
For the Royal Armouries shop, which I’ve worked with since 2023, Google Ads return on ad spend rose 141% and Meta return on ad spend rose 246%, year on year. See the Royal Armouries case study: +141% Google Ads ROAS. Rucklidge Law now gets 30–50 qualified leads a month: Rucklidge Law case study: 30–50 qualified leads a month.
You get senior expertise at a fraction of the cost of an in-house hire.
It’s an independent review of your marketing, budget, tracking and results. You come away with a prioritised list of what to keep, what to change and what to stop.
Conversion tracking first, then Google Ads, paid social, your website and enquiry journey, strategy, budget, and your team and suppliers. The aim is to see how it all fits together, not just each piece on its own.
It depends on how many channels you run and how complicated the set-up is. I’ll quote a fixed price after the free consultation, so you know the cost before you commit to anything.
That depends on the size and tidiness of your accounts. I’ll give you a timescale after the free consultation, before any work starts.
Yes, I need to see the accounts, but read-only access is enough. I can look without changing anything, you stay the owner, and you can remove my access at any time. I’ll talk you through granting it.
No. I’ll be honest about what isn’t working, but problems usually build up one sensible decision at a time. The point is to fix things, and often your agency or team will be the ones doing it.
You don’t. You can act on the findings yourselves, pass them to your agency, or ask me to help. If you’re weighing up options, this may help: Fractional CMO or marketing agency: which you need.
Yes. A Google Ads audit looks at one channel. A marketing audit looks at everything, including how your channels, budget and tracking work together. Google Ads is usually a big part of it.
Reports can look wonderful while enquiries stay flat, usually because the tracking counts the wrong things or counts them twice. If the report and your sales team disagree, an audit tells you which to believe.
Yes, and I’d encourage it. Start with the 9 Google Ads checks you can do yourself. If they raise more questions than answers, that’s a good sign an audit is worth it.
Book a free consultation, talk me through what you’ve got, and I’ll tell you plainly whether an audit is worth it and what I’d look at first. If it isn’t worth doing, I’ll say so.
You can book a free consultation or email me at hello@marketingbycaroline.co.uk.